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V for Vendetta - film review/analysis
[The problem with reading reviews, whether they are book, movie, music, or television is you have to figure out if you and the reviewer share the same tastes, attitudes, or interests. If you don't, chances are you will not agree with the reviewer. A good reviewer gives you enough information about the movie, book, what-have-you without giving away the story and enough to let you know whether or not you will agree with the reviewer's opinion on the work. Many professional reviewers, I've discovered, make the mistake of coming across too arrogant and appear to think their opinion matters far more than it does, much like the critic, M. Night Shyalaman successfully skewers in Lady in the Water. This review is no more or less than my perception of V for Vendetta and in some respects is more of an analysis than a critique. Take from it what you will.]
V for Vendetta is based on a graphic novel by Alan Moore and is directed/produced by the Wachwoski Brothers, the same guys who did the Matrix films. If you are familar with either creator and do not like their works, chances are you won't like this film. Moore's comics, including The Swamp Thing, The Killing Joke, Promethea, Watchman, and The League of Extraordinary Gentleman tend to be like most comics and fantasy novels written by men, a tad like a male romance novel - violent, the woman controlled or subordinated by the male (Swamp Thing/Watchman), or taught by him to be what she can be as if she were a child and he the adult (Promothea/League), or if she is an educated, powerful female in her own right, crippled (The Killing Joke) or seen as only powerful because she is "beautiful" (the beautiful but not overly intelligent woman with ugly man is a trend in the male centric romance novel). It's not necessarily misogynistic, no more so than most Westerns were and are, or for that matter Raymond Chandler detective novels. Frank Miller's novels do the same thing - violent, male centric novels, where the women are fantasy figures little more.
I tend to be more tolerant of these type of stories than many women are, since I adore Westerns and noir films -two genres that are not necessarily favorable in their depictions of women or depict strong women. In college, more than one female student or professor berated me for my love of the art form. How can you stand something that depicts women, people of your own sex, in such a derogatory fashion? Where women have almost no roles and are treated as merely sidekicks or romanticized objects? Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Ah, but I've read romance novels written by women and they are guilty of the same things, sometimes in reverse. I'm interested in the story, the evolution of the characters, the mythology or thematic meaning - I tend to not care that much about, since there are times that it is less clear and often up to the viewer/reader to interpret based on their own background and experience. That is not to say, I don't see it nor are not disturbed by it at times. Just that it doesn't always bother me. It depends. An example is Sin City, a film that can best be described as a hyper-realized male romance novel. I liked it for what it was. I did not bother reading the disturbing metaphors, but let it rest as just a fun cinematic ride. Did the same thing with the tv show M*A*SH*, which got better regarding the female roles as it moved forward, but much less fun and snarky. At any rate, I knew when I rented the film V for Vendetta that I would be disturbed by how Evie was handled, that comes with the territory when you read or see films based on noirish graphic novels written by Frank Miller or Alan Moore.
As mentioned above V for Vendetta is a film based on Alan Moore's complex political/noir/science fiction graphic novel that takes place during the Margret Thatcher/Regan era, which has been condensed and abridged for the screen as well as updated. It now takes place in the not too distance future, a future that could be a possible outcome of the Bush/Tony Blair era. The film pays homage to three works: The Counte of Monte Cristo, which it even refers to, 1984 (John Hurt who plays the dictator in V, plays the political prisoner in 1984), and Pgymallion.
In abridging the novel, which would have run over six hours if they had attempted to recreate all of it, the Wachowaski's focused on the plot line involving a young woman named Evie and her relationship with "V". Evie is introduced as innocent, a child of activist parents killed during a political revolt, who now at the age of 26 or thereabouts works at a TV station and attempts to keep a low profile. That is until "V" saves her from two government thugs in alley while she's en-route to her boss' apartment for a rendezvous. "V" proceeds to introduce Evie to his political worldview, partly seducing, partly coercing, and partly revealing the truth as he sees it. Whether "V" is right or not is never answered.
"V" himself is dressed in a Guy Fawkes outfit and always wears a mask. We never see "V"'s true face assuming it exists. And "V" is depicted not as a romantic hero or vigilante a la Batman, but rather a terrorist with a cause, granted a terrorist whose cause we may support - since the world he fights is a nightmarish one ruled by facists intent on destroying anyone who could yank power away. That's the difficulty with facism - everything is all fine and good if everyone agrees on the party agenda, cultural interests, values, and direction - if you don't? You are dead. Facists don't tend to be very tolerant of views conflicting with their own. Nor do they tend to have much patience for compromise or negotiation. Why bother when you can just shoot someone dead or better yet torture them?
The Wachowskis, as anyone who has seen the Matrix films can attest, are experts with visual imagery. And "V" outshines even "The Matrix" in this regard. The color scheme is precise and reflects what is going on inside the characters. It is largely black and red with the exception of two flashback sequences that we see from Evie's point of view. Evie herself is seldom in black or red and tends to wear whites and colorful dresses, unless of course "V" is dressing her, then she wears pig-tails and a red jumper much like raggedy Ann. The film also uses visual metaphors, which include dominoes, scarlett roses, and printed text - seen as rows upon rows of books on the shelves of V's underground rooms, or on toilet paper passed underneath a prison wall. There are three points of view in the film and three protagonists: Evie (Natalie Portman), V (Hugo Weaving and another actor who left half-way through filming because he could not endure the hours encased in a mask - having seen the film, I understand why), and the Inspector (Stephen Rhea). In each pov - we get a different slant on the world that has been created and V's attempts to bring it down. All appear to support "V"'s actions, yet it is not clear that the writers and creators of the film do. If anything they may be showing a warning, not a resolution.
The film's imagery is disturbing for multiple reasons. Evie's evolution and how her character evolves as well as why, is one of them. V and Evie have a bit of Pygmallion relationship. In fact that film feels a bit at times as if I were watching 1984 meets Count of Monte Cristo meets Pgymallion - note I said Pgymallion not the romantic My Fair Lady. George Bernard Shaw's original is not as nice as the musical version or as happy, about a young working class woman who is alterred by a man for a bet (turned into what he considers a "lady") - albeit willingly, but also niavely. Never being able to go back to what she was or her family nor able to be with the man who did it to her. And in the play as in V, the concept of free will and choice is examined. Shaw enjoyed playing with the idea of choice and how much of it we truly have in our interactions with others. In a patriarchial society and the world envisioned by Moore, brought to stunning visual life in the film, "V" is the extreme version of this type of society, people do not have choices or they do but within very tight boundaries. In a flashback, we see Evie envisioning the life of a female prisoner, imprisoned and executed for the crime of being a lesbian - living a life without men. A complete and binary contrast to the world depicted in the film. And the lesbian's happy life is depicted in a world that resembles our present, with images similar to ones we see in our everyday lives.
A week ago I was discussing graphic novels and fantasy with a friend, who comes from an eastern perspective, and she said something along the lines that the concept male/female could not be divided so easily, it was not binary - that the two types are inter-mixed. Women, straight women, can be butch, they can be masculain with masculain virtues and vice versa. People aren't necessarily one or the other. This is a viewpoint, I explained, that is difficult for most Westerners to wrap their brain's around - I still haven't, completely. Western culture in of itself tends to be binary and somewhat linear in how it views narratives. The film seems to be playing with this idea a bit with Evie, who becomes at the end of the film more masculain, less feminized. Her hair shorn, her clothes those of a punk kid's not a young lady. She is almost adrognous. The opposite of how we see her in the beginning - long flowing hair, dresses, heels, makeup, earrings, and lipstick. At the end, boyish, pants, t-shirt, shorn head, boots.
How she gets there is a tad disturbing, since it is via V's hands and he tricks her, plays with her reality and concept of reality to such a degree that she is not sure who or what she is. Evie holds onto the scrap of reality symbolized by the scrap of the love story V fed to her, whether it is true or not - does not appear to matter, it is the only identity or sense of identity she has in the end. Her new identity and sense of self is empowering if you overlook how she got there and how V manipulated her. Not to mention how her reactions when she emerges from V's realm reflect V's own. Her identity appears to stem from him or his reality and fantasies not from herself. The fact that V's manipulation of Evie lies at the root of many female romance novels, fanfiction and as pointed out by Shaw and in versions of the Svengali myth (the genuis who treated his student as if she were little more than an extension of himself, his creation), not to mention more recent depictions such as Pretty Woman, that the woman is little more than an extension of her male patron. Torn from his rib. Built from his skin. As opposed to a separate entity in her own right, following her own path, her own destiny, and her own desires. Not mere reflections of his. The film - turns Evie into little more than a reflection of V, through whom V connects to his humanity and to a world beyond his vendetta. He gives birth to her.
If we for a minute forget Evie's evolution and focus on the rest of the film, we must look at the concept of "terrorist" through the eyes of the fanatic. Or rather, the Counte of Monte Cristo - the Alexander Dumas tale of the Frenchman who was unjustly betrayed and imprisioned and after his escape, spent the remaining portion of his life exacting vengeance on those who wronged him. "V"'s black and white world view is no different from the government that he wishes to destroy. The film even plays with the idea that V is in fact merely a reflection of the facist dictator - the same man in both places. The terrorist and the regime created by the terror. Historically this fits, since Hitler's regime came to fruitation from the devastation of WWI which was unbelievably harsh on Germany and the German economy, harsher than 9/11 was on the US economy or WWII on British economy. People do funky things when they are afraid. And the line between anger and fear is not far, actually the two tend to be entwined and many people confuse them. We want to feel safe and we will do close to anything to ensure that. Kansas still has laws that permit a homeowner to kill a trespasser. And well, why do you think people are so vehement about the right to bear guns? V for Vendetta takes the consequences of giving into fear to the extreme. Depicting a world that feels like a combination of Stalin's Soviet Union and Hitler's Third Reich, we see why the character V is so intent on destroying it and bringing freedom to the people. The people become V in order to revolt, take on his guise, and in so doing lose their own individuality. The visual image is breath-taking, but also unsettling, when compared to the image of dominoes that we see earlier in V's underground lair, which he sets up and then ripples. For it is not as themselves that the people revolt, but rather as followers of a symbol, a thoughtless mob, following the cause of someone else - much like Osma Bin Laden's followers or those poor deluded fools routed in Waco. Prior to the revolt, under the facist regime, the people are seen as individuals, living their lives, in homes watching tv or in bars. They do not become a faceless mob until they take on V's cause.
The fact that V's cause is worth undertaking is not in question here - it clearly is, through the eyes of Stephen Rhea's Inspector, by far my favorite character in the film, we see how corrupt the regime has become and Rhea's Inspector much like any noir detective uncovers it along with the reasons for V's vendetta. Through the Inspector's eyes, we see how the best of intentions can turn sour quickly. He is in some ways, the objective viewer. And he questions as we should V's undertaking, asking is it better or worse than the government dictator he is protesting, or has V in effect merely become the monster he is fighting? Accomplishing what the dictator could not?
The terrorist and the facist regime seem to be each other's creations. One sprouting from the other, much like the proverbial snake eating its own tail. We no longer know which is which. The facist regime, V seems to state, inadvertently sprouts from the government's increasing need to protect its people by restricting their rights. And the need arises from the fact that the terrorist threatening society and the people within can literally by anyone and everyone - all the way through the film "V" cannot be found - his mask sits on other's faces sometimes willingly and sometimes coerced. V himself - has no face but the mask - symbolizes how he is everyone, impossible to find. At the end we wonder who the terrorist is and where the threat comes from, within or without. Is our government the terrorist in our midst or are we? Or both? And by restricting rights with the view to protect is our government protecting us or merely erecting a semi-comfortable prison around us with terrorists as the guards? Fear is a weapon far more dangerous than any sword, bomb, or gun. But it is a weapon we can defuse or can we?
V for Vendetta is not a film I will forget. It lies embedded in my head. The visual images are that powerful. But it is at the same time not a film I wish to re-watch. At the center of it is a moving love story between two women, but it feels at times like the male fantasy of such a relationship and the conveyance of it is in order to change or alter the views of another woman. The male as puppeteer, an image that grates, yet is in keeping with the work and the themes of the film, which is about manipulation. The film says a great deal about our current society and is much in keeping with Huxely and Orwell's classic works, a warning of what our society could become if we go too far in our attempts to safe-guard ourselves against an invisible threat. Sometimes the solution we come up with is far worse than the threat.
V for Vendetta is based on a graphic novel by Alan Moore and is directed/produced by the Wachwoski Brothers, the same guys who did the Matrix films. If you are familar with either creator and do not like their works, chances are you won't like this film. Moore's comics, including The Swamp Thing, The Killing Joke, Promethea, Watchman, and The League of Extraordinary Gentleman tend to be like most comics and fantasy novels written by men, a tad like a male romance novel - violent, the woman controlled or subordinated by the male (Swamp Thing/Watchman), or taught by him to be what she can be as if she were a child and he the adult (Promothea/League), or if she is an educated, powerful female in her own right, crippled (The Killing Joke) or seen as only powerful because she is "beautiful" (the beautiful but not overly intelligent woman with ugly man is a trend in the male centric romance novel). It's not necessarily misogynistic, no more so than most Westerns were and are, or for that matter Raymond Chandler detective novels. Frank Miller's novels do the same thing - violent, male centric novels, where the women are fantasy figures little more.
I tend to be more tolerant of these type of stories than many women are, since I adore Westerns and noir films -two genres that are not necessarily favorable in their depictions of women or depict strong women. In college, more than one female student or professor berated me for my love of the art form. How can you stand something that depicts women, people of your own sex, in such a derogatory fashion? Where women have almost no roles and are treated as merely sidekicks or romanticized objects? Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Ah, but I've read romance novels written by women and they are guilty of the same things, sometimes in reverse. I'm interested in the story, the evolution of the characters, the mythology or thematic meaning - I tend to not care that much about, since there are times that it is less clear and often up to the viewer/reader to interpret based on their own background and experience. That is not to say, I don't see it nor are not disturbed by it at times. Just that it doesn't always bother me. It depends. An example is Sin City, a film that can best be described as a hyper-realized male romance novel. I liked it for what it was. I did not bother reading the disturbing metaphors, but let it rest as just a fun cinematic ride. Did the same thing with the tv show M*A*SH*, which got better regarding the female roles as it moved forward, but much less fun and snarky. At any rate, I knew when I rented the film V for Vendetta that I would be disturbed by how Evie was handled, that comes with the territory when you read or see films based on noirish graphic novels written by Frank Miller or Alan Moore.
As mentioned above V for Vendetta is a film based on Alan Moore's complex political/noir/science fiction graphic novel that takes place during the Margret Thatcher/Regan era, which has been condensed and abridged for the screen as well as updated. It now takes place in the not too distance future, a future that could be a possible outcome of the Bush/Tony Blair era. The film pays homage to three works: The Counte of Monte Cristo, which it even refers to, 1984 (John Hurt who plays the dictator in V, plays the political prisoner in 1984), and Pgymallion.
In abridging the novel, which would have run over six hours if they had attempted to recreate all of it, the Wachowaski's focused on the plot line involving a young woman named Evie and her relationship with "V". Evie is introduced as innocent, a child of activist parents killed during a political revolt, who now at the age of 26 or thereabouts works at a TV station and attempts to keep a low profile. That is until "V" saves her from two government thugs in alley while she's en-route to her boss' apartment for a rendezvous. "V" proceeds to introduce Evie to his political worldview, partly seducing, partly coercing, and partly revealing the truth as he sees it. Whether "V" is right or not is never answered.
"V" himself is dressed in a Guy Fawkes outfit and always wears a mask. We never see "V"'s true face assuming it exists. And "V" is depicted not as a romantic hero or vigilante a la Batman, but rather a terrorist with a cause, granted a terrorist whose cause we may support - since the world he fights is a nightmarish one ruled by facists intent on destroying anyone who could yank power away. That's the difficulty with facism - everything is all fine and good if everyone agrees on the party agenda, cultural interests, values, and direction - if you don't? You are dead. Facists don't tend to be very tolerant of views conflicting with their own. Nor do they tend to have much patience for compromise or negotiation. Why bother when you can just shoot someone dead or better yet torture them?
The Wachowskis, as anyone who has seen the Matrix films can attest, are experts with visual imagery. And "V" outshines even "The Matrix" in this regard. The color scheme is precise and reflects what is going on inside the characters. It is largely black and red with the exception of two flashback sequences that we see from Evie's point of view. Evie herself is seldom in black or red and tends to wear whites and colorful dresses, unless of course "V" is dressing her, then she wears pig-tails and a red jumper much like raggedy Ann. The film also uses visual metaphors, which include dominoes, scarlett roses, and printed text - seen as rows upon rows of books on the shelves of V's underground rooms, or on toilet paper passed underneath a prison wall. There are three points of view in the film and three protagonists: Evie (Natalie Portman), V (Hugo Weaving and another actor who left half-way through filming because he could not endure the hours encased in a mask - having seen the film, I understand why), and the Inspector (Stephen Rhea). In each pov - we get a different slant on the world that has been created and V's attempts to bring it down. All appear to support "V"'s actions, yet it is not clear that the writers and creators of the film do. If anything they may be showing a warning, not a resolution.
The film's imagery is disturbing for multiple reasons. Evie's evolution and how her character evolves as well as why, is one of them. V and Evie have a bit of Pygmallion relationship. In fact that film feels a bit at times as if I were watching 1984 meets Count of Monte Cristo meets Pgymallion - note I said Pgymallion not the romantic My Fair Lady. George Bernard Shaw's original is not as nice as the musical version or as happy, about a young working class woman who is alterred by a man for a bet (turned into what he considers a "lady") - albeit willingly, but also niavely. Never being able to go back to what she was or her family nor able to be with the man who did it to her. And in the play as in V, the concept of free will and choice is examined. Shaw enjoyed playing with the idea of choice and how much of it we truly have in our interactions with others. In a patriarchial society and the world envisioned by Moore, brought to stunning visual life in the film, "V" is the extreme version of this type of society, people do not have choices or they do but within very tight boundaries. In a flashback, we see Evie envisioning the life of a female prisoner, imprisoned and executed for the crime of being a lesbian - living a life without men. A complete and binary contrast to the world depicted in the film. And the lesbian's happy life is depicted in a world that resembles our present, with images similar to ones we see in our everyday lives.
A week ago I was discussing graphic novels and fantasy with a friend, who comes from an eastern perspective, and she said something along the lines that the concept male/female could not be divided so easily, it was not binary - that the two types are inter-mixed. Women, straight women, can be butch, they can be masculain with masculain virtues and vice versa. People aren't necessarily one or the other. This is a viewpoint, I explained, that is difficult for most Westerners to wrap their brain's around - I still haven't, completely. Western culture in of itself tends to be binary and somewhat linear in how it views narratives. The film seems to be playing with this idea a bit with Evie, who becomes at the end of the film more masculain, less feminized. Her hair shorn, her clothes those of a punk kid's not a young lady. She is almost adrognous. The opposite of how we see her in the beginning - long flowing hair, dresses, heels, makeup, earrings, and lipstick. At the end, boyish, pants, t-shirt, shorn head, boots.
How she gets there is a tad disturbing, since it is via V's hands and he tricks her, plays with her reality and concept of reality to such a degree that she is not sure who or what she is. Evie holds onto the scrap of reality symbolized by the scrap of the love story V fed to her, whether it is true or not - does not appear to matter, it is the only identity or sense of identity she has in the end. Her new identity and sense of self is empowering if you overlook how she got there and how V manipulated her. Not to mention how her reactions when she emerges from V's realm reflect V's own. Her identity appears to stem from him or his reality and fantasies not from herself. The fact that V's manipulation of Evie lies at the root of many female romance novels, fanfiction and as pointed out by Shaw and in versions of the Svengali myth (the genuis who treated his student as if she were little more than an extension of himself, his creation), not to mention more recent depictions such as Pretty Woman, that the woman is little more than an extension of her male patron. Torn from his rib. Built from his skin. As opposed to a separate entity in her own right, following her own path, her own destiny, and her own desires. Not mere reflections of his. The film - turns Evie into little more than a reflection of V, through whom V connects to his humanity and to a world beyond his vendetta. He gives birth to her.
If we for a minute forget Evie's evolution and focus on the rest of the film, we must look at the concept of "terrorist" through the eyes of the fanatic. Or rather, the Counte of Monte Cristo - the Alexander Dumas tale of the Frenchman who was unjustly betrayed and imprisioned and after his escape, spent the remaining portion of his life exacting vengeance on those who wronged him. "V"'s black and white world view is no different from the government that he wishes to destroy. The film even plays with the idea that V is in fact merely a reflection of the facist dictator - the same man in both places. The terrorist and the regime created by the terror. Historically this fits, since Hitler's regime came to fruitation from the devastation of WWI which was unbelievably harsh on Germany and the German economy, harsher than 9/11 was on the US economy or WWII on British economy. People do funky things when they are afraid. And the line between anger and fear is not far, actually the two tend to be entwined and many people confuse them. We want to feel safe and we will do close to anything to ensure that. Kansas still has laws that permit a homeowner to kill a trespasser. And well, why do you think people are so vehement about the right to bear guns? V for Vendetta takes the consequences of giving into fear to the extreme. Depicting a world that feels like a combination of Stalin's Soviet Union and Hitler's Third Reich, we see why the character V is so intent on destroying it and bringing freedom to the people. The people become V in order to revolt, take on his guise, and in so doing lose their own individuality. The visual image is breath-taking, but also unsettling, when compared to the image of dominoes that we see earlier in V's underground lair, which he sets up and then ripples. For it is not as themselves that the people revolt, but rather as followers of a symbol, a thoughtless mob, following the cause of someone else - much like Osma Bin Laden's followers or those poor deluded fools routed in Waco. Prior to the revolt, under the facist regime, the people are seen as individuals, living their lives, in homes watching tv or in bars. They do not become a faceless mob until they take on V's cause.
The fact that V's cause is worth undertaking is not in question here - it clearly is, through the eyes of Stephen Rhea's Inspector, by far my favorite character in the film, we see how corrupt the regime has become and Rhea's Inspector much like any noir detective uncovers it along with the reasons for V's vendetta. Through the Inspector's eyes, we see how the best of intentions can turn sour quickly. He is in some ways, the objective viewer. And he questions as we should V's undertaking, asking is it better or worse than the government dictator he is protesting, or has V in effect merely become the monster he is fighting? Accomplishing what the dictator could not?
The terrorist and the facist regime seem to be each other's creations. One sprouting from the other, much like the proverbial snake eating its own tail. We no longer know which is which. The facist regime, V seems to state, inadvertently sprouts from the government's increasing need to protect its people by restricting their rights. And the need arises from the fact that the terrorist threatening society and the people within can literally by anyone and everyone - all the way through the film "V" cannot be found - his mask sits on other's faces sometimes willingly and sometimes coerced. V himself - has no face but the mask - symbolizes how he is everyone, impossible to find. At the end we wonder who the terrorist is and where the threat comes from, within or without. Is our government the terrorist in our midst or are we? Or both? And by restricting rights with the view to protect is our government protecting us or merely erecting a semi-comfortable prison around us with terrorists as the guards? Fear is a weapon far more dangerous than any sword, bomb, or gun. But it is a weapon we can defuse or can we?
V for Vendetta is not a film I will forget. It lies embedded in my head. The visual images are that powerful. But it is at the same time not a film I wish to re-watch. At the center of it is a moving love story between two women, but it feels at times like the male fantasy of such a relationship and the conveyance of it is in order to change or alter the views of another woman. The male as puppeteer, an image that grates, yet is in keeping with the work and the themes of the film, which is about manipulation. The film says a great deal about our current society and is much in keeping with Huxely and Orwell's classic works, a warning of what our society could become if we go too far in our attempts to safe-guard ourselves against an invisible threat. Sometimes the solution we come up with is far worse than the threat.
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I think Evie respects his wishes because unlike Christine, she sees V as her savior, father, lover, brother, guide - while Christine sees him as lover/teacher. The relationship is subtley different.
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LOL
Actually I found V's manipulation to be unforgiveably brutal, but of course he wasn't expecting to be forgiven, he expected her to be transformed into a different person, and she was.
In a way that made her a metaphor for what was going to happen to the city/country: brutalized by the terrorist, and transformed.
Your comparing V to the dictator is excellent, because he is just as arrogantly pushing forth his own agenda.... Except of course the dictator was never going to stop, and V intended to die and hope that life would improve. That Evie would build a happier life for herself.
I haven't rewatched the film since I first saw it in the theater, it was disturbing and intense, but the most direct political satire I've seen in decades (everyone is so afraid to offend now days, even Michael Moore doesn't really push the envelop, not like this film).
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What I liked about the film was the direct political satire. And the ambiguousness of it.
V appears to hope the populace will build a better life for themselves once they discard his masks, but the film leaves that question unanswered.
Actually there've been a couple political satires lately, films that have questioned what we are doing in a way that leaves one feeling uncomfortable. Munich, Syriana, Good Night and Good Luck all come to mind. Plus Team America World Police by the team that brought us South Park. V is a little less obvious and didatic, since it is science fiction fantasy.
So not so sure I agree that people are afraid to offend.
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(Also, it's Svengali, rather than Spengali) :o)
Dub ;o)
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Her beauty controls them not her intellect.
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