V for Vendetta Essay
We are all products of our environment. This essay will explain how the dystopic setting in James McTeigues V for Vendetta, helped the viewer understand how authoritarian regimes come about and how difficult it is to stop them. The film is based on the 1980’s graphic novel by David Lloyd, and expresses his foresight of the corrupt government. Overall this essay will explain how the bleak and repressive setting with the use of visual and verbal techniques can show us how a dystopic regime can be cruel and corrupt.
V for Vendetta is set in a futuristic London, England. The country is run by a power-seeking leader, Adam Sutler, who ensures all his citizens follow every rule he sets. Sutler and his party, Norsefire, use propaganda to ensure that all citizens stay in line and anyone who defies the government is ‘bagged’ and taken away to be killed. The country is under the false impression that it would not survive without the Norsefire in power by using countries in chaos as outcomes, and using their slogan ‘Strength through faith. Faith through unity’. Later on in the film, it is uncovered that Norsefire secretly built a state bio-terrorist attack that threw the country into a state of desperation and chaos. Through this master plan, Norsefire was voted into power when they came up with a cure to the disease that contaminating waterways. Something that the public didn’t know was that the party used citizens whom they deemed ‘dirty’, such as homosexuals, Muslims, and political dissidents as their experimental dolls when coming up with the cure to the disease. The laboratory where the cure was made, Larkhill, holds a man that would soon have his mind set on revenge, when he manages to escape the compound when it is set on fire. That man would stop at nothing to ensure justice is served to the people responsible, and he takes the name of ‘V’.
This setting is important as it helps us understand that people who live in dystopias live in fear and are dehumanised
V for Vendetta is set in a futuristic London, England. The country is run by a power-seeking leader, Adam Sutler, who ensures all his citizens follow every rule he sets. Sutler and his party, Norsefire, use propaganda to ensure that all citizens stay in line and anyone who defies the government is ‘bagged’ and taken away to be killed. The country is under the false impression that it would not survive without the Norsefire in power by using countries in chaos as outcomes, and using their slogan ‘Strength through faith. Faith through unity’. Later on in the film, it is uncovered that Norsefire secretly built a state bio-terrorist attack that threw the country into a state of desperation and chaos. Through this master plan, Norsefire was voted into power when they came up with a cure to the disease that contaminating waterways. Something that the public didn’t know was that the party used citizens whom they deemed ‘dirty’, such as homosexuals, Muslims, and political dissidents as their experimental dolls when coming up with the cure to the disease. The laboratory where the cure was made, Larkhill, holds a man that would soon have his mind set on revenge, when he manages to escape the compound when it is set on fire. That man would stop at nothing to ensure justice is served to the people responsible, and he takes the name of ‘V’.
This setting is important as it helps us understand that people who live in dystopias live in fear and are dehumanised