I dont know about you guys, but some people are so braindead anymore. Case in example is Metacritic's viewer ratings of V for Vendetta. As some of you may know, I'm a big Alan Moore fan, and was able to see this movie the day it was released, so I've read both the comic and seen the movie, so have an understanding of it. Today, I was trolling around through Metacritic, which I sometimes do to see what games and such I might want to get or avoid. On the front page, they listed V for Vendetta, so I thought I'd throw my two cents in, and as I'm reading through the reviews first, I can't believe how some people are. Comments being made about "what kind of government does that to its people besides communists", "How does blowing up random monuments show anyone they mean business", "Government fear the people? In the US and UK, the goverment is the people! If we don't like it, we can change it!", "Makes Christians seem like crazy right wing fundimentalists, christians have been repressed too!", etc.
For the first comment, well, facist coverments do that too. Moussolini wasn't communist, yet he repressed his people. The brainwashing Hideki Tojo did to the Japanese people as well as the abuse, wasn't communist inspired. I won't even invoke Godwin's law here, but you get the point.
Next up, was the one about blowing up monuments. Destroying a monument is a devistating morale blow to a group of people, and can really mess with their heads. We all know how the US was in the few weeks and months following 9/11. Relatively few people were killed (I say relatively, since if the terrorists were solely after a body count, they could have attacked at a different time, or another location and killed many many more people), yet people were scared shitless for a while, since they were able to undermine all of our security measures, and attack us on our own turf. Such an event can have massive impact. The Pentagon and New York attacks here, Reichstag Fire in Germany, The Burning of Washington during the War of 1812, etc.
The third one has some semblance of intelligence, but also neglects alot of things. For instance, yes, we in the US vote for the majority of government officials, it is quite often that the officials we've chosen are truthfully nothing like they lead us to believe, or specifically hid believes and wants from us to improve their chances of election. Look at George W Bush, he's done alot of things that people wouldn't have imagined he'd done if they went purely off what they knew before the 2000 or 2004 elections. Problem is, most politicians lie, so more often than not anymore, when we replace one we get another just as bad. If the government was truely the people, then there wouldn't be secrets withheld, actions taken out that a large portion of the public dislikes, etc. As far as the British goverment goes, well, thats a different story almost. They really have little say over who is controlling a large portion of the government. Their parliament is formed of two houses, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The House of Lords is completely unelected. In the House of Commons, The voters only vote for a person to represent their area. An example of that would be, if we were to only vote on Senators. Prime Minister isn't a traditional elected position either but rather an appointed one based off several factors.
For the Chrisianity bit, people have to concede that there are good and bad with every group, especially with religion. Just because there is one looney running around who is from a group, that doesn't mean that the entire group is. Also, people need to remember, that the UK's government is religion rooted. The Anglican church is a governmental body, and the official religion of the UK. Church officials from the Church of England do hold government positions in the House of Lords' Lords Spiritual. That is why in the story, when the facist regime took over, they got rid of non-christians, and any other groups that did not fit the Church's ideals (homosexuals, etc). Also, another reason for the religious angle in V for Vendetta, is because quite often people have seized power through reasoning to the people's religious beliefs. Look at the middle east and parts of africa, now. How many warlords and terrorists are controlling the people through religion?
Well, I could go on some more, but I think I've said enough for now. I personally thought it was a good movie, I loved the comic, but then I understood the background. Most people seem to be falling into two camps, those who love it, and the hate it, based mostly off of their misunderstanding of certain key points or parts of the story. If anyone wants to discuss things with me, I'm more than willing. Just post comments here, or email them from the Contact link on the right.
Also, I think I am going to be returning to putting the links in the body, such as today, rather than putting it into the "Related Link" spot, since I'm not sure how many of you noticed that. Might have been confusing to see me talking about something but not being able to see what.
