V For Vendetta's Victory

Free Market News
Mar. 14, 2006

How strange America has become! Compare where the U.S. is with where it began - as a limited, constitutional republic with little in the way of taxes and less in terms of centralized, government control. When examined this way, almost all of the excrescences of modern political reality are either questionable or unconstitutional: The income tax, the Federal Reserve, the standing, volunteer army, the constant celebration of violence and phony wars on drugs, unsafe sex, fatty foods, tobacco, food supplements, etc.; the consolidation of national police forces under something called Homeland Security; a chain of prison camps manufactured around the country by a subsidiary of Halliburton – a company which the Vice-President himself used to run.

America used to be about entrepreneurship, about building a better widget than the next guy. Once upon a time, American inventions made the world laugh with wonder, so much so that a phrase was coined – Yankee ingenuity. Today? Venezuela is offering New England's huddled masses free oil, and East Coast politicians are standing in line to get it. 'Nuff said.

Under the Bush Administration in particular, the public face America exhibits increasingly a vast, expansionist federal government with a "unitary" focus on the chief executive.

Now, like a new sheriff riding into town, comes Vendetta, a movie by the Wachowski brothers of Matrix fame. If advance press is any indication, they may have accomplished what the Left is always prattling about – made an Important Movie. One that means something at a time when something needs to be said.

I have to admit, I didn't have much in the way of expectations when I saw the first Matrix movie, but once I saw the first one, I was hooked. I liked the movie because it was indisputably not just a movie about the future, or about war games inside of a computer. It was a great libertarian movie, possibly the greatest of all time. And then, as if to add a cherry on top, the Wachowski brothers had made a CONSPIRATORIAL libertarian movie. They'd put in the part that libertarians always leave out – that part that most likely someone in government or behind government is orchestrating many of the reductions of freedoms in the United States and generally throughout the West. Orchestrating, that is, behind the scenes. Deviously. Without public input.

The Matrix – all three Matrix movies – present a world where intelligent machines have placed humans in large amniotic, mechanical sacks in order to suck energy out of them – billions of humans stacked up in great storage facilities like rows and rows of pale, naked grubs. To keep the energy sources occupied, the machines after a number of stumbles designed a computer operated world of make-believe in which humans inhabit without any knowledge that it is all a fake, that their entire existence is manipulated by masters they cannot see, have no knowledge of and probably would not acknowledge even were the reality brought to their intention.

The Matrix movies, especially the second and third, are magnificently incomprehensible, wildly imaginative and, admittedly, campy – but in a good way. While the first may provide a kind of pure-adrenalin action–rush, the other two Matrix productions leave no doubt that the Wachowski brothers were intent on ramming their message home with a vocabulary and story line that no one could misconstrue.

So what happened? Go on-line and read for yourself. It's pretty funny. Many are the gripe-ers, especially professional critics – all of whom claim the second and third movies were disappointments, that they didn't fulfill the promise of the first. Well the first move, leaving off as it did, created a sense of deep mystery and profundity. But that can only happen once. The second and third movies both explain the first and solidify the alternative universe that must be soundly constructed in order to support the ongoing story and bring it to its heart-wrenching yet optimistic climax.

The sequels are not merely random additional adventures. The Wachowskis are telling a story, and they have a message to send as well. The critics who carp are not disappointed by the next two adventures so much as puzzled and confused because the Wachowskis libertarian theology is profoundly un-easful. Not wanting to comment directly – pompous cowards that they are - these critics in the late 1990s and early 2000s fell back on the convenient excuse that the Wachowskis had "failed" to live up to the promise of their original. Perhaps if the Wachowskis had taken the easy way out and merely filmed a leftist, agitprop trilogy, the critics would have been satisfied. But once it was apparent that the Wachowskis were making an intelligent commentary on how Western society is shaped, promoted and marketed, well, you can almost hear the sizzle of collective brain-circuits frying while computer keys click disapprovingly.

Anyway, I did "get it." But I was not yet willing to give the Wachowskis Ayn-Rand-like cinematic status. There was something a tad left-wing about the Matrix, or perhaps I only imagined it. And then there was some random, 'Net chatter about how the Wachowskis had lifted the story-line of the Matrix from other scripts and how litigation was going to be pursued against them as a result of their tremendous success. After this, I read the Wachowskis had decided to go into the comic-book business and were not going to be making any more big movies. I wasn't astonished - given the reports of plagiarism, etc. I was surprised, however, to read that one of the Wachowski brothers, having divorced his wife and moved in with a dominatrix, was taking hormones for a sex-change operation. His jaw was said to be "suspiciously softened" at one gala opening the otherwise reclusive brother attended.

After this I came to the reluctant conclusion that the Wachowskis were likely an unserious duo who would not be heard from again – too much chaos, too much pain, simply too much to sort out. Perhaps the Matrix had been lifted as rumors had it; in any event, one-half of the creative duo had seemingly so many personal problems that the idea of retreating from the Big Screen to comic books was a profoundly sensible one.

And now comes Vendetta.

Let me quote from the synopsis on http://www.rottentomatoes.com/ where Vendetta seems to be enjoying a pre-opening run of positive comments, as follows:

"V For Vendetta is set slightly in the future, where modern day London is still very recognizable. (Comic book) creators Alan Moore and David Lloyd were influenced by the times in which they lived. 'Our attitude towards Margaret Thatcher's ultra-conservative government was one of the driving forces behind the fascist British police state we created in Vendetta,' Lloyd explains. 'The destruction of this system was V's primary reason for existence.'

"Thematically, Moore and Lloyd's series explores many political and ethical notions of continuing relevance in today's world. 'The principal message of the original is that every individual has the right to be an individual, and the right - and duty - to resist being forced into conformism,' comments Lloyd …

"The villainous head of England's totalitarian regime is Chancellor Sutler, played by the venerable John Hurt, two-time Oscar nominee for his lauded performances in Midnight Express and The Elephant Man. Sutler's government rules by fear, ensuring submission of its citizens through intimidating means - secret police, constant surveillance and the threat of imminent and apocalyptic dangers. Censorship, propaganda, and subverting freedom of speech are the order of the day, and eliminating minorities is but a necessary casualty. 'Sutler represents a society that believes that a fascist government is the best way to run a country,' says Hurt. 'Don't ask questions, let the Party get on with it and above all, don't criticize our authority.'

"Hurt starred as Winston Smith in Michael Radford's film 1984, based on George Orwell's chilling tale of a totalitarian society ruled by an omnipresent fascist leader. In V For Vendetta, with the exception of a few key moments, Sutler is predominantly seen on an oppressively immense monitor from which he delivers incendiary speeches to the country and erupts in vitriolic confrontations with his cabinet via digital conferencing.

"Acclaimed Irish actress Sinead Cusack plays Delia Surridge, a coroner haunted by her horrific past - a past she shares with V. 'I never imagined that I'd be playing a vile human being,' says the Tony-nominated actress. 'I always thought I was rather soft and sweet and Irish! Instead I'm this vicious killer and for that reason it was a departure for me. This film is really a very interesting psychological study, set in a world that we hope we'll never have to inhabit.'

Delia Surridge may hope she will "never have to inhabit" the world of Vendetta. But some in the West, and especially in America and England, joined by their so-called special relationship, are convinced the West will soon be offering just this sort of accommodation.

Of course a journey, once started, is still subject to diversions or even cancellation. It is quite possible that the powerful modern, communications tool that is the Internet itself will provide a roadblock of massive proportions. Communication revolutions such as the Internet arrive only once in a great while, and the last such was Gutenberg's Press which was at least partially responsible for Reformation, the decline of credibility claimed for royalty via the "divine right of Kings" and even, some would say, for helping populate the New World.

What will the Internet be responsible for – and are those who wish to see full global governance already struggling with its impact? Donald Rumsfeld, not exactly a one-world advocate to be sure, has reportedly said nonetheless that the Internet ought to be dealt with as if it were an occupying army. Others within the United Nations and elsewhere are eager to minimize the Internet's impact or to do away with it entirely. Yet the Internet survives and even thrives. Big business it inextricably mixed up in it, which makes it difficult for legislators to pick out bits they don't like.

The longer the Internet runs, the more problematic it is. Kofi Annan at the UN is under considerable attack; the Dubai Ports deal is apparently undone; the European Union's constitution has foundered; and the CAFTA and NAFTA accords that were to give the U.S. strong momentum for an Americas version of an EU are so controversial that a merging of the Americas looks to be receding rather than coming closer. One may or may not wish to add Vendetta to the anti-authoritarianism that the Internet seems to be spawning. But, who knows? Vendetta may act as the catalyst that the 'Net needs to fully realize its potential as an agent of change.

Maybe this is naïve. After all, the movie is from Warner Bros., anything but a hotbed of radical media. In fact, I can almost hear certain libertarian activists proclaiming that Vendetta is nothing more than the weary, yet effective tool of thesis-antithesis which seeks to moderate messages of freedom by appropriating and then taming them. (Give them the appearance of the thing, rather than the thing itself.) For some, every defeat of the centralizing influence is actually a victory for them in disguise. We shall see.

But if Vendetta is what it says it is, and if the Wachowski brothers are sincere, as they seem to be, then even the making of the movie is courageous. Let it be left wing. Let it follow the historical example of Guy Fawkes. Let it leave the audience wondering which side the film-makers are on. It still seems a remarkable work for Warner Bros. to be launching at this time. One half expects to hear the final project has been shelved. Yet perhaps this is one occasion when corporate greed overcame caution, when the gross of the Matrix movies blinded the eyes of Warner executives and clouded their collective opinion as to what was fitting for the American public to see and what was not. I look forward to finding out.