People have looked at me a bit strangely when I’ve arrived at stays with a 40″ flat screen television in tow.
I think this is what scared the sweet elderly couple in Somerset West, actually. It makes it seem as though we’re moving in permanently.
It’s been worth the hassle though. There’s no T.V. at the urban farm and… well… any parent with a child who games and enjoys media at all will relate.
While Nathan’s scrolling around one night, I see “V for Vendetta” is back on the viewing list.
This movie is one of my top three all time favourite classics.
I wait to share these movies with my kids so that we can have a conversation about the perspective and philosophies they impart. Back when when my daughter was around fourteen years old, and we watched it together, I even thought I understood this movie.
I did not.
But I think know that with any kind of philosophy…
you really have to walk through an experience similar to the concept being shared to see if it is any kind of “truth”.
For you, that is.
Everything else we read is really only somebody else’s opinion.
But my opinionated opinion of this movie…*sigh
I must have watched V for Vendetta three times already by the time I watched it with my daughter around seven years ago. And I’ve watched it twice more since then
But I only really understood what the writer was trying to share when I watched it, yet again, with one of the only people who believed my story.
In 2020.
A school friend who I hadn’t connected with in over forty years.
Melony had ended up staying over one night and I couldn’t quite believe she hadn’t yet seen it. We watched it together, her falling asleep next to me while I sat riveted right through to the end again.
Except, this time, I understood what the writer was actually trying to say. And when I did, I couldn’t believe I’d missed it for all these years. I guess I’m a slow learner. Or just plain stubborn.
Whatever…
in 2020 I finally “got it”.
29 March 2023
I sit here
reading the quotes from this movie and wonder
if I even need to write this post anymorebecause it’s all been said before
and said far better
than I can share itover and over again
in a hundred beautiful and beautifully different ways.
So why are we still stuck here?
Why are we still struggling
to find our way “out”?I share these thoughts
in my own way
as I’ve come to understand thembut the very concept I’m trying to share stops me being heard.
And it’s not even about gender.
Or race.
Or age.
Or whatever.These constructs are only there to
distract and divide usIt’s not about the constructs.
It’s not about systems,
categories
or identity
Fear is the only “enemy”
we need to conquerto be free
That really is bad, huh?! But you get the drift… and also…
I’m not really a poet.
I won’t even try to say it any better than it’s already been said down there. 👇
I’m nowhere near as eloquent.
It really is this simple though.
Dialogue from V for Vendetta Original source
“You were already in a prison. You’ve been in a prison all your life.
Happiness is a prison, Evey. Happiness is the most insidious prison of all.
Your lover lived in the penitentiary that we are all born into, and was forced to rake the dregs of that world for his living. He knew affection and tenderness but only briefly. Eventually, one of the other inmates stabbed him with a cutlass and he drowned upon his own blood. Is that it, Evey? Is that happiness worth more than freedom?
It’s not an uncommon story, Evey. Many convicts meet with miserable ends. Your mother. Your father. Your lover. One by one, taken out behind the chemical sheds… and shot. All convicts, hunched and deformed by the smallness of their cells, the weight of their chains, the unfairness of their sentences.
I didn’t put you in a prison, Evey. I just showed you the bars.”
Evey replies
‘You’re wrong! It’s just life, that’s all! It’s just how life is. It’s what we’ve got to put up with. It’s all we’ve got. What gives you the right to decide it’s not good enough?’
“You’re in a prison, Evey. You were born in a prison. You’ve been in a prison so long, you no longer believe there’s a world outside.
That’s because you’re afraid, Evey. You’re afraid because you can feel freedom closing in upon you. You’re afraid because freedom is terrifying.
Don’t back away from it, Evey. Part of you understands the truth even as part pretends not to.
You were in a cell, Evey. They offered you a choice between the death of your principles and the death of your body. You said you’d rather die. You faced the fear of your own death and you were calm and still. The door of the cage is open, Evey. All that you feel is the wind from outside.”
― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta
Yeah. The scene in the prison and her walking out into the rain…
only made absolute sense to me in 2020.
I tell you summink else…
Alan Moore nailed it.
“The past can’t hurt you anymore. Not unless you let it. They made you into a victim, Evey. They made you into a statistic. But, that’s not the real you. That’s not who you are inside.”
― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta
original image source
November 2022
“Hey! V for Vendetta’s back on Netflix.” I say excitedly, wondering if Nathan’s old enough to watch it yet.
A discussion ensues between us about whether he is or not.
Nathan’s very mature about not overloading himself with content that upsets him. He’s really empathetic and I’ve suggested to him that he control his content in the same way we do our diet and nutrition.
A mental diet, really. [1]
I remember some of the movie and decide to wait a few more years and, before I’ve voiced this, Nathan has decided he’ll wait another year or two as well.
We end up watching “Uncharted” instead because… well… super cool game and I haven’t seen the flick. Plus I think Tom Holland is the absolute best Spidey-spidey awesome yet, so I just like him in anything now. Nathan and I have discussed this at length so be warned if you wanna argue this point.
I fall asleep and miss half the movie again. I can see fellow parents nodding their heads in my mind’s eye.
But, a few nights later, when I hear the sound of gunshots resounding in the area just outside the farm fencing…
…I won’t be getting much sleep at all.
This will, however, be the night that cements that important lesson I talked about earlier.
Along with learning more about the animals, I’ll be offered an experience that cements some learning (and skill) I’ve been working on for some years now…
why (and how) to not to react.
And, not so strangely enough, it was my own government and the dictates of my society that imparted this valuable lesson and skill on to me.
In a very similar manner to the way V offered the learning to Evey.
Yeah.
Alan Moore nailed it.
Featured images created with ArtyBot