V for Vendetta

Finally got around to watching this film… In a land far, far away… it depicts aspects of contemporary society and has its good points but its main premise is for me a bad point. I’ve certainly missed many points on a first casual viewing but the fundamental premise that by somehow destroying the haze of illusions that masks people hiding them from each other and themselves—by creating a world of genuine love—we would make a better world. Well in one sense of course this is true and it is the religious dream of reuniting people with God, cleansed in the rain of his love; but, what makes V think that after he has set things back on course, people won’t drift back into inauthenticity? You won’t kill the devil that quickly. I’m not being negative. Each one of us, exactly as V intends, can see through the illusion and gain enlightenment. Indeed V says that precisely because the illusion is created by ourselves we are the ones to over come it. The “totalitarian state” here is not meant literally but symbolically for our own failure to master ourselves which leaves us slaves to our own whims and fancies and like leaves in the wind. Obviously those disaffected by totalitarian states are projecting their dissatisfaction with themselves onto the outside world. It is interesting how popular this film seems to be and I suspect in those circles that take it to be a literal representation of the control exerted on us by modern governments. Certainly such mechanisms of control as shown in the film  are thoroughly pervasive but as the film shows we don’t have to be susceptible to them. Happiest time of my life was the 2 years I didn’t have a TV and didn’t follow any external official narrative, I fell in love (‘my muse’), and followed my own inner narrative. Problem with that approach is it doesn’t work because wisdom means awareness of both the outside and the inside! Wisdom of the external narratives on TV and the papers is the easy part; what about wisdom of ourselves: that is almost impossible because it is different for us all. As V says he can show us the fear of death that leaves us helpless to control but he can’t actually make us face it as she does. It’s the blue versus red pill in the Matrix: how many of us would really throw away the comfort and fake peace of our lives to pursue a path that goes beyond our own death? Put more directly, if we were prepared to within ourselves why do we need a film like V to persuade us! Anyone persuaded by V needs to look very deeply at why they weren’t being authentic anyway! Isn’t being inspired by V just another mask—one we can’t remove at the end because it is the film itself!

But I don’t want to dissuade from the purpose of the film which as an instruction to ourselves to be themselves and to treat others with unique respect and love is excellent. It also raises a point for me: what was she prepared to die for? Until we have something we are prepared to die for, or better we are not afraid to die, then we can’t live. This has been a point in the blog before but the film raises the point excellently. But what do I have that I would die for? That would be a suitable answer to this whole blog: at the moment there is nothing!

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Just in SRH style fun would I die to save myself? Need to think up a plot (a lying fiction ;-) where this actually happens.