Remember Remember the 5th of NovemberFollow

Never seen Farenheit 451. I'll check it out. But I'm an action buff, so I just really loved the fight scenes in equilibrium, that's all.

A common complaint among the critics seems to be that VFV doesn't "say anything new" about our current situation, the crimes perpetrated, etc. Its not really about the current situation, however. Its more about a possible--maybe even probable--eventuality that we might have to face. And that eventuality is the supplantation of our current forms of government by totalitarianism. And how we face it is by taking matters into our own hands; that is, the people excercising their right as citizens to overturn unjust governments. This right, whether acknoledged or not, is neccessarily implicit when people agree to be governed. After all, the government exists for the people, not the other way around. Thus the emphasis on the line, "People should not be afraid of their governments; governments should be afraid of their people." The "new thing" that VFV does is it draws the consideration of actual revolution in our modern day society out into the open, presenting it not just as an abstraction, but as a real thing that could, and, under some circumstances, should happen. It says, "given the direction of things, this is something you might have to think seriously about in the next few decades". Maybe so, maybe not.

Edited, Tue Mar 21 14:11:07 2006 by MightyMolasses

The book isn't at all. Hollywood decided to make it relelvent to current events though >.>

That's *exactly* why people get upset with the politics of a film like this. The "problem" is presented as fact to the audience (conservative government run amok). The whole point of presenting it that way is to get folks to make the conclusion you just did: "We can always change things so it doesn't happen that way...".

How exactly do you think that change manefests in today's world? It's not exactly a difficult thing to see...


The "problem" is that if you don't happen to agree with the starting premise (conservative government will lead to world totalitarianism), then you're going to see the "solution" as flawed. But you know that most viewers wont see that since there's no time spent in the film discussing *why* the problem occured (not in the broader context of conservative v liberal at least). It's presented as fact. Conservative agenda's caused disaster and only "the people" rising up against it will save the world from domination. The viewer is not invited (or even really allowed) to think long about whether that's actually a likely result, nor how it might apply to our politics.


My personal problem? Historically, that sort of regime has arisen, not from a conservative movement, but from a liberal one. So to me, the implication presented via the assumption's in the film are not just wrong, but they are backwards. Using the story as a vehicle to try to get people behind a movement to "fight the evil conservatives" is actually *more* likely to result in that exact kind of totalitarian regime. But that's just my opinion on the politics of the film. You're free to disagree...


Hitler rose to power via a liberal socialist movement. Stalin rose to power via a liberal socialist movement. Mao rose to power via a liberal socialist movement. Pol Pot rose to power via a liberal socialist movement. Think *very* carefully about which political agenda in the US today is the more dangerous, and which is more likely to lead to the kind of brutal totalitarian regime depicted in the film. Then take a gander at SCOTUS rulings like Kelo v New London, look at which justices took which position and why, and then tell me exactly how much the liberal agenda *really* is about protecting the rights of "the people".

You know? I hear this counter all the time whenever someone mentions the list of people I just mentioned. Guess what? It doesn't matter how you lay out the "wings". It doesn't matter whether it's a line, a circle, or a trapezoid. It really doesn't.

What matters is the *method* used to gain power. What movements are used? What actions are taken and by whom? It really doesn't matter if we end up under the thumb of a Hitleresque dictator because a bunch of "evil" liberals used their flocks of protest-sign weilding followers to gain power, or whether every single person involved had the best of intentions and the Hitleresque guy swooped in and corrupted their work at the last second. It doesn't matter one bit.

What does matter is that every single modern government that has ended up in such a regime as a result of internal movement (as opposed to being overthrown) has done so as the direct result of exactly the sort of social liberalist movements that those involved in the movements *think* are most opposed to such regimes. The germans most certainly thought "how the heck did we end up here?". So did the Russians. So did the Chinese. They set out to make a better world for everyone and ended up in a nightmare.


Interestingly enough, not a *single* modern government has arrived at totalitarianism as a result of conservative agendas. Not one. But for some reason, people make films like this one and imply to the common man that this is what happens. We hear constantly that "Conservative==right wing==Authoritarianism", yet the historical evidence doesn't really support that. At what point do we start to realize that the definitions and knee-jerk assumptions that are bandied about in our popular fiction and media are nearly 100% wrong?


And isn't that the most dangerous thing of all? A motivated population moving in the exact wrong direction based on reasons that are at best poorly understood and at worst deliberately manipulated? But don't question the end point of your march. Just pick up your protest sign and keep moving. Right into the very totalitarian world you most want to avoid...

you do realize that she does have a british accent? have you ever watched the interview on the directors's cut "king arthur" dvd? she has quite an accent

*edit* this was supposed to be in response to the person saying natalie portman has a fake british accent. first time posting on these boards so still getting my bearings

Edited, Sat Mar 25 11:48:29 2006 by uptowne