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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

V For Vendetta (PICS)

  
  

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10:48 / 07.04.06
Cos that definitely makes him gay.

Jesus.

Do you actually read Barbelith? Do you actually think this kind of comment ain't gonna be pounced on and torn apart for the offensive tripe it so clearly is?

Yawn, yawn, yawn.

Camp, gay, overly feminine. (No I don't think they're the same thing, but if I hadn't added this you'd probably be wasting more of your time shitting the thread up.) I did say 'gay or whatever' meaning that it could easily be something else, but Felix said gay STEREOTYPE so I was trying to show that I could see in a way what he meant. I would've described it as camp though, if I was to say what I thought he looked like in that scene.

As for the crap at the bottom of your post, well I'm not even wasting my time in this thread with it beyond this post. If you want to carry it on, then go to policy and help or something, make me out to be anti-gay, offensive, lucifer or whatever you want, imagine me standing in a pit of fire with big horns, and then carry on getting wound up and angry when there's not really any need for it.

Do you actually read Barbelith? Do you actually think that if you're going to be 'pouncing' and 'tearing' apart in my direction and calling my post tripe when I was trying to stick up for someone who seems to have had his post misread, I'm not going to give everything back in equal measure?

Take it to pm, or another fucking thread in another forum, because I'm not being part of this thread being derailed again. If you want a public exhibition like it seems like you'd probably love, and a soapbox, then go the policy and help forum and carry it on there.

Same for anyone else who didn't like my post. I respect 'gay' people as much as I do 'straight' people though, so be prepared for a long and probably boring argument if you're trying to imply anything.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
11:23 / 07.04.06
That was a helpful and useful response.

What I don't understand about this whole business is, what exactly is stereotypically gay about being in love with Natalie Portman?
 
 
Haus of Mystery
11:33 / 07.04.06
When she shaves her head she looks like a boy, duh!
 
 
Evil Scientist
12:17 / 07.04.06
I fried an egg once, in an apron. Does this make me gay, or was I experimenting? Help me Barbelith!
 
 
Olulabelle
12:29 / 07.04.06
Could a character who has a shrine to Judy Garland not be construed to be a gay sterotype then?
 
 
Seth
13:11 / 07.04.06
Haus: precisely.

Lula: Possibly, if the character was gay. The only romantic feelings V shows in the movie are for a woman, so I’d say that disqualifies him from being stereotypically gay by (virtually) anyone’s definition.

King Felix: I think one of the places where you’ve fudged your meaning is in your misuse of the word stereotype. I can understand the kind of stereotyping that you’re reaching for, in that you’re imagining a gay stereotype that’s camp, flamboyant and theatrical. However, you’ve divorced that conception from the basic tenet of actually being gay – that is, being attracted to members of the same sex as yourself – and as such lost your way on the poor representation issue. There’s an argument to be made for the manner in which V’s confession of love seems shoehorned in to the movie and sits ill-at-ease with the tone of his character and the rest of his actions in the film, but not for the reason that he is clearly depicted gay elsewhere, because he isn’t. The only reference to his sexual orientation is his love for a woman, and if you must make reference to your understandings of this gay stereotype then you have to concede that V for Vendetta undermines it rather than brainlessly and offensively adheres to it.

The reasons V being in love with Evey doesn’t work for me on any level is that it horribly mixes his motives in his imprisonment and torture of her in the Valerie section. In sexualising his feelings for her there’s many layers of potential ickiness in his actions at this point, although whether he falls for her before he shaves her head and starves her or after she’s become Enlightened Evey may be open to interpretation (I can’t remember whether the movie makes this clear). Although I’m not sure that the “Humanah humanah humanah, you’re at your HOTTest when beaten and threatened with death, phwoooaaaarr!!!1!!” is exactly problem free…

So it seems that you have assigned the characteristics of being overdramatic, pretentious and theatrical (three words that arguably mean the same thing) as having a gay representation. Make no mistake, it was you who assigned it: because the filmmakers didn’t. This is why I asked “Whose stereotype?” It seems that it’s one that the movie makers sidestepped and undermined but which you have made your own in describing V, which is why I responded that it seems to be a stereotype that you endorse. This was one of the points on which I sought clarity, which you have now done by demonstrating that you have the ability to divorce what you might call the stereotypical stylistic trappings of being gay from the actuality of really being gay, thus coming to the startling conclusion that V for Vendetta fails on issues of representation because it features a heterosexual who is stereotypically gay.

The other point on which I sought clarity was your value judgement placed on all of this: that of being annoyed by such poor representation. I’m glad you’ve made that clear now, because on first reading you seemed to be saying that you found gay people who matched the stereotype annoying, and I can understand why people would find that offensive. Given then that your reading of V for Vendetta features a heterosexual man who you have labelled stereotypically gay in a way that the filmmakers haven’t (because their V shows no instance of being turned on by the stroking of the BlokeDude or the inserting of the excitable winkle into the mangina), is it not possible that your annoyance should be aimed in directions other than the film?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:15 / 07.04.06
Lula: Oh, certainly. I think one can certainly say "there were elements of this character which suggested the directors intended him to be "read" as gay". On the other hand, I would say that a stereotypical gay character would not be in love with a character of the opposite sex. So, if one sees V's early portrayal as being intended by the directors to suggest that he is gay, then one can look at the possible motivation of that directorial decision. As it is, thought, I suspect we've got a coouple of presentational elements mixed up here - in particular, V wearing an apron strikes me as intended to be comic, rather than necessarily identifying him as homosexual.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
14:11 / 07.04.06
Still not seen the movie, but I could well imagine V in the comic wearing an apron. I can picture a David Lloyd drawing of it in my brane, and I don't think, had there been one, anyone would have thought it out of place. Not me, certainly.
 
 
KING FELIX
15:04 / 07.04.06
Ok, I think that is all cleared up now, english is not my first language as you probably realised and I was a bit drunk when writing my first post so that didnt help either.

So lets leave that now.

On another note...

Anyone besides me that found that a lot of the elements of compassion and human kindness that was a big part in the book have been removed to make room for the more political agenda, the parallels to 9/11 etc.

The original focused a lot of how a fascist state creates paranoia, and how people as a result where really very very lonely. For instance his monologue in the televised speech.

"I understand that you are unable to get on with your spouse, I hear that you argue. I am told that you shout. Violence has been mentioned.

I am reliable informed that you always hurt the one you love...the one you shouldnt hurt at all."

and so on, I really liked those moments in the original.

However I did actually like the movie, it is a bit of a different story though, but as a movie I think it was quite good. I guess I had a bit too high expectations.
 
 
Haus of Mystery
15:34 / 07.04.06
I found the scene where Evey finds the letter of hope to be fairly heart-wrenching. It's my favourite part of the original book, and I was glad to see it given space in the film.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
15:39 / 07.04.06
I must admit I don't recall V having a July Garland shrine, but it's several weeks since I saw the movie and didn't expect to be still discussing it so long after.

I do wonder why several people have brought up a perception of 'gayness' in this film, it's not like we have a thread in comics about Superman/Batman talking about the amount of time Clark spends in Bruce's cave.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
15:51 / 07.04.06
Apart from anything else, this is Barbelith, godsdamnit! Why aren't there pages and pages arguing about whether the apron is supposed to be a reference to Freemasonry???
 
 
miss wonderstarr
17:11 / 07.04.06
Isn't it a Valerie shrine?
 
 
Ganesh
17:37 / 07.04.06
Gay in a stereotypical way.
 
 
KING FELIX
17:55 / 07.04.06
Oh yes, I guess V was performing the ancient egg in the basket rite. If memory serves me right that is reserved for masons of the 66th degree...

We are really not supposed to talk about that.
 
 
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01:16 / 08.04.06
To explain a little better and at the same time not continue anything from the bottom of the first post I replied to : with the flowered apron thing and the humming, etc, I guess I messed that paragraph up by saying that I saw it as the same type of thing, instead of saying that I might have partly seen what Felix could've been referring to.

I just thought that he looked out of character and camp in that scene, and that it didn't seem to fit with his character to me. That's just my opinion though. As for the wording of the post, I was mainly trying to stop the thread from being rotted too much, and I figured I could see what he meant, in a different way though, but should've taken more time writing it. That's what I get for posting when I'm not really concentrating and my sleeping hours are all over the place though.

So yeah : I didn't think that apron/eggs scene worked very well with what I imagined his character to be like, but it didn't make me wonder about the characters sexuality.
 
 
matthew.
03:43 / 08.04.06
I liked the bits where he blew things up. No seriously. I thought the explosions were well-captured. It's hard to get explosions good in a flick nowadays (best explosions: Munich). Otherwise, I can't think of anything to say that hasn't already been said by somebody else. It's 20 fucking pages already!
 
 
Seth
04:18 / 08.04.06
No it's not.

  
 
illmatic
13:29 / 09.04.06
Saw this yesterday. Hadto go and see it as I love the book so much.

Not going to post full comments as Sleazenation seems to have read my mind.... but I must say - Ms Wonderstarr, you is totally wrong! About the comic, I mean. Having as Evey as a more childish character in the book works very well for me, we know - the contrast between this inexperience and her embarking on a career in prostituion, her obvious need for a father figure as V reads her Enid Blyton intercut with her uncertaincy about his identity. Powerful stuff I thought. Even more so as we see her grow and mature throughout the book (her romance with Gordon).

I think having Portman as up and coming media professional was the first thing that blew the films credibility for me (apart from the utterly claw-out-eyes-fill-ears-with-molten-lead alliterative opening speech). "Go and get me a cappucino and two expressos, you well dressed, good looking young careerwoman" - what, so it's an oppressive, decaying, pseudo-Stanlinst futureworld and it's just like modern day London?

.... actually, um...

Oh, and I hated the Army of V's. I thought that was again, awful. Those (lets be honest) fucking stupid masks and fucking stupid hats - no subtlety "It is TEH PEOPPLE"! I felt the ending in general was very hammy, and took away from some of the more powerful stuff earlier in the film. Oh well, didn't expect anything else.
 
 
Dead Megatron
16:41 / 10.04.06
Finally, I saw it. Much has been said already, so I won't go into much details.

So, so...

The movie was alright, mind you, but for those of us who had contact with the original source, it falls short. Too short.

First. It was not long enough. It was rouglhy two ours long. It should have been three. The story seemed kinda rushed. character mentioning riots and how they would unfold. instead of showing them unfolding. it took away much of the strenght ot the material.

No mentioning of Anarchy by V. he's motivation was purely a vendetta, not the transformation of society (or end thereof). Weak.

Now, some have implied that movie V was "gay", due to his "affectation", I guess. Assuming that we believe that affectation = gay*, I have to say, I didn't see it. His affectation, and his appreciation for old movies and music have nothing to do with being gay. It has to do with - and that's my point here - Is that "Vee" is not gay. He is an actor. A theatre actor, for that matter. His gestures, his attitudes, his "affectation" are influenced by his craft, not his orentation. Not that he's not gay, he could be, and his professed "love" for Evey at the end could be easily a fraternal love.

Movie V is more human than Comic V. Less "sociopatic". I didn't care for that either.

I did cry with Valerie's story, though. But then again, I was already predisposed to.

* I gave the subject some though. I guess people associate "gayness" with too much gestualization/"affectation" is because straigh male are so repressed, we/they can't move their arms around much. Pay attentation, straight male always have their arms crossed, or their hands on their pockets, or they are holding a mug of beer. We don't know what to do with our hands, being so self-repressed. Gay men could have less of a issue with that, since they already have some "training" with setting themselves free from conformity to societey.

Of course, this is all a crude generalization. IRL, this thing have to assessed in a case by case basis. (I'm speaking with the newbies)
 
 
Haus of Mystery
17:04 / 10.04.06
Re: last bit of your post.

?
 
 
CameronStewart
17:50 / 10.04.06
>>>Pay attentation, straight male always have their arms crossed, or their hands on their pockets, or they are holding a mug of beer. We don't know what to do with our hands, being so self-repressed.<<<

That's as daft a generalization as the one about gay men.
 
 
Dead Megatron
18:06 / 10.04.06
That's as daft a generalization as the one about gay men.

Yes, it is, but with me being one of those straight males, I felt entitled to speak for "my people".

Anyway, I said it was a generalization in my post. But we are speaking of generalizations, to begin with.
 
 
KING FELIX
19:57 / 10.04.06
Thats interesting, I actually felt the total opposite about movie Vs humanity which I tried to talk about earlier.

What I think made me feel that he was more human in the book was partly his private conversations with Evey, I had more the feeling that he really wanted to know and understand her as a person in the book, and not just turn her into another version of himself. And also his more crowleyan speeches.

I too felt that it was more about a personal vendetta whereas the book V had a more gnostic approach and the main goal was liberating people from their own prisons.
 
 
Dead Megatron
00:39 / 11.04.06
Thats interesting, I actually felt the total opposite about movie Vs humanity which I tried to talk about earlier.

What I think made me feel that he was more human in the book was partly his private conversations with Evey, I had more the feeling that he really wanted to know and understand her as a person in the book, and not just turn her into another version of himself. And also his more crowleyan speeches.

Yeah, but that's only because, in the book, they had a lot more time to develop the character, but his attitude in it was much more aloof, misterious, and ambiguous. Much less human. Movie Vee had a sense of humour, he hesitated, he hehearsed what he said, he made mistakes. None of that happens to V in the book, who was always in absolute control.


I too felt that it was more about a personal vendetta whereas the book V had a more gnostic approach and the main goal was liberating people from their own prisons.

I agree, and I find that to be a major flaw of the movie, not to adress the gnostic aspects of the book. But that's a mistake almost inevitable in Holywood cinema, their lack of commitment to unconventional ideas. Its movies are always either conservative or liberal, never anything else. Exceptions are always indy flicks. V for Vendetta the Movie is liberal, which is better than conservative, but it is still a long way from Alan Moore's gnostic anarchism. If the movie had another hour, and not the W Brothers as producers, maybe they could have got closer to the original source. The W brothers fancy themselves "smart, off-the-box rebels", but they are really just overgrown adolescents who get caught up in the action aspects of the works they "adapt" (read: copy) instead of their core message. The first Matrix was *almost* an exception, but only at surface level. (And that's because it was somewhat "indy")

Another thing I disliked: the fight scene against Creedy's goons. Not the scene as a concept, but how it was made: they should have loose the "bullet-time" shwooshy thing from the dagger movement and the slo-mo. It would have been much better.

Alan Moore really does know the score...
 
 
Evil Scientist
09:34 / 11.04.06
He is an actor. A theatre actor, for that matter. His gestures, his attitudes, his "affectation" are influenced by his craft, not his orentation.

I think DM makes quite a good point there actually. V (in both book and film) is all about the theatre. It's something they really skipped over in the film, V loves to dress up. His vaudeville costume, his devil-horn mask when he confronts the priest.

As it was, the apron scene came across to me as V's rather ineffective attempt to lighten Evey's enforced stay. Not realising that a masked knife-happy oddball in an apron is still a masked knife-happy oddball. All part of the film's presentation of V as a flawed freak, rather than the supersane mastermind of the book.
 
 
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10:07 / 11.04.06
rather than the supersane mastermind of the book.

Yeah I think that's another thing about the character that I thought would be more the case with the comic book. I think I'll be buying the book a lot quicker than I was going to, because from reading what I have here it looks like I'll not be disappointed. (+ the story having way more to it.)
 
 
sleazenation
11:05 / 11.04.06
The other thing, which actually makes me a little angry when i think about it, is how in the final scene when the army of V marches symbolically on the capital... I realise this is meant to be a metaphor, particularly since the army of V features many of the dead, but... but the army of V advances against the army and the army don't fire at them - at all.

Does anyone think that the army of a totalitarian regieme is going to stand down without any shooting in the face of an uprising of unarmed civillians? Historical precidents underline this as extremely unlikely. Like I say, I realise that this scene is largely meant to operate on the level of a metaphor, but it rang extremely hollow and false for me and kind of mocked the deaths of all those who had been mowed down and disappeared by the police and armies of authoritarian regiemes worldwide...
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
13:45 / 11.04.06
KING FELIX I too felt that it was more about a personal vendetta whereas the book V had a more gnostic approach and the main goal was liberating people from their own prisons.

Wow, that's a very charitable reading of V in the book. I'm just rereading it at the moment and am realising that V is even more of a monster than I remember he was. What the film has done has softened his edges and made him more heroic, by repositioning him as someone you could see as admirable, in the book he tortures and starves Evey to the point of looking like a concentration camp inmate.

However, the Britain of the Wachowski/McTeigue film looks far too cosy and anodyne, especially when you consider most film and TV dramas have reduced numbers of non-white, non-straight characters anyway.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
14:50 / 11.04.06
sleaze: Does anyone think that the army of a totalitarian regieme is going to stand down without any shooting in the face of an uprising of unarmed civillians? Historical precidents underline this as extremely unlikely. Like I say, I realise that this scene is largely meant to operate on the level of a metaphor, but it rang extremely hollow and false for me and kind of mocked the deaths of all those who had been mowed down and disappeared by the police and armies of authoritarian regiemes worldwide...

Well, I read it as a comment on the local army's utter paralysis - nobody gives them the order to fire, but by this point they're so focused on doing what they're told. But, yeah, I see what you're saying - it does strike as a trifle "over-metaphorical," although you could make the argument that the scene is a GIANT EPIPHANY moment and the soldiers come to the magical realization that they, too, are V.

Or they can smell coup on the wind and don't want to be picked out as somebody who shot a civilian when the new regime begins...
 
 
Elijah, Freelance Rabbi
15:36 / 11.04.06
V = Dandy?
 
 
Seth
17:06 / 11.04.06
The army not opening fire reminded me a little of the footage covering the uprising against Milosevic. Don't know how accurate and complete the coverage was, but I remember seeing police step aside and allow access to government buildings.
 
 
Dead Megatron
17:27 / 11.04.06
yeah, the point of the metaphor is that people that let themselves be brainwashed by the totalitarian regime (as soldiers are supposed to be, I guess) become utterly incapable of making decisions by themselves. Without the proper order, the creeps can't even do a simple thing like pressing the trigger.

However, if even one of them did it, even if it was just his finger slipping, all others would mimic. and we'd have a massacre.
 
 
sleazenation
18:08 / 11.04.06
I don't think the situations are really analagous, not least because Milosovic's wasn't a totalitarian regime, he had just lost an election and (finally) had the weight of the international community united squarely against him. There was a viable alternative to Milosovic, and the political tide had quite obviously turned against him.

In V's England, there was no alternative vision for the future, which at least is consistant with the book, but the soldiers stand aside as if there is was. In the absence of order(s) and a broader authority, the man with the gun is king and to excerise his power all he needs to do is to pull the trigger...
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
19:06 / 11.04.06
sleaze:
In V's England, there was no alternative vision for the future, which at least is consistant with the book, but the soldiers stand aside as if there is was. In the absence of order(s) and a broader authority, the man with the gun is king and to excerise his power all he needs to do is to pull the trigger...

Oh? They've spent a year with V as a very visible and potentially viable alternative - we're shown that there are dissidents around even without V (Stephen Fry's character being the obvious example), and there are enough of the proles (to borrow from 1984) listening to V to presume that soldiers might as well; certainly there's enough dissension in the Norsefire Inner Party to make you wonder. They've lost a lot of people in V's Britain, and it's even possible the soldiers, when faced with so many masks - will question: do I know this person coming at me?

And, on the artistic-non-realistic-metaphorical side, we're presented with a very idealized revolution - everybody rises up as one. It is a theatrical revolt, the first step to a new order, coinciding with V's personal revolution with the old ways of violence and explosion. I suppose the lack of realism at the end is simply the narrative collapsing down into allegory and giving up character.
 
  

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