V for Vendetta suggest a parallel between the figure of the terrorist/anarchist and that of the writer/artist. Both seek to defamiliarize reality; both intend to jolt the masses out of their complacency. In considering these parallels, perhaps unsurprisingly, Moore's V is cast as both a terrorist and an avant-garde performer.
The association of V with art of both the 'high' and 'low' variety occurs through-out the novel, wheteher it be his quoting Shakespeare's Macbeth as he saves Evey from the Fingermen (12) or The Rolling Stones' 'Sympathy for the Devil' when he pays his visit to the peodiphile priest (54.4-6). Moreover, V is an avid collector of banned artworks. His shadow gallery is filled with both famous paintings and pop culture artifacts (like a juke-box). Finally, he is depecited as the creator of artistic spectacles through his terrorist acts.
The two art forms with which V is most often associated include performance (see 'Vaudeville' 31-3) and music (see 'Vicious Cabaret' 89-93). His destruction of the parilament buliding combines these two forms as he plays the role of a symphany conductor waving his wand as his target explodes in a spectacular fashion.
His use of these forms as a disruptive force, rather than one for pacifying enjoyment, sets him against mass media spectacle, a fact that the novel highlights when V takes control of the television studio and levles his critique of the complacent masses ('Vocational Viewpoint' 113-8). In the first panel below, V addresses his audience directly, which is alternated with a panel of the British public receiving his message:
V rejects art as simply entertainment and does so in order to make a point about how our stupid and acquiescent comfort supports 'catastrophic decsions'. Do we see the character of V as a prototype for Moore's own attitude towards mass media? Does he follow this philosophy in his other novels? In what ways does it shape his creative practice?
Monday, April 27, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Lucian Gregory (of GK Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday) seems to have this all worked out with regard to spectacle and its political effect:
ReplyDelete"'An artist is identical with an anarchist,' he cried. 'You might transpose the words anywhere. An anarchist is an artist. The man who throws a bomb is an artist, because he prefers a great moment to everything. He sees how much more valuable is one burst of blazing light, one peal of perfect thunder, than the mere common bodies of a few shapeless policemen. An artist disregards all governments, abolishes all conventions. " (5)