The Gunpowder Treason of Movie Plots:
V for Vendetta and Social Commentary
Tori Barbino
October 21, 2012
I pledge that I have neither given nor received unauthorized assistance during the completion of
this work
Word Count: 2171
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Arts have always had the power of social commentary, however the popular medium
changes with times. In modern America, movies and television have become the most powerful
form of communicating social ideas and spread messages of social change. After 9/11, great
change in the United States inspired artists and directors to reflect their feelings of the world and
the government’s actions through media, such as Fahrenheit 9/11 and, more subtly, in V for
Vendetta. V for Vendetta, a movie based off of the graphic novel by Alan Moore, focuses on the
issues of government intervention in the lives of its private citizens and the dangers that it can
cause. In V for Vendetta, director James McTeigue uses violations of human rights, especially
against homosexuals, as motivation for his characters to rebel against the government as a way to
comment on worldwide discrimination and oppression.
Human rights, such as privacy, freedom of expression and speech, and equality, have
become intrinsic in modern American society; violations against these rights causes public unrest
and, in America, dissatisfaction against the government. In many countries, human rights
violations occur but, in comparison to the United States, most of those countries have few
political outlets that protect their rights, causing tension between the government and its people.
In some cases, that dissension can cause revolutions such as the Arab Spring. While those
instances are not common, by limiting human rights, governments risk tension with their people.
The most common human rights violation is discrimination, especially based on gender, color, or
sexual orientation. While gender and color have become more equalized in modern culture,
homosexuals are currently in their struggle for equality, seen as a motif in V for Vendetta.
Although there are obvious reasons not to restrict human rights, many governments
choose security of their nations over the liberties of their citizens. When citizens have a greater
ability to express themselves, they have a greater ability to cause unrest in the country. Many
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governments decide that instead of letting their citizens cause tension they cut off the modes in
which they have power in society. In China, “the government sees ‘mass incidents’ or protests as
threats to stability and its legitimacy to rule” (Zhong). To protect themselves from those “mass
incidents,” the government imposed a high power office that maintains security in the country by
subduing potential protests and arresting political dissenters. Imposing restrictions such as
eliminating all forms of protest and restricting freedoms of speech and press, the government put
its own ruling security and power over the rights of its citizens. In V for Vendetta, the
government, much like the Chinese government, sees its own protection as its highest priority
and limits its citizens’ rights.
In January of 2011, countries across the Middle East protested against their governments
in response to their lack of human rights. In the countries of Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Oman,
Yemen, and Syria, common people rose up against their governments to gain more rights and
liberties that they had been denied. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office reported, “the region
is characterized by limited space for political parties, weak legislatures with little authority,
elections lacking legitimacy, tightly controlled media environments and restrictions on freedom
of speech” (“The Causes of the Arab Spring”). Not having those rights and liberties pushed
citizens across the Middle East to revolt and, in Egypt, demand the resignation of the head
government official Hosni Mubarak. Although the example of the Arab Spring is extreme, by
oppressing their people in order to maintain security, the governments of the nations in the
countries of the Arab Spring caused enough dissention for their citizens to revolt.
Of all of the countries in the Arab Spring, Egypt underwent the most radical social and
governmental change. Much like in V for Vendetta, the citizens found the power in themselves to
revolt because of the injustice that they saw around them. In V for Vendetta, V found inspiration
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in the movie star Valerie through her autobiography and, in Egypt, the people rallied behind a
man named Khaled Said. He was arrested and, much like Valerie, died because of brutality
during his detention. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office stated, “arbitrary arrest,
indeterminate detention, torture and even death in custody were all characteristic of the behavior
of Egyptian security and enforcement agencies” (“The Causes of the Arab Spring”). The
connection between Valerie and Khaled Said shows the importance of a government’s role in
protecting its citizens without taking their security too far. The similarities in worlds of V for
Vendetta and Egypt before the Arab Spring shows the power of freedom and how far citizens
will fight for what they believe is right and what they deserve.
In 2006, when V for Vendetta was released, fear from the terrorist attacks of September
11th still silenced many critics of the government; however, violations against privacy and other
rights caused dissention amongst the American people. President Bush struggled with his
popularity coming off of the disaster of Hurricane Katrina, and the Uniting and Strengthening
America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA
PATRIOT) Act had become incredibly unpopular. While the bill may have passed in 2001 in an
emergency, its major provisions are still in effect today. In 2003, when the Patriot Act II came
before Congress, a revision of the original USA PATRIOT act, the American Civil Liberties
Union wrote a review against the new bill saying, “under the Patriot Act, any individual or group
that breaks the law with the intent of influencing the government can be labeled a terrorist if their
activities are ‘dangerous to human life’” (ACLU). Essentially, the government has the ability to
detain any person or persons whose activities have the potential to be harmful to others.
Although there is a constraint that the activities must be “dangerous to human life”, without
expressly stating illegal activities or imposing restrictions of what is dangerous and is not, the
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government both decides what they consider “dangerous” which can change from person to
person or administration to administration and can incarcerate citizens subjectively and without a
proper trial. James McTeigue explores the constant danger of that power by having the
government in V for Vendetta imprison and kill Valerie on the grounds that her homosexuality is
dangerous to the state.
During her imprisonment, Evy finds the note that Valerie had written during her time in
prison, that V had found during his imprisonment and helped him live although there were great
horrors around him. Valerie, a woman captured because she was a lesbian, writes the story of her
life on the scraps of toilet paper from her cell. Because he had nothing else, V clung to and loved
Valerie the same way that Evy loves her, and they both find strength through her story. In
reaction to her autobiography, V fights outwardly against the government and Evy struggles
internally for the strength to die for Valerie’s redemption, by standing up for V so that Valerie
and her story did not die in vain. Valerie writes in her autobiography, “I remember how
‘different’ became dangerous. I still don't understand it, why they hate us so much” (V for
Vendetta). Because homosexuality is, as Valerie said, “different”, the government labeled
homosexuals as dangerous and decided to kill or use them as test subjects in dangerous medical
experiments; however, in killing Valerie, the government inadvertently drove V into revolting. V
was so touched and disgusted by Valerie’s inhumane treatment because of the connection that he
felt to her in the camp that he felt personally responsible for getting her vengeance. Also, Evy
clutched the note that Valerie wrote at the moment she believed she would go to her death; she
derived the strength though Valerie’s personal fight to defy the faux-government and go to her
death without giving up V. Because they both believed that the government was wrong in their
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treatment of Valerie, V and Evy both draw enough strength to defy the governmen showing the
effects of political dissention from the mistreatment of homosexuals.
Because of the USA PATRIOT Act violations against privacy and other rights, the act
caused dissention amongst the American people. However, the USA PATRIOT Act worried
Americans that their actions would have them labeled “unpatriotic” if they spoke against it too
strongly. In fact, in an article in the New Amsterdam News two years after the bill’s passage in
the wake of September 11th, Damaso Reyes writes, “while many civil libertarians opposed the
act, in the days after the attacks when bodies were still being recovered from Ground Zero, few
politicians in the mainstream were brave enough to express their opposition” (Reyes). Its renewal
in 2003 again scared many radicals and made others question speaking against the government
much like the life in V for Vendetta. However, while they were afraid, people started to speak out
like former Republican Senator Bob Barr who said, “if in fact [the pre-emptive strike] approach
is allowed to stand through the Patriot Act and other things, we will effectively have eviscerated
the 14th Amendment because we will allow the government to gather evidence of people without
suspecting a crime” (Fox News). James McTeigue in V for Vendetta encourages congressmen,
women and normal people, to speak out for their rights before, as Senator Barr hints, they will be
taken away. In a review of the movie, Brian Ott, writer for the Critical Studies in Media
Communications, says, “as political rhetoric, V for Vendetta urges viewers not to passively sit by
as their rights and liberties are curtailed, and empowered viewers to question and speak out
against their government” (Ott). While V for Vendetta speaks very obviously about the potential
problems from the USA PATRIOT Act, the director touches on all human rights violations such
as homosexuality and freedoms of expression that are not political. By adding all human rights,
James McTeigue emphasizes the importance of speaking out against any injustice, which few are
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able to do in the world of V for Vendetta. Given the atmosphere in which V for Vendetta was
both written and released, James McTeigue obviously criticized both the actions of the
government and most Americans who watch injustices in silence.
The treatment of Valerie in the camps and her abduction also criticizes the treatment of
homosexuals in the United States and across the world. A few years before the movie V for
Vendetta was released, Matthew Shepard, an openly gay male in Oregon, was beaten and
murdered because of his homosexuality. However, unlike V for Vendetta, private citizens
tortured and killed Matthew Shepard, not the government. Yet, because of the lack of laws
against hate crimes against the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transsexual (LGBT) community,
many blamed the government for the lack of protection and safety for minorities in the United
States which lead to the passage of The Matthew Shepard Act, an act that “expand[ed] the
definition of hate crimes and ma[de] important improvements in the federal response” (New
York Times). The bigoted beating of Matthew Shepard echoed the beating of Emmett Till, a 14year-old boy who was brutally beaten lynched in Mississippi for whistling at a white lady, which
sparked the civil rights movement; Matthew became the first martyr of the gay rights movement
in the United States for the 21st century. In the movie, Valerie portrayed the martyr who pushed
V and Evy to fight the government the same that the injustice to Matthew Shepard pushed the
gay rights movement in the United States forward. James McTeigue used V for Vendetta to
remind his audience of the dangers of silence and spark the courage to speak up for those
victims.
V for Vendetta stands as a movie that both portrayed the past and the future. The
importance of human rights after the attacks on September 11th continuing through the Arab
Spring shows the issue will be long fought as the defining issue of the 21st century. In V for
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Vendetta, the audience is brought to an extreme world that seems impossible yet also so closely
resembles the world in which they live and constantly forces questions that are sometimes hard
to answer. James McTeigue used V for Vendetta to make his audience decide for themselves how
far a government goes to maintain security is too far, and to speak up when injustice is being
done instead of remaining silent out of fear. At the beginning of the film, Evy states about Guy
Fawkes, “we are told to remember the idea, not the man, because a man can fail. He can be
caught. He can be killed and forgotten. But four hundred years later an idea can still change the
world” (V for Vendetta). The idea of freedom, when put into the minds of the people, will grow
and cannot be killed by killing the people themselves. Both governments and citizens should
remember the lessons of V for Vendetta to protect themselves from each other. Or if nothing else,
they should remember, remember the fifth of November.
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Works Cited
"ACLU Fact Sheet on PATRIOT Act II." American Civil Liberties Union. N.p., 28 Mar. 2003.
Web. 21 Oct. 2012. <http://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-fact-sheet-patriot-actii>.
"The Causes of the Arab Spring." Human Rights and Democracy. Foreign and Commonwealth
Office, n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2012. <http://fcohrdreport.readandcomment.com/the-arabspring/the-causes-of-the-arab-spring/>.
"Caving In on Hate Crimes." New York Times 10 Dec. 2007: n. pag. New York Times. Web. 21
Oct. 2012.
Ott, Brian L. "The Visceral Politics of V for Vendetta: On Political Affect in Cinema." Critical
Studies in Media Communication 27.1 (2010): 39-54. Academic Search Complete.
Web. 21 Oct. 2012.
"Patriot Act Opponents Say Law Endangers Rights | Fox News." Fox News. FOX News
Network, 11 Sept. 2003. Web. 21 Oct. 2012.
<http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,97003,00.html>.
Reyes, Damaso. "PATRIOT Act Protested." New Amsterdam Times 30 Oct. 2003: n. pag.
Academic Search Complete. Web. 21 Oct. 2012.
V for Vendetta. Dir. James McTeigue. Screenplay by Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski.
Perf. Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman. Warner Bros, 2005. Film.
Zhong, Wu. "Asia Times Online :: China News, China Business News, Taiwan and Hong Kong
News and Business." Asia Times Online :: China News, China Business News, Taiwan
and Hong Kong News and Business. N.p., 28 Apr. 2010. Web. 21 Oct. 2012.
<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/LD28Ad01.html>.