Bomb Throwing Pacifist
If you took that happy, smiling guy from the box of Quaker Oats, handed him a bottle of gin and a rifle, and pissed him off to a point where he decided he wasn't going to take it anymore, you'd get a little something like this.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Remember, Remember, the Vth of November
So we all had a nice trip down to Williamsburg this weekend. In addition to the agreeable weather and enjoyable scenery and companionship, one of the hilights of the trip was that we got to see V for Vendetta Sunday night. While certain traitourous elements which shall not be named showed initial reluctance to seeing that film, within the first 10 minutes all were hooked and a very good time was had by all.
You see? Even Guy Fawkes is smiling...
However, I would be saying an untruth if I did not point out that part of my enjoying the film was not due to my eager anticipation of the wingnutty loonines that I was sure would engulf the rightie website like Renewamerica and Townhall like a storm. As such, while nothing noteworthy regarding V was posted over the weekend, you can imagine by delight this morning upon surfing to the aforementioned sites and discovering that, yes indeed, the film critics of the Central Committee for Planning and Monitoring Public Taste had hammered out their thoughtful, incisize, well-rounded analyses of the film on the artistic and cultural level *insert studio laughter here*. As such, today we are going to explore that joy of joys, the conservative film review in which a Pureblooded American Patriot(tm) ties off the tourniquet, tapes his or her eyelids open, and proceeds to report to us how acceptable and patriotic (or godless) a particular work of liberal elitist Hollywood filth really is. As such, we here at BTP are happy to bring you...
V for vendetta, T for terrorist, and A for "that's a-okay"
Review by Megan Basham
I have seen the terrorist, and he is me. And you. And all of us.
What a unique and incisive comment, Megan! Finally, you have begun to come to grips with the fact that our actions all have consequences and while we like to tell ourselves that we are good people and that we ony do what is just, right, and noble, sometimes we need to recognize that that is often a simple fiction we need to believe in order to sleep at night- wait. What's that you say? Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you actually meant that and were pouring out your true feelings from the depth of your soul. We apologize for the confusion, ladies and gentlemen, there appears to have been some sort of mix-up. Megan Basham has not, in fact, made any philosophical breakthroughs and was apparently being sarcastic (either that or the level of paranoia on the right wing has reached soaring new highs). The appropriately low-leved flunkies responsible for the mix-up have been punished (because holding someone accountable for their actions is so pre-9/11). Anyway, on with the show.
But don’t worry, because being a terrorist is now a good thing. As we've been told by the media, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter…or masked superhero as the case may be.Yeah, I agree. Life is so much easier when we can stick easy, convenient, pre-defined labels on people in order to categorize them as friends or enemies and completely shut off our sense of the generalized other.
So even though V threatens to detonate a load of explosives strapped to his chest, killing dozens of innocent people at the BBC (oh, excuse me, BFC) if they don't give him air-time, just think of him as Batman — a little overly-dramatic and conflicted perhaps, but also sexy and an undeniable force for good.
Y'know, there's something strange and highly disturbing about a woman who finds someone like V sexy. I mean, he is awfully handy with knives and can kick lots of butt (thus perhaps making him an example of the ideal conservative man-minus the religion), but was she lobotomized as a child or did she not happen to notice that the guy wears a freaking GUY FAWKES MASK ALL THE TIME!! And to make matters even worse, the reason he never takes off his mask or gloves is due to the fact that he is horribly scarred as the result of being trapped in a burning building. Now while I can understand that Megan and people like her might be drawn to the idea of a tough, macho man who also cooks, cleans, and can recite Shakespear, the fact that she would describe the appearance of V as sexy is somewhat...well...repulsive.
I can see him this way because of all the Wachowski Brothers have taught me. My eyes have been opened, and I am no longer an automaton of the Right-wing religious-military-industrial complex.
Yes, the leaders of the religious-military-industrial complex will no doubt be chagined to learn that they will have to go to someone else next time they need an automaton. Which is too bad really, since Megan appears to be doing so well at it too.
And I now think that the Bush administration blew up the twin towers and tried to blow up two other U.S. targets on 9/11 in order to scare Americans into giving them more power.
Right. Because faking a military attack on the United States and its military in order to secure long-term political power and geopolitical objectives is something that no one in the Whitehouse has ever thought of before.
I think that conservatives hate art, literature, and music—especially jazz music—and want to lock it all away because, well, they’re just mean like that.
Well, they probably wouldn't see it that way, but in a nutshell, yes. Hehe, but don't worry. Megan isn't actually saying she believes all this crap. She's actually being sarcastic and pointing how how utterly, mind-boinkingly crazy liberals are for asserting that conservatives want to ban freedom of expression and severly limit what they feel are inappropriate, offensive, and treasonous activity.
I think that Catholics are in league with Republicans, and that together it is they, and not radical Islamists, who would like to exterminate all homosexuals and execute anyone that produces material critical of the Church-State.
Nice try, Megan, but the priest/bishop in the movie was actually a member of the Anglican church. I do think, however, that both Catholics and Anglicans would be offended that you apparently are unable to tell the difference between the to. However, as for banning homosexuals, it's not like right-wingers have reeducation camps to break homosexual teens of their behaviour now, is it?
I think that the West's military personnel are the ones who place hoods over innocent people's heads then mercilessly torture and kill them, and that broadcasts of Islamo-fascists doing so are so much laughable propaganda.
Well, either that or it was "just a few bad apples" who have been punished accordingly and that the facilities at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay are so nice now that the prisoners don't want to leave. Try it some time. You'll love the chicken pilaf.
But most of all, in true V style, I think that documents, like buildings, are only symbols, and that burning them can change the world. Therefore, I propose that we storm the National Archives and torch the Constitution—the document responsible for unleashing the Great Evil that is America.
Megan, Megan, Megan. V doesn't think that buildings or symbols are unimportant-on the contrary. If you'd still been paying atention by the end of the film, you'd have remembered that V represents, in his own words, "An idea and ideas are bulletproof." Why do you think he wears the Guy Fawkes mask all the live-long day? V doesn't blow up Parliament because he thinks Parliament is "only" a symbol, but BECAUSE it has become a symbol for all that is wrong with England: the seat of government, thue place where the citizen's rights were signed away. Now if the Constitution ever becomes that way- say they pass a flag-burning ammendment, an anti-gay mariage ammendment, an obsenity ammendment, a terrorism ammendment, a suspencion of citizenship ammendment and a president for life ammendment, then yes. The Constitution would be worth no more than the paper it was written on and should be destroyed as spectacularly and possible, representing the final triumphant culmination of an IDEA-people are not free because the government says so. They are free because that is their natural condition.
Oh, but wait, the movie is "dystopian" and therefore has nothing to do with current events. The "yellow-alerts" the vile dictator employs are a coincidence. The campy television show in which vaudevillian Al Qaeda operatives torture busty blondes, suggesting that the threat of terror is as fictional as it is ridiculous, means nothing. The balding talk show host with a pill-popping problem isn't intended to smear a real person.
I suspect Megan is angry because the work of fiction does in fact resemble persons living or dead, and that it is not a coincidence. Damn fiction for not being more escapist and fluffy! Like Elizabethtown. That was a good one.
The hangdogs can't have it both ways. Either the movie has nothing to do with the War on Terror and it's awful, or it has everything to do with the War on Terror and it's appalling.
Either the movie is with us, or with the terrorists. Anything other than the 0/1 binary friend/foe formula does not compute and requires a reboot.
Thankfully, cartoonish acting and a juvenilely self-reverential plot means no one except teenage boys (the ones in the row in front of me kept muttering, "Yeah, anarchy!" as London blazed) and crazed George Clooney disciples will take this movie's "important ideas" seriously.I wouldn't worry too much about them just yet Megan. The fact that they didn't walk out of the movie theater with a hard-on and head for the nearest recruitment office after the National Guard commercial leads me to believe that they have a little more emotional stability and intellectual staying power than you give them credit for.
Those are the people who are this very moment wailing, "Free speech! Free speech! The Wachowskis have every right to promote their beliefs!" To them I say, yep, they sure do.
And I have the right to unmask them for the ignorant, irresponsible, paranoid filmmakers that they are.
Because critisizing our president and country in a time of war is not only ignorant and irresposible, but reckless to the point bordering on treasonous.
And there you have it folks. Go see V, and piss off a conservative today!
Marc with a C, 11:53 AM
1 Comments:
Sounds like Megan hit a nerve. Seriously though, I spent some time picking thru your blog and reading some of the articles, and think I have a suggestion that you may wish to take. More facts and less foam. You can froth and rant at Megan all you want, but the truth is V wound up being a pure Bush-Bashing movie, just the same way everything Michael Moore has produced. It glorifies a Terrorist as a Hero, portrays Democracies as Totalitarian States, and makes the assumption that Anarchy is a Good Thing.
In my case, a hearing impairment was a bonus. You hear what you want to hear, I don’t. When you can not hear the words, you go to the movies to see the picture, watch the special effects, and enjoy the event. I predict this movie will make a little bit of profit, generate some controversy, and fade into the discount DVD rack the same way all of Michael Moore’s movies have. If they had meant to make a movie with a real Totalitarian State, it would have been portrayed in any one of a half-dozen little dictatorships around the world (Axis of Evil anyone?) instead of a long-functioning Democracy. And it would not have made money.
In my case, a hearing impairment was a bonus. You hear what you want to hear, I don’t. When you can not hear the words, you go to the movies to see the picture, watch the special effects, and enjoy the event. I predict this movie will make a little bit of profit, generate some controversy, and fade into the discount DVD rack the same way all of Michael Moore’s movies have. If they had meant to make a movie with a real Totalitarian State, it would have been portrayed in any one of a half-dozen little dictatorships around the world (Axis of Evil anyone?) instead of a long-functioning Democracy. And it would not have made money.
