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February 10, 2012 7:25 AM

V for Validation
posted by 256 (11 comments total)

In addition to being a well-done piece, I'm also really glad that the caption gives a shout to Voice of the Fire. Hopefully a few more people will check out that book as a result.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 7:39 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

"terrorist outrage du jour"

Oh how I love Alan Moore. :D
posted by Celsius1414 at 7:44 AM on February 10, 2012

How timely - apparently the signing of ACTA has just been postponed by Germany.
posted by oulipian at 7:50 AM on February 10, 2012

One thing I still don't understand is if the imagery in V for Vendetta started like this

When this notion was enthusiastically received, he decided to buy one of the commonplace cardboard Guy Fawkes masks that were always readily available from mid-autumn, just to use as convenient reference.

that we could end up with this

the character's enigmatic Time-Warner trademarked leer
posted by dng at 7:54 AM on February 10, 2012

The irony is it was actually the Watchawski brother's movie, which he was totally against, that really caused the image to become popular. What are the odds that a random comic from the 80s would have suddenly entered the zeitgeist without the film being made?

Not that the movie wasn't flawed. I mean I enjoyed it, but I'm sure the comic is better (Actually, I should probably check it out. I really enjoyed The Watchmen, which i also would probably never have heard of if not for the movie - I'm not a comic buff by any means)

I'm not really a fan of any kind of dishonest propaganda. but I think a lot of people, at least on the liberal side (but probably the conservative side as well) disdain unfairly the sort of emotional appeals that actually do have a lot of impact.

Just off the top of my head, there was the thread the other day about how madonna's Superbowl halftime show called for for "world peace" or something during the Superbowl halftime show, and a lot of people thought it was cliched stupid, and maybe it was - but just because it's cliched and stupid doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. World peace, after all, is a good thing and pointing that out -- even in a clumsy way -- is still good.

Or the environmental message in Avatar, which wasn't subtle at all. Okay maybe Avatar wasn't high art but what's wrong with reaffirming the basic moral principle that people should care about the environment?

Or people complaining about the 'santorum' jokes or people making jokes about Sarah Palin.

Finally, V (the movie) wasn't all that subtle or intellectually nuanced. But so what? It obviously had a huge impact on people. And the message of standing up to authority was a good one. A lot of the "propaganda" videos that Anonymous puts out seem cliche'd and ridiculous (and immature) to the extreme. But ultimately that stuff works on a lot of people.

I think a lot of people would prefer if political discourse were limited to stuff like Matt Yglesias's blog or something (which I haven't read since his last move broke his RSS feed)

The obviously flip-side of that, though, is that propaganda that is both stupid and dishonest also works. Which is a huge problem.

But anyway, the point is people like dumb stuff, and politics is the ultimate mass market. You have to have stuff that appeals to Britney Spears or -- maybe I should update this -- Miley Cyrus and Justin Beiber fans.
posted by delmoi at 8:05 AM on February 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

the character's enigmatic Time-Warner trademarked leer

V for Vendition.
posted by oulipian at 8:10 AM on February 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

Has anyone explained to Moore that an essential step between the movie and the adoption of the mask by Anonymous is it's use by Epic Fail Guy on 4chan? I think he'd appreciate the random absurdity that was truly at work for the mask's selection.
posted by charred husk at 8:14 AM on February 10, 2012 [4 favorites]

Some day humanity will extract itself from under the boot of "The City of London"... but I suspect it will be quite messy.
posted by MikeWarot at 8:23 AM on February 10, 2012

Breaking news: Alan Moore happy about something.
posted by meandthebean at 10:25 AM on February 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

Not that the movie wasn't flawed. I mean I enjoyed it, but I'm sure the comic is better (Actually, I should probably check it out. I really enjoyed The Watchmen, which i also would probably never have heard of if not for the movie - I'm not a comic buff by any means)

You should read the comic, it's great (indeed - I should re-read it, I haven't in a few years). I've not seen the V movie (I had a mini-boycott because, like Alan Moore, I am not fond of movie adaptations of books and graphic novels), but I was dragged to the movie of Watchmen and in that case, the comic book was much better - even if the movie's storyboard did slavishly follow the comic.
posted by jb at 11:03 AM on February 10, 2012

One thing I still don't understand is if the imagery in V for Vendetta started like this

When this notion was enthusiastically received, he decided to buy one of the commonplace cardboard Guy Fawkes masks that were always readily available from mid-autumn, just to use as convenient reference.

that we could end up with this

the character's enigmatic Time-Warner trademarked leer

Traditional Guy masks could look like this or this or these. The ancestry between them and the comic book version is clear in most cases, but I didn't take "use as a convenient reference" to mean "copy exactly."
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:11 AM on February 10, 2012