Speaker 1: Hi, Welcome back to Popcorn Book Club. I'm Danish Forwards,
Speaker 1: joined as always by Melissa Hunter, Jennifer Wright, Tan Tran
Speaker 1: and Karamadanqua. And this week we are a little bit
Speaker 1: late for the fifth of November, but unfortunately right in
Speaker 1: time for the impending threat of totalitarianism. And we are
Speaker 1: talking V four Vendetta, the graphic novel written by Alan Moore,
Speaker 1: illustrated by David Lloyd. Uh yeah, it's sort of rolled
Speaker 1: off the tongue. It's the book. The graphic novel is
Speaker 1: divided into three parts, so we're gonna do each episode
Speaker 1: part by part. So today we're just talking book one,
Speaker 1: which is like subheaded Europe after the Rain, before we
Speaker 1: dive in, I'm just clear ari e I g oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Ray like the rain on me, like gay. So before
Speaker 1: we start, I'm curious because V for Vendetta has had
Speaker 1: such like a big part, like a big footprint in
Speaker 1: popular culture where even if you haven't like read it
Speaker 1: or seen it, you know, like the guy Fox mask
Speaker 1: has become like the anonymous symbol. So, Jennifer, what has
Speaker 1: been your relationship with V for Vendetta before this this podcast?
Speaker 1: Book reading? Okay, well, I love V for Vendetta. But
Speaker 1: what I find fascinating is periodically I get like really
Speaker 1: hardcore Trump supporters who messaged me on Twitter, and I'm
Speaker 1: shocked by the number of them that have the V
Speaker 1: for Vendetta mask as their profile picture. Because if you
Speaker 1: read V for Vendetta, I think the first thing that
Speaker 1: happens is V beats up some corrupt cops who are
Speaker 1: going to break a woman to um. So it's surprising
Speaker 1: to me that a group of very far right people
Speaker 1: have read this book and thought, yeah, this guy fighting
Speaker 1: against a fascist government where the police are an unbelievably
Speaker 1: corrupt force. Speaks to you to assume they read the book,
Speaker 1: did they watch the movie, because like it's still basically
Speaker 1: the same. I mean, those are the same people that
Speaker 1: like misuse red pill in Blue Pill. Also the Punisher logo,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they love punish our people with white trumps,
Speaker 1: love punish, punish our decals, And you're like, what do
Speaker 1: you think that's communicating? So yeah, I love this book
Speaker 1: because I think it has Overfelming like good social and
Speaker 1: moral values and is a dystopia about fascism in such
Speaker 1: a such a wonderfully realized way, and boy, people on
Speaker 1: the far right not picking up on that. It's also
Speaker 1: very funny to me because Guy Fox was an extreme Catholic,
Speaker 1: So that in end and of itself is like interesting
Speaker 1: that he was like, yeah, Catholicism, I don't like your Protestantism.
Speaker 1: That people who now adopt the Guy Fox mask are
Speaker 1: not like religious zealots. And again it's an unambiguously anarchist symbol.
Speaker 1: So now that Donald Trump is like the incumbent leader
Speaker 1: and they're defending their like, oh, the anarchy in Portland,
Speaker 1: it's like, no, now you should specifically be in favor
Speaker 1: of that quote unquote anarchy. Yeah, well no, it's just
Speaker 1: I never thought about how even just in the past
Speaker 1: several years, I mean, since Trump became elected in his
Speaker 1: now a fucking loser, um, you know, them to enjoy
Speaker 1: that together. I do have to say, wouldn't it suck
Speaker 1: if we had to be like a politically neutral podcast
Speaker 1: like obviously feeling let's say you excite stuff Because I
Speaker 1: these this first book uh before the election, and it
Speaker 1: made me feel really uncomfortable because it's I mean it's
Speaker 1: so immediately uh reflective of the Trump era of like
Speaker 1: make Britain great again is on page two and uh.
Speaker 1: And then I reread it last night or the two
Speaker 1: nights ago to like refresh my memory, and I just
Speaker 1: felt like a different this is like right after Biden
Speaker 1: has gotten elected. And I just was able to read
Speaker 1: and be like, yes, that old thing, even though I
Speaker 1: know not everything is over, but it made me just
Speaker 1: feel so much better reading it post post election. You know,
Speaker 1: I didn't want to bring up the political allegory too soon,
Speaker 1: but and not to get into the movie yet, but
Speaker 1: now that we're sort of there, I think that I
Speaker 1: always found interesting was that Ellen Moore famously hates all
Speaker 1: adaptations of his work because he's like a crashy old wizard,
Speaker 1: like that's just who he is. But he let people
Speaker 1: adapt it because he because he likes houses, but he
Speaker 1: doesn't like them. He's like, you can do what you want,
Speaker 1: but I'm not gonna like it. I'm telling us fair
Speaker 1: and um. And he also don't take that stance too
Speaker 1: in my future works and then be like do you
Speaker 1: like it? And I also think he doesn't take money.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure he says. He just says like I
Speaker 1: don't want the money. I'm gonna check. I didn't mean
Speaker 1: to No, No, he's a he's like a weird wizard
Speaker 1: of the word. Does he know that he could give
Speaker 1: it away too good causes instead of flooding movie studios
Speaker 1: keep it? I mean, not that they're not in a
Speaker 1: way a good cost, Like he could he could give
Speaker 1: it to like housing projects and stuff. Yeah, like movies.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying movie studios are not the thing that
Speaker 1: I would first think of when I hear a it, Cause, yeah,
Speaker 1: well you figure it out. I mean, I'm gonna look
Speaker 1: up about whether he takes the money. But the point
Speaker 1: is he hated the Viva Vendettatte movie, which we'll all
Speaker 1: watch and talk about. But he thought that they made
Speaker 1: it to American and he's like, this is about England.
Speaker 1: It's not a metaphor about him, because it was happening
Speaker 1: during the Bush Era, and he thought that some like
Speaker 1: American Bush era politics crept into the movie. And he
Speaker 1: was like, Nope, it's about Britain and England specifically, and
Speaker 1: like yeah, it's like and like he's like, and it's
Speaker 1: about anarchy and specifically anarchy. And if it's not about
Speaker 1: anarchy in Britain, it's not my book. But I do
Speaker 1: think Melissa, your point is well made that this applies
Speaker 1: to a lot of situations and a lot of totalitarian
Speaker 1: governments in a way that maybe Alan Moore doesn't appreciate it,
Speaker 1: but I think we can't. Yeah, it reminds me of
Speaker 1: Bon June Hoo when he was talking about Paris Site
Speaker 1: and how he wrote it specifically for Korean audience and
Speaker 1: then it became so wildly popular, and he's like, I
Speaker 1: guess we all live in the same same country of capitalism. Like,
Speaker 1: so he gets it. Yeah, I mean that's what's amazing
Speaker 1: about Elmore's work like this and Watchman, that you know,
Speaker 1: it's so relevant unfortunately, you know, probably for decades and
Speaker 1: decades to come in all countries that are kind of
Speaker 1: resemble each other in certain ways. You know. Karama, what
Speaker 1: was your v for Vendetta experience before the book Club? Well,
Speaker 1: I hadn't read it before, but I had seen the
Speaker 1: film many, many, many, many many times. One of my
Speaker 1: really good friends, Jose shout out to Jose loves Natalie Portman.
Speaker 1: So we watched a lot of Natalie Portman movies together
Speaker 1: and this is one of them, and this is the
Speaker 1: one that I liked the most. So she can have
Speaker 1: a fully pulled head and still just be the most
Speaker 1: beautiful angel woman you have ever seen. She is fat
Speaker 1: special though. I think there are a lot of people
Speaker 1: who look good with bald heads, but not maybe a
Speaker 1: lot of white people. That's true, that's true, and as
Speaker 1: I'm allowed to say that, not a lot of Jewish people.
Speaker 1: It's very rare that jew looks very good bald. We
Speaker 1: have weird egg shaped heads. Anyway, what was your experience
Speaker 1: with me for Vandetta? You know, I had never seen
Speaker 1: the films, and I only know you know that that
Speaker 1: famous scene where she shaves her head and like um
Speaker 1: and all the mask wearing. I remember I did sketch
Speaker 1: comedy in Chicago at at a place called Second City,
Speaker 1: and when we heard of it, have you heard of it?
Speaker 1: On one of those stages, we took over a show
Speaker 1: and the show before us had an opening that was
Speaker 1: very like themes of anarchy, themes of questioning authority, and
Speaker 1: the opening was them wearing these guy fox masks and
Speaker 1: and like right before the scene changes, you have to
Speaker 1: like take them off and put them in a paper bag.
Speaker 1: So my experience with guy fox masks is trying to
Speaker 1: dance in the dark with this and then like clumsy
Speaker 1: lee fumbling like trying to like put it in the
Speaker 1: bag before the lights come up, and you're like caught
Speaker 1: as the audience sees you like trying to stuff in
Speaker 1: a Guy Fox bag into a paper bag while the
Speaker 1: scene is changing. So that is my experience with Guy
Speaker 1: Fox masks and via fur Vendetta. That's a pretty thorough Yeah,
Speaker 1: what would you sort of I feel like before we
Speaker 1: do dive into the actual text, it is worth exploring
Speaker 1: that Guy Fox mask in popular culture. How would you
Speaker 1: describe the place that the Guy Fox mask has in
Speaker 1: popular culture? Anonymous? Yeah, but I but I feel like
Speaker 1: we we had that good point with Trump where it's like,
Speaker 1: but now it's sort of like the counter culture. It's
Speaker 1: always like the counterculture thing that's like trolling but almost
Speaker 1: just being a bad person on per us because I
Speaker 1: feel like some people think anarchy is quoted by like
Speaker 1: literally holding up the status quo in the most obnoxious
Speaker 1: of ways. Is what I think that this mask some
Speaker 1: people have like like taken that as a symbol of like,
Speaker 1: you know what everyone's talking about feminism, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be an asshole. My anarchy statement is to like push
Speaker 1: back on that system and the government. Yes exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna, like, I'm gonna hurt a lot of people
Speaker 1: because they to protect this statue of my oppressor, my
Speaker 1: experience with the Guy Fox mask. And I'm very embarrassed
Speaker 1: to say this. When I was in college, we put
Speaker 1: on a production of Sweeney Todd at the main stage
Speaker 1: of Brown University. And it was not just a production
Speaker 1: of Sweeney Todd. It was uh an Occupy Wall Street
Speaker 1: themed production of Sweeney Todd, which is the most I
Speaker 1: feel like every liberal state, every stereotype that like Tucker
Speaker 1: Carlson has about Brown University. It's like, oh, they're like
Speaker 1: there was a giant McDonald's billboard as the backdrop and
Speaker 1: someone spray painted over it, Eat the rich, Like that
Speaker 1: was like subtext us that was subject and during like
Speaker 1: the subtext and during like the you get it because
Speaker 1: in Sweeney Todd they yeah. And then during the masquerade scene,
Speaker 1: which is like a flashback of Sweeney Todd's wife, there's
Speaker 1: a masked ball and all all of us in the
Speaker 1: ensembles dancers were wearing Guy Fox masks and then she
Speaker 1: gets raped. Dana. Is that that's what they wanted? To
Speaker 1: project off to that that well, we were we were
Speaker 1: the the we were the idea was that we the
Speaker 1: students were occupying the theater putting on a production of
Speaker 1: Sweenets putting great. That's what everybody production of Sweeney Todd
Speaker 1: And you just have to have those masks that they're
Speaker 1: ready effort to use during the masquerade scene. I feel
Speaker 1: like that's a perfect college production story. Like I feel
Speaker 1: like every single one of us has one of those
Speaker 1: that we were right, this is going to absolutely blow
Speaker 1: everyone's money. Hit the nail on the head. It reminded
Speaker 1: me I did in college at Northwestern a production of
Speaker 1: Brett Caucasian Chalk Circle, and uh, you know, it's very meta.
Speaker 1: And the director decided is going to be in a
Speaker 1: circus tent, and she spent all of her money to
Speaker 1: put it in a circus tent on like Norris Lawn,
Speaker 1: which is right by the water, and it's because like
Speaker 1: society is a circus, you know, And and all of
Speaker 1: the budget went into that. And on the first night
Speaker 1: it was in May, there was a classic May Chicago
Speaker 1: thunderstorm and we were in a circus tent with lights
Speaker 1: and metal bleachers, and I was like, am I going
Speaker 1: to die for a production of Caucasian Chalk Circle. Um,
Speaker 1: and everyone in the audience was looking like are we
Speaker 1: going to die watching the student production of Chalk Circle?
Speaker 1: And then thankfully like someone called it called the dean's
Speaker 1: office or something, and it was shutdown and we had
Speaker 1: to do it in a in a conference room the
Speaker 1: rest of the time with carpet. Oh. Anyway, the complete
Speaker 1: aside that Mike, if you want to cut out, you
Speaker 1: can't keep please keep it in keeping well. I feel
Speaker 1: like theatricality is a big theme which brings us to
Speaker 1: book one, in which we meet our two protagonists e
Speaker 1: V and v UM. Okay, I'm gonna take a breather
Speaker 1: and prepare an elaborate set if you're listening and have
Speaker 1: read it or seen the movie, I'm going to give
Speaker 1: us to remind you, because we sort of have, you know,
Speaker 1: read all of them, what the beginning and the end
Speaker 1: of Act one is, so we can just sort of
Speaker 1: dive in so we all know the beginning is obviously
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the book, e V is a
Speaker 1: young woman working in this new post apocalyptic London, and
Speaker 1: she goes out to work her first night as a
Speaker 1: prostitute when she's accosted by Fingerman who are like the
Speaker 1: secret police. Um, we're going to get to the plot.
Speaker 1: But she meets V, who's like an anarchist revolutionary Uh
Speaker 1: bone V vaunt if you will, um and sort. The
Speaker 1: end of book one is we find out that V
Speaker 1: had been a inmate at like a concentration camp testing
Speaker 1: facility called lark Hill, and that the series of murders
Speaker 1: that he had done in book one are all people
Speaker 1: who were in authority there. So the investigating detective who's
Speaker 1: sort of maybe like the third main character we have
Speaker 1: like V E V. And then Creedy, who's is it Creed?
Speaker 1: No Finch? Sorry again, I made a cheat sheet of
Speaker 1: all the white guys because I kept running music trackoman names.
Speaker 1: The third maybe like of this triumvirant triumvirate is the
Speaker 1: head of the nose of this Norse fire party. Who's
Speaker 1: a guy named Finch who's a detective trying to figure
Speaker 1: out who this terrorist is. And at the end of
Speaker 1: book one, Book one, Finch finds out that these murders
Speaker 1: are all people who were at Larkhill and that maybe
Speaker 1: V is doing a vendetta, but maybe is vendetta is
Speaker 1: bigger than just larcale and and and it extends beyond.
Speaker 1: And that's just to cover up. Yeah, I that just
Speaker 1: to skip to the unreal quick of this book. I
Speaker 1: feel like I was really enjoying it. And I'm not
Speaker 1: someone who reads I don't read a lot of graphic novels,
Speaker 1: so this is like it's almost retraining my brain to
Speaker 1: to read this way. And it was kind of hard
Speaker 1: at first, I would say, but then I got really
Speaker 1: into it, and then I I just love that final
Speaker 1: page of like, well he might have been, you know,
Speaker 1: carrying out this vendetta on all these people, which is
Speaker 1: the optimistic theory, and I'm like, oh, ship, and it's
Speaker 1: like he's clearing the playing field to like set up
Speaker 1: some real ship. And I was like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: but that is right. It's a it's very optimistic to think, oh, well,
Speaker 1: he's only attacking these few people unless he's laying the groundwork. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems more likely that he's eliminated all of those people.
Speaker 1: He doesn't kill Lewis Breathroe, he renders him incurably insane. Oh,
Speaker 1: in a way that is so much scarier. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: but that means that none of the people who knew
Speaker 1: him in his previous identity are able to identify him anymore.
Speaker 1: I thought that rendering louis prothero who is the voice
Speaker 1: of Fate, who's the guy who does like the announcements
Speaker 1: for England on like a megaphone speaker through the town.
Speaker 1: So V knows he collects rare dolls, and he like
Speaker 1: renders him insane using putting on like a little vaudeville
Speaker 1: performance with these creepy inmate dolls. Um such a good
Speaker 1: use of the medium of a graphic novel, which is
Speaker 1: like using pictures and like creepy dolls are creepy, and
Speaker 1: so it's it's always interesting to me to see like
Speaker 1: what translates really well to a graphic novel. And I
Speaker 1: feel like that really was effectively scary to me. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: And also seeing him like back at the police police
Speaker 1: precinct or wherever he was like returned to just saying Mama,
Speaker 1: Mama over again was very very jarring and scary and
Speaker 1: also felt exactly, yeah, yeah, it's that it's that scary
Speaker 1: thing where because we don't know what he sees, we
Speaker 1: can always we can just fill in whatever's creepiest to us.
Speaker 1: M hmm, yeah, I found I you know, each way
Speaker 1: that V decides to dispatch these different people were it
Speaker 1: was also very interesting, especially Delia's Dr Delia's I was
Speaker 1: I thought that was just a great way to not
Speaker 1: so gently be like, even though you might be a
Speaker 1: good person, you were complicit in watching these terrible things
Speaker 1: happen and you didn't do anything about it. And he
Speaker 1: participants participant to Yeah, it wasn't just that she was
Speaker 1: like a citizen of the country who knew bad things
Speaker 1: were going on. She was giving people at a concentration
Speaker 1: camp medical scientific disease that caused most of them to
Speaker 1: die horribly, so she could work on a cure. But
Speaker 1: I do I do like that it gives V that
Speaker 1: moment of like killing her in a merciful way, and
Speaker 1: they sort of have that moment as peers, which is
Speaker 1: like almost as chilling to me as any of the murders.
Speaker 1: He just sort of like we see like that he
Speaker 1: has um a code a code of ethics in his
Speaker 1: own crazy mind, you know, like, yeah, he's not like
Speaker 1: a joker, he's not like out doing things because he's crazy.
Speaker 1: He's like very methodical and like he knows that she's
Speaker 1: like kind of a could have been a good person,
Speaker 1: she could do something. She was going about it in
Speaker 1: a horrifying way. Thank you. Yeah, I think Complicity was up.
Speaker 1: I think like that she had a she is it she?
Speaker 1: Also I think maybe had like a hint of a
Speaker 1: morse more so than say Presso as if that was
Speaker 1: his name. Yeah, he fucking sucks. He so like off
Speaker 1: with him. Can. I know you haven't seen the movie,
Speaker 1: but I'm so excited for you to see the movie. Like,
Speaker 1: I'm just so excited for you to see the movie.
Speaker 1: I mean I I also don't read graphic novels. This
Speaker 1: is my I think this is my first Yeah, for
Speaker 1: sure first one ever. So like Melissa had said, I
Speaker 1: had to like kind of train my brain to the
Speaker 1: style of it, and I've been missing out. They are right. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: Alan Moore is just really great too, Like just really,
Speaker 1: I'm not a huge graphic novel person, but I really
Speaker 1: like cal Off Alan wors graphic novels. My slight, Um,
Speaker 1: I am a big graphic novel person. I'm a big
Speaker 1: comic book person. My slight difficulty with this book at first,
Speaker 1: and it just took me a while and I got
Speaker 1: used to it. It was like a lot of a
Speaker 1: middle aged white dude looked the same to me, and
Speaker 1: I just wanted them all to be wearing name name
Speaker 1: tex when I'm also on that level. I just kind
Speaker 1: of accepted early on that I'm never going to know
Speaker 1: who's who, and I can use context clues to kind
Speaker 1: of figure out some of them, and that's okay with me.
Speaker 1: They don't need me to know who they are. They're
Speaker 1: not real people, um And it's fine, It's fine. That's
Speaker 1: kind of the point. I feel like, I feel like
Speaker 1: it was intentional that they were all drawn very similarly,
Speaker 1: because they're all kind of the same. They're all kind
Speaker 1: of very just like shadowy bad guy in Shadowy Bad Government,
Speaker 1: and I feel like that's kind of the reason that
Speaker 1: they are like that they're all sort of cogs in
Speaker 1: this like in this um. One thing that was really
Speaker 1: interesting to me that I I don't again want to
Speaker 1: compare it to the movie yet, but we do sort
Speaker 1: of get the like weird humanizing of these weird bureaucrats
Speaker 1: and we find out they're like boring lives and they're
Speaker 1: shitty marriages, which is almost scarier than just when bad
Speaker 1: guys are like like you know, Voldemort or just some
Speaker 1: like big bad to like know that these people doing
Speaker 1: an upholding horrific systems are just like shitty dumb dudes.
Speaker 1: They're just normal dudes. I'm sorry, competent dudes. Indeed we
Speaker 1: are mass me feel a little better. Kind of like
Speaker 1: to see Almond, who if I remember correctly, not to
Speaker 1: compare it to the movie, but was not in the movie,
Speaker 1: but like it was kind of really shitty in the book.
Speaker 1: To see him, like not to see him beating his wife,
Speaker 1: that makes me feel better, But seeing him die after
Speaker 1: seeing him beat his wife, I'm kind of like, maybe
Speaker 1: this vse guys onto something. I feel like he's not wrong.
Speaker 1: He's not necessarily right, but he's not wrong. He is
Speaker 1: very Another thing that Alan Moore criticized movie for is
Speaker 1: he's like v V isn't just about overthrowing to a
Speaker 1: totalitarian government. He is in favor of anarchy. That is
Speaker 1: the system of government that he wants. I Dani Schwartz, Um,
Speaker 1: if I was, you know, picking a government system, wouldn't
Speaker 1: go anarchy. But I think that V as a character
Speaker 1: is incredibly interesting and compelling. Yeah. I haven't seen the
Speaker 1: movie yet, Um, but I know, it's very exciting. It's
Speaker 1: so good. This is one one movie where again we'll
Speaker 1: get to it. Personally, I feel like it makes effective
Speaker 1: changes to work as a movie and really works as
Speaker 1: a movie. And seeing it kind of in reverse reading
Speaker 1: this for the first time after having seen the movie
Speaker 1: so many times and like, oh, I like, no disrespect
Speaker 1: to Alan Moore, but this is actually a pretty decent adaptation.
Speaker 1: You gotta tighten, you gotta make it be like where
Speaker 1: where's the two Hours? But there are some characters that
Speaker 1: are clearly cut out of the movie that I had
Speaker 1: basically forgotten about and I loved revisiting. Um I, Mary
Speaker 1: is obviously like a lovely woman, very sympathetic in this book.
Speaker 1: Um I'm obsessed with Helen Higher. Just to pass talking
Speaker 1: about Mary for a second. Helen Hire, who seemingly only
Speaker 1: wears a fur coat and has like platinum white ice
Speaker 1: queen hair, and introduces herself by being an unbelievable bitch
Speaker 1: to her husband. And then when when Mary's like, oh,
Speaker 1: she's quite hard on him, isn't she, her husband turns
Speaker 1: to her and it's like, you'll never be as cool
Speaker 1: as her? Never, wait, Mary, you mean love Rosemary right, Oh, yes,
Speaker 1: Rosemar Sorry, yeah, she watans Rosemary. I'm Rosemary. She rose
Speaker 1: by her husband. And Rosemary is a major character in
Speaker 1: the graphic novel who's cut out of the film. She
Speaker 1: is straight gone, straight gone, which I think is effective
Speaker 1: because the movie is making different points. But in the
Speaker 1: novel to trace uh Rosemary's journey, she is the wife
Speaker 1: of Almond, who's the head of the Finger Policeman, and
Speaker 1: he's really abusive to her, and she's kind of like
Speaker 1: meek and like, Okay, this sucks. And then again, jumping forward,
Speaker 1: I'm losing track a little bit because we're just talking
Speaker 1: about book one now, but jumping forward a little bit, Um,
Speaker 1: Almond is murdered she in book one, and being a
Speaker 1: widow without very many options, she uh starts dating uh
Speaker 1: the head of the Mouth Dascomb, Roger Dascomb, who's like
Speaker 1: the propaganda guy. Um, and then she'll sort of continue
Speaker 1: on a downward spiral, sort of like you know, a
Speaker 1: symbol for a lot of things. But Helen Hare get
Speaker 1: into we'll get into them more in book two, and
Speaker 1: Helen Hair we're going to get way more into in
Speaker 1: book three because that's when we figure out who she
Speaker 1: is I can't waited. I like the level of different
Speaker 1: experiences that we have with this one. I feel like
Speaker 1: it's like a nice milange. You know. Well, let's let's
Speaker 1: jump In book one, we're introduced to Evie, who's starting
Speaker 1: as a prostitute on her first night. What do we
Speaker 1: have the senior old prostitute in sixteen year old prostitute Chromazheimer.
Speaker 1: What do you make of a first time or eving? Uh, well,
Speaker 1: I think that she's a really great like what's the
Speaker 1: word I'm looking for, surrogate for the reader. She because
Speaker 1: she seems very innocent. She has experience with the world
Speaker 1: that we're in, and she's not, um, she's not unaware
Speaker 1: of what the system is, but she's still so young
Speaker 1: and kind of naive that it feels like it makes
Speaker 1: sense for people to explain things at her and to
Speaker 1: see things through her eyes, and like, obviously we get
Speaker 1: different perspectives from this, but I think that Evie is
Speaker 1: a great intro to the world. And we see the
Speaker 1: finger police and um, that's how we meet v Also,
Speaker 1: because she is so naive and like very bad at prostituting,
Speaker 1: that she's kind of like sex and he's like you're
Speaker 1: not great at this and she's like, um, sixteen, it's
Speaker 1: my first time. She I felt very relatable in that moment.
Speaker 1: I like, I two would be very bad at like
Speaker 1: a street walking type deal, and she's like crying. It's like,
Speaker 1: it's not it's it's hard, it's embarrassing. It's awkward to
Speaker 1: be like, would you want to you know, pay? And
Speaker 1: I also have sex with me. It's hard enough to
Speaker 1: ask a guy if they want to have sex with you,
Speaker 1: and not if they want to pay. But of course
Speaker 1: this is the moment that she's very bad. She's very
Speaker 1: bad at being approtesct it because she propositions a secret
Speaker 1: undercover cop and she's rescued by the very theatrical v
Speaker 1: who visually you know you in a graphic novel. Visually,
Speaker 1: it's very interesting because as we see uh Evie getting ready,
Speaker 1: the very next panel is sort of be getting ready
Speaker 1: in his mirror and he's putting on his mask and
Speaker 1: hair and hat. We assume before he gave a lot
Speaker 1: a lot of props and costumes for a anarchist. I'm
Speaker 1: just thinking in terms of like logistics, movement, fighting ability,
Speaker 1: a lot of planning, really nice pre fascism. He definitely
Speaker 1: was a theater major act. And oh yeah, I have
Speaker 1: more thoughts about that next week when we talk about
Speaker 1: book too. Um, but I'll get into that book we
Speaker 1: can talk about he loves like a flash bomb. And
Speaker 1: then he built the entire scale model of large even
Speaker 1: know is like what, what's where's all this budget production
Speaker 1: budget coming from? Like with with the all the different mass,
Speaker 1: all the dolls, all the I mean they're he took
Speaker 1: the Endowment for the Arts. That's where all their My
Speaker 1: thinking is maybe v when they were in theater when
Speaker 1: he wasn't there, school was like stage manner producing, stage
Speaker 1: manager production, because that's everything. It's like the back of UCB,
Speaker 1: Like that's where he is. Maybe he's at the u
Speaker 1: c B of their world. Maybe that is the where
Speaker 1: the hideout is. He could have taken to be very
Speaker 1: disappointed that we're making this so American. My logistical question
Speaker 1: is he's growing fancy roses and his his hideout, his underground.
Speaker 1: How do you how do you grow roses underground? Where sunlamp?
Speaker 1: Where is he getting all these sunlamps? That's where he's
Speaker 1: getting scale models of concentration camps like easier to get
Speaker 1: a sun lamp. But he's scale models, I mean concentration
Speaker 1: camp that no one knows existing. He's definitely on some
Speaker 1: kind of sound stage. It's gotta be with that scale,
Speaker 1: with that, and he's got good lighting. He likes. He's
Speaker 1: got a couple uh stage hands for sure, like putting, putting,
Speaker 1: follow the follow spot on him. You know, I think
Speaker 1: it's it's very funny to me to imagine the six
Speaker 1: weeks that went into him building and sewing the costumes alone,
Speaker 1: like sweating before we see just the end results. But there.
Speaker 1: I would love a book zero that's just him doing
Speaker 1: all the prep and all and running his line. Yes, nope,
Speaker 1: I need a line. Um, it's it's anti fascism. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, Carl. Yeah. I got to keep going, gotta
Speaker 1: work through it. He's got so much prep. Every single
Speaker 1: part of his like presentation, the way he kills, the
Speaker 1: way he moves about. There's just so much prep to it.
Speaker 1: He's like an anime villain. He just like loves the drama.
Speaker 1: The part that I was like, wow, he prepped this
Speaker 1: because this is just for him, is he gives that
Speaker 1: speech to Lady Justice the statue and he gives us
Speaker 1: me that he definitely a monologue that he definitely wrote
Speaker 1: and then he delivered. He plays both parts and then
Speaker 1: he like karaoke Nelly for Tomo Timberland, promiscuous girl to
Speaker 1: marry me. And then he deposits his bomb at her
Speaker 1: feet and it's a shaped like a box of chocolate.
Speaker 1: He doesn't know that we're watching a graphic novel of him.
Speaker 1: He thinks that he he made this. He made this
Speaker 1: box bomb and it's tied the bow and cut it
Speaker 1: and made it look nice, just for it to blow
Speaker 1: up for no one, just him. He's not posting it
Speaker 1: to his anarchy Instagram. The c s I people come
Speaker 1: and analyze it later it's blown out, not going to
Speaker 1: see it. They're like ribbon, where could he have bought
Speaker 1: this ribbon? Like have you never seen c s I.
Speaker 1: I don't maybe a watch a lot of fear. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I don't want to show as someone who now feels
Speaker 1: like I have the weird chip in my brain that
Speaker 1: anytime I do something, I need to like take a
Speaker 1: picture of it and posted on social media to prove
Speaker 1: that I exist. Where it's like there is something very
Speaker 1: sweet about him, just like doing all this for him
Speaker 1: no one's gonna see it, no one's gonna appreciate it.
Speaker 1: He just cares about the work. I feel like you
Speaker 1: should try that. To me, it feels like he has
Speaker 1: a lot of time on his hands, but people are
Speaker 1: going to see it. I mean it blew up like
Speaker 1: but not not the speech, not the details, the beautiful
Speaker 1: little box of chocolates that he put the bomb in.
Speaker 1: It feels like nobody has this much time. And I
Speaker 1: think it placed into the kind of magic of the
Speaker 1: because there's like a Martha Stewart element to all of
Speaker 1: these actions. There's a lot of preparation going into everything
Speaker 1: that I don't think you would have if you also
Speaker 1: had to dismantle a fascist government. Yeah. I could see
Speaker 1: a cooking video of the making the Communion host with cyanide,
Speaker 1: just like a beautiful YouTube. Crackers is hard, It's hard.
Speaker 1: What's about this is that this was the eighties, So
Speaker 1: how did he know how to do everything? He had
Speaker 1: to just know the library book he stole. He stole
Speaker 1: all these books, right, and and he was in when
Speaker 1: he was in his room five, he stole a bunch
Speaker 1: of books and it was just reading up on how
Speaker 1: to cook communion wafers. You don't have the right books,
Speaker 1: is he do? We think he's limited by the books
Speaker 1: that he had when he was I think I think
Speaker 1: that's it. I think all of it is based on, well,
Speaker 1: I have these eight I have these eight skills. One
Speaker 1: of them is making communion wafers, Like, how do I
Speaker 1: make it work in my vendetta? I think that's that's
Speaker 1: exactly it. He got these specific books and then built
Speaker 1: his vendetta only around the things on how eat does
Speaker 1: want to make a communion waper? I'm googling communion waper?
Speaker 1: But it's also gotten pretty easy. I mean there's Catholics
Speaker 1: eat so many of those every week. You know, Yes,
Speaker 1: they're manufactured for sure. And it doesn't have to taste good.
Speaker 1: I mean they tastes like nothing. I've never had it.
Speaker 1: It tastes like it truly tastes like less than nothing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of weird that it tastes less than nothing.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's rude to not make Jesus taste good,
Speaker 1: Like does that is that sacrilegious to say? Like you're
Speaker 1: gonna stick pins in your mouth? I feel like it
Speaker 1: should taste like, hey, yeah, Jesus and then I feel like,
Speaker 1: if you really believe in transubstantiation and you really believe
Speaker 1: that it's Jesus's body, you don't want to think about
Speaker 1: it that much. You want to associate like chocolate chip
Speaker 1: cookies Jesus, you know, like have like meat. You don't
Speaker 1: want it to be too literal. You don't need it
Speaker 1: to be like me. And but I'm not religious. If
Speaker 1: you get in different lines, you can get different like, um,
Speaker 1: hold on a second, I'm just really quick on to
Speaker 1: google some recipes for church wafers. After v rescues e
Speaker 1: V from the rape fingerman who we're going to rape
Speaker 1: and murder her because this metalitarian government. But also I
Speaker 1: think important violence against women is also an indicator of
Speaker 1: a lot of extremist ideology, so that at least felt
Speaker 1: felt unfortunately anchored. But v rescues her and brings her
Speaker 1: down to his hideaway, and uh she tells him sort
Speaker 1: of her story, which we'll get to, which is some
Speaker 1: like exposition about this world, and he asks her to help,
Speaker 1: and one of the ways that she helps him is
Speaker 1: by dressing up as a child prostitute to sleep with. Uh,
Speaker 1: the Bishop Anthony Lilliman, who's like the Westminster Bishop. Uh,
Speaker 1: and she's going to mean open the window for me
Speaker 1: to come in and kill him in a dramatic way.
Speaker 1: It visually made me made me think of killing Eve,
Speaker 1: which is funny because it's Evy. If if V and
Speaker 1: Evy were one person, it would be a killing Eve scene,
Speaker 1: Like how she's in this very elaborate costume and and
Speaker 1: just like like going out of her way to kill
Speaker 1: him in a creative way. But then he does it,
Speaker 1: and she's actually terrified. V is a theater major who
Speaker 1: takes one policy class, that's what, and philosophy one, and
Speaker 1: all the straight girls on this pud or have had
Speaker 1: sex with him and regretted it as well. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I as someone maybe as someone who maybe as someone
Speaker 1: who um is not Christian in any way, but I'm
Speaker 1: like very fascinated by like Christian symbolism and like idea,
Speaker 1: Like it's very like beautiful and spooky to me, and
Speaker 1: I kind of like I love that imagery, so like
Speaker 1: I loved and was very spooked by like the juxtaposition
Speaker 1: of like V sneaking into this abbey with like the
Speaker 1: text was like we ask in the name of the
Speaker 1: father and son or like whatever, like which might be
Speaker 1: very mundane to someone who is Catholic, but like to
Speaker 1: me as someone those are those are still spooky words.
Speaker 1: I'm just like the whole like as I walk through
Speaker 1: the valley of the Yeah, it is very speaky. I
Speaker 1: mean scary. It's scary sanity. It's like on the cross
Speaker 1: and every church there's a Jesus like bleeding from it,
Speaker 1: dying on a freaking crucifix. You know. That is very
Speaker 1: dark and very theatrical on the church. Don't scare me
Speaker 1: as much as the fact that people wear it on necklaces.
Speaker 1: For me, is a mind warp where you're just like,
Speaker 1: wait a second, there's like a dead dude on your neck.
Speaker 1: You realize that it's that's also like usually kind of
Speaker 1: cut to Jesus, like have abs while he's dying, which
Speaker 1: is just can I say, come gutters in relation to Jesus.
Speaker 1: I don't. I thought it, but I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna say it because it's gonna make people angry.
Speaker 1: Please don't it. Oh my god, I did not know
Speaker 1: that is what that is called. It's another thing. Thank
Speaker 1: god my parents don't listen to this podcast. My dad
Speaker 1: just said he was going to start listening. Sorry Dad, Sorry, wait,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, wait, I have to step back now, come gutters,
Speaker 1: because it's it would it's no logical reasons in the
Speaker 1: last week and it doesn't make are you know, because
Speaker 1: if becomes it's erect and then it rips down cutters.
Speaker 1: Don't make me explain that. I just said it. I
Speaker 1: didn't explain it. But like all out also in relation
Speaker 1: to Jesus, it's just the best part of it. Thanks Daana.
Speaker 1: I just want to make sure it's a clarify that
Speaker 1: was data. Data definitely said that. Okay, well, now let
Speaker 1: me let me redeem myself really fast by then making
Speaker 1: and then by just making it. A very smart point
Speaker 1: that I'm gonna make is that theatricality historically was a
Speaker 1: major power of the Catholic Church, and that was authority
Speaker 1: over the people. Like the Catholic Church was all about
Speaker 1: imagery and really striking stained glass and portraits and the
Speaker 1: Latin Mass and song and the smell hangy smells. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. No, no, sorry, I'm such a shitty person. Rolla, No,
Speaker 1: it wasn't. It was the hand motion what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: The thing we know exactly what you're talking about And
Speaker 1: I think that's the point is that first I was
Speaker 1: a theater major in college, and most of my performance
Speaker 1: theory class we talked about Christianity and how theater, theatricality
Speaker 1: and performance developed in the Catholic Church and um, like
Speaker 1: Christmas Mummer plays and Corpus Christie's and how they would
Speaker 1: travel around because there were so many people that wanted
Speaker 1: to see the elevation of the hope that they had
Speaker 1: to take it out of the church because people would
Speaker 1: like go church hopping to see as many elevations as
Speaker 1: possible because they're like, that's how I'm getting into heaven.
Speaker 1: Which I don't think that's how it works. I think
Speaker 1: you have to also like the more you see in heaven,
Speaker 1: but why not head your bets? But um, what I
Speaker 1: was gonna say the other thing is, uh, this is
Speaker 1: so dumb, and it's not as bad as the thing
Speaker 1: that Dana said, which is also a very environment smart point. Um.
Speaker 1: But in the beginning of the music video for Helena
Speaker 1: by My Chemical Romance, they sort of open it up
Speaker 1: with the hangy smelly thing and like that level of
Speaker 1: theatricality and the attraction of like the church and the uh,
Speaker 1: they're like very strong, powerful symbols, and I like the
Speaker 1: way that in this fascist society they use that. And
Speaker 1: they have this like lecture that the priest, that's the
Speaker 1: word priest is giving and he's talking about how it's
Speaker 1: sort of like the priest and the voice of Fate
Speaker 1: work in tandem and they together tell everybody how to
Speaker 1: make Britain great and keep Britain great and how they
Speaker 1: should work together. And I think it's interesting that Britain
Speaker 1: and specific which I think is to Alan Moore's point,
Speaker 1: is that they have not a separation of church and
Speaker 1: state the way that we do in the United State,
Speaker 1: the way that we say we do you create the
Speaker 1: way that we claim we do. That is a very
Speaker 1: smart and important point. But like they're not even pretending
Speaker 1: they have the Anglican Church. The whole thing with the
Speaker 1: Royal family is that they have been chosen by God.
Speaker 1: They're the head of the church. Yeah, And so I
Speaker 1: think it's really interesting how that works and how it's
Speaker 1: sort of like using their tools against them, the theatricality
Speaker 1: that v uses too then overthrow them. He also sort
Speaker 1: of does the thing like a like a Batman villain,
Speaker 1: where he like leaves clues on purpose, like he specifically
Speaker 1: breeds these rare roses that can if someone is smart,
Speaker 1: can trace this rare breed back to lark Hill where
Speaker 1: he was, and he specifically then leaves the diary visible
Speaker 1: with Delia, who's the doctor. That's why it's so chilling
Speaker 1: at the end that like um uh, Finch is like,
Speaker 1: well maybe you know this. We hope this is just
Speaker 1: as Vendetta, but maybe the Vendetta is covering up something bigger,
Speaker 1: like he is doing the Batman villain thing of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm the Riddler. I'm leaving you the fucking clues of
Speaker 1: who I am and what I'm doing, because the theatricality
Speaker 1: is part of his power. He wants to like thrill
Speaker 1: and excite the people of England with like him as
Speaker 1: a symbol. He wants to turn himself into a symbol.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I thought was fascinating is
Speaker 1: that there's an offhand mentioned on the radio that the
Speaker 1: royal family still exists. The princesses out and she's wearing
Speaker 1: a lovely salmon colored frock. Um. And I think that
Speaker 1: is part of the theatricality of England, that it's something
Speaker 1: we don't have here that you have these people that
Speaker 1: kind of performatively try to embody the English spirit and
Speaker 1: what where where are they? What are they doing? How?
Speaker 1: How how do they live in this completely fascist country? Now?
Speaker 1: What is the season of the Crown? Like in before Vendetta?
Speaker 1: You know, I I hate to do the Hitler comparison,
Speaker 1: but Hitler comparison. I also do this history podcast called
Speaker 1: Noble Blood Shoutout, and I did an episode about Crown
Speaker 1: Prince Wilhelm, who was the son of the last Kaiser
Speaker 1: Kaiser Wilhelm the first, And when Hitler was building a
Speaker 1: fascist government and claiming power, it was really important for
Speaker 1: him to have Crown Prince Wilhelm like by his side
Speaker 1: wearing a Nazi uniform to like legitimize the government. So
Speaker 1: this is like, this is Germany, this is our government.
Speaker 1: That's it's a continuation of power. So it totally makes
Speaker 1: sense in a historical way that maybe even Alan Moore
Speaker 1: was um going forward that like a fascist government would
Speaker 1: be like. And yes, the British royal family continues. This
Speaker 1: is just a continuation of Britain being made great. We
Speaker 1: are not a separate thing that overthrew Britain. We are
Speaker 1: Brittain well and it is. Sorry Ellen Moore, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: compare it to modern day America. Um, it is so funny.
Speaker 1: That was so funny to me about Donald Trump, like
Speaker 1: pre election, is that he was so desperately trying to
Speaker 1: find celebrities that would be like on his side or
Speaker 1: like come up, and it would end up being like
Speaker 1: a little pump I think was the last one before
Speaker 1: the the end, and like it just felt like a
Speaker 1: fascist I wanna be fascist dictator was trying to do that.
Speaker 1: But in America, most celebrities hate you. They are and
Speaker 1: they are real. They are royalty. Oh yeah. As soon
Speaker 1: as Jen was talking about the royal family, I was like,
Speaker 1: what do you mean, we don't have a royal family.
Speaker 1: One thing is the Queen. I once in an airport
Speaker 1: when I was going through customs coming uh back from London.
Speaker 1: It was in l A. I was behind this couple
Speaker 1: with two little kids and it was like a like
Speaker 1: an eight year old and a girl and a six
Speaker 1: year old boy. And the girl said, do you know
Speaker 1: this is where Queen Beyonce lives? Oh god, okay, that's awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I was like, you're right, that is more Queen Beyond.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say slightly back to uh be for Vendetta,
Speaker 1: Good for Alan Moore for breaking the stereotype that priests
Speaker 1: are gay pedophiles and just making the priests just a
Speaker 1: regular pedophile. It seems important about all of the people
Speaker 1: that we see really up close, is they're supposed to
Speaker 1: represent this hyper masculine religion is a classic conservative model,
Speaker 1: and none of them do. Like prothero is the voice
Speaker 1: of the nation, and he is obsessed with dolls, which
Speaker 1: nothing dolls, but it's not like a hobby I think
Speaker 1: John Wayne probably had, but absolutely, yeah, no, I think
Speaker 1: it's the same. I think you can see that a
Speaker 1: lot with Donald Trump as well, that I do not
Speaker 1: think of him as being particularly masculine. He wears makeup
Speaker 1: and is very obsessed with his appearance. Um, he's very
Speaker 1: worried about like people criticizing him, or lies about his weight,
Speaker 1: like a lot of things that I just don't think
Speaker 1: of hyper masculine people is doing or worrying about. And
Speaker 1: we see that with all of these characters in this book,
Speaker 1: like they love dolls or um, or they're like a
Speaker 1: pedophile pedophile or um. Derek Almond I guess it's completely
Speaker 1: enthrall to Helen Hair. My favorite moment of the book
Speaker 1: where he just talks about how his wife will never
Speaker 1: be as cool as her because she's such a mean fish.
Speaker 1: Shut out a Rosemary, you were, Helen Hair, I mean, Dana,
Speaker 1: you have the cheat sheet? Who was the female doctor?
Speaker 1: What's her name? Her name is? I loved that whole
Speaker 1: sequence because I felt like, you know, you see all
Speaker 1: the other ones, and they're all fighting, and they're they're
Speaker 1: all very all of them are equally culpable, particularly Delia.
Speaker 1: But I loved seeing one of the characters like she
Speaker 1: has been eaten away by guilt and fear and shame
Speaker 1: and it's just ready to die, like because she felt
Speaker 1: like this was always coming, whether out of her own
Speaker 1: guilt or just out of like knowledge of consequences. Um.
Speaker 1: And I thought that was the best scene, Like in
Speaker 1: the build up that that was the last kill was
Speaker 1: really a powerful scene. She also seemed smart in the
Speaker 1: way that the men that v kills didn't, that she
Speaker 1: understood what was happening. She is she's liked you, I
Speaker 1: I know what's happening. I yes, good, Like I was
Speaker 1: gonna say something along similar lines where I think it's
Speaker 1: interesting that the only person who feels any level of
Speaker 1: remorse that we at least get to see shown is
Speaker 1: also the only person who's like, of course this is
Speaker 1: going to come back to get me, and is also
Speaker 1: a woman. And I think that that's uh, I think
Speaker 1: that it's I'm not saying all women in government are good.
Speaker 1: I mean, Margaret Thatcher right off the bat, not necessarily
Speaker 1: my idol as a hashtag strong woman, but um, I
Speaker 1: think it's interesting to see the empathy in this story
Speaker 1: at the very least comes through mostly from the women
Speaker 1: in power. Yeah. I know that many, Yeah, but then
Speaker 1: it is interesting, like, I mean that you can you
Speaker 1: can be this woman with empathy, this person with empathy,
Speaker 1: and still get sucked into wanting to be in a
Speaker 1: position of power, being close to power, and using it
Speaker 1: against other people. So I think, I mean, I love
Speaker 1: all of the complexities of that and Delian particular, and
Speaker 1: especially because with the people that they are subjugating in
Speaker 1: this camp. Like a lot of conversations are being had
Speaker 1: right now about like the percentage of white women that
Speaker 1: continue to vote for Trump and how white women benefit
Speaker 1: more from white supremacy than they do from intersectional feminism,
Speaker 1: and part of that is that, like you attach yourself,
Speaker 1: if you have multiple privileged identities, you attach yourself to
Speaker 1: the one they give you the most privilege, and in
Speaker 1: this case, it's whiteness. And um, it's really interesting to
Speaker 1: see that she is a straight white woman and they
Speaker 1: are subjugating people of color and queer people at these camps.
Speaker 1: So she's like, well, you know, yeah, I'm a woman
Speaker 1: and I have empathy, but also like, we don't need
Speaker 1: these undesirable Well, I do think I do think she
Speaker 1: does justify to herself. Not that I think she again
Speaker 1: not to defend her because she's like an indefensible member
Speaker 1: of the fatalitarian party, but I think she thinks, uh,
Speaker 1: it is bad that the government is locking up queer
Speaker 1: people and people of color, but they are can't help it,
Speaker 1: going to use this to my advantage and do some
Speaker 1: medical tests that I'm curious about. I shout out to
Speaker 1: another podcast, um that Dana turned me onto You're wrong about,
Speaker 1: which you were also on There was a several parts
Speaker 1: on the Tuskegee Syphilist study and that may end Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that made me think of this, and I wonder
Speaker 1: if that was a an inspiration for it because it
Speaker 1: is all of these justifications, Melissa, that took place in America.
Speaker 1: This is a I was gonna say nothing. Britain can't
Speaker 1: a lot of ideas from from America that might have
Speaker 1: been like life imitating art imitating life. I don't know,
Speaker 1: Like but maybe maybe because I'm sure that people had
Speaker 1: their own ship, that they probably Indian people or something,
Speaker 1: because they did a whole bunch of shitty stuff the Indians. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe the scientists wrote at the Tuskegee experiment like, oh,
Speaker 1: these Brits had a great one is actually perfect example
Speaker 1: of that. Can you explain that? Yeah? During the Boord War, um,
Speaker 1: a lot of people were put into concentration camps, and
Speaker 1: the Britain's decided that rather than contain any diseases that
Speaker 1: were ravaging through those camps, they would just let the
Speaker 1: diseases explode unchecked. Um. And it wouldn't lower the morale
Speaker 1: of the soldiers because they wouldn't have to kill them
Speaker 1: up close. They just put them in really really close quarters. Um.
Speaker 1: And they just let everyone who got sick stay with
Speaker 1: everyone else. And um, it's considered a very notable instance
Speaker 1: of genocide. Like that's still genocide if you make or
Speaker 1: allow people that you have control over to remain sick
Speaker 1: and they die as a result. That's that's I mean,
Speaker 1: that's also a lazy genocide. Like if you're going to
Speaker 1: kill people, kill them. Not saying we should kill people,
Speaker 1: but I'm just saying, like it's so rude to be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna let you die. You're not going to
Speaker 1: at least to have the v for Vendetta thing and
Speaker 1: come up with like an elaborate and fun, dramatic way
Speaker 1: to kill someone. If we're going to kill someone, you
Speaker 1: have to come up with it a whole theme. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I already regret saying that, But what I mean is
Speaker 1: it feels like there's something that these people are saying,
Speaker 1: you're not even worth the effort of actually exterminating you,
Speaker 1: and that is adding insult to injury in my eyes.
Speaker 1: Like I'm not saying anyone should kill people, but I
Speaker 1: do feel like it's almost more offensive to me that
Speaker 1: it's like we're just gonna let them hang out together
Speaker 1: and get sick off each other and we'll just see
Speaker 1: what happened. I mean, that was what I think it's showed,
Speaker 1: Like I'm not the only thing, but an element of
Speaker 1: what was so awful about like the Tuskegee experiment, where
Speaker 1: it was just this idea like, well they have symphilis anyway,
Speaker 1: they probably aren't going to get treatmental let's whatever tell
Speaker 1: them that they symphilist, but also in that it was bad.
Speaker 1: It was lazy science too, and that like they didn't
Speaker 1: take down they like lost track of some of the
Speaker 1: people they were doing this horrible thing too, and like whoops,
Speaker 1: we lost a few, and like just they did the science.
Speaker 1: There was no science there. It was super lazy. It's
Speaker 1: like most people who are evil are also lazy. It
Speaker 1: just shows like a complete disregard of human and life
Speaker 1: and like that white supremacy, that racism of just like
Speaker 1: well whatever, well, because I think it's also yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: it's rooted in like the white supremacy and the thinking
Speaker 1: of like biological superiority. So like it's like you're letting
Speaker 1: these people they're getting sick on their own accord because
Speaker 1: they're just not strong. Yeah. I think they're just not
Speaker 1: strong enough to fight it off. So, and to go
Speaker 1: back to the book, Delia Is, she comes in and
Speaker 1: says that in her diary She says that like she starts,
Speaker 1: she starts looking at people and like seeing people of
Speaker 1: color and creeer people. She's like, oh, I started to
Speaker 1: be like disgusted by them. Like mm, she's a bit yeah.
Speaker 1: If she doesn't go in there, incredibly racist, She is
Speaker 1: incredibly racist. Those systems are also designed to dehumanize the people,
Speaker 1: and like totalitarian government and racism, says, systems work by
Speaker 1: you know, indoctrinating the people. And so it's like it's
Speaker 1: what's that that thing cognitive dissonance where it's like she
Speaker 1: has to treat these people in a certain way, so
Speaker 1: your brain is like, well, yeah, then they're disgusting. I
Speaker 1: will say, um, I think it's interesting that what ends
Speaker 1: up being their downfall is there sort of infantilization of
Speaker 1: these patients and they're like so cute. How the gyron
Speaker 1: room five has a little piles ye, little piles of
Speaker 1: bomb stuff? Why why the little piles of like chemicals?
Speaker 1: Did no one see that? I would have immediately been
Speaker 1: like I would have been like, wait, no, there's a
Speaker 1: plan here. And she even says, I think there's like
Speaker 1: a little method to his madness. He's so sweet, he's
Speaker 1: so fun and like treating him like a child or
Speaker 1: a pet, where it's like, oh this is cute. Um,
Speaker 1: it ends up being the thing that gets their ship
Speaker 1: blown up, like they underestimated. I mean, I think they
Speaker 1: have oppressed these people so much that they've forgotten that
Speaker 1: these people are capable of hating them. That if you
Speaker 1: have a system where people are not allowed to look
Speaker 1: you with the eyes or talk to you, and then
Speaker 1: there's one who can like grow flowers, yeah you've at
Speaker 1: that point. You've forgotten that is a very dangerous human
Speaker 1: being who probably hates you. Can I ask before we
Speaker 1: close out, what do you make of E V and
Speaker 1: V in their relationship and how they interact with each
Speaker 1: other and how he interacts with her. I was going
Speaker 1: to say, I really do like like the way that
Speaker 1: Delia is like a nuanced female character. Alan Moore is
Speaker 1: obviously a man. He wrote this in I think that
Speaker 1: the eighties I don't love like the daddy issues stuff
Speaker 1: with Oh yeah, he's obviously her dad. It's like, all right,
Speaker 1: that's whatever. I mean. I think that she is more
Speaker 1: of a conduit to the story than a character, and
Speaker 1: so I find it a little uncomfortable when they like
Speaker 1: I don't know, are like lazy when they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: the sixteen year old has daddy issues because her dad,
Speaker 1: the socialist was murdered by the fact normal dad normal
Speaker 1: issues because of that, look, I think if we can
Speaker 1: accept that the second missister Winter wanted a murder daddy,
Speaker 1: we could also accept that they all love murder daddy's.
Speaker 1: She wants a murder daddy, but she does not herself
Speaker 1: want to murder. And I do think that that is
Speaker 1: something that's interesting. Your insistent that she's like, I don't
Speaker 1: want to be a part of this. I have no
Speaker 1: desire to inflict pain on others, even though I've been
Speaker 1: in a shitty situation because of this government, like they
Speaker 1: almost killed her. And even with that, she was like,
Speaker 1: you used me to kill somebody and you didn't tell me.
Speaker 1: And it brings up a really interesting thing about consent.
Speaker 1: She didn't consent to be in this government system, but
Speaker 1: she also didn't consent to overthrow it in this way,
Speaker 1: and I thought that was really interesting. That's really well said. Well,
Speaker 1: I think on that note, and one more thing I
Speaker 1: wanted to add. Another problem that Alan Moore had with
Speaker 1: the film adaptation was that he didn't think that they
Speaker 1: um went far enough in on the themes of white
Speaker 1: supremacy and racism within totalitarian regimes, and I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: that is a theme that was very important to him
Speaker 1: and I think definitely comes out very quickly in a
Speaker 1: book two called The Vicious Cabaret. So on that note, Well,
Speaker 1: hearing you next week, or you'll hear us next week.
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, we can hear you, guys. You want to
Speaker 1: tell you the baby. That's our show for the week.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening. I'm Danish Schwartz and
Speaker 1: you can find me on Twitter at Danish Schwartz with
Speaker 1: three z s. You can follow Jennifer Wright at Jen
Speaker 1: Ashley Right, Karama Donqua is at Karama Drama, Melissa Hunter
Speaker 1: is at Melissa f t W and Tan Tran is
Speaker 1: smart enough to have gotten off Twitter, but she is
Speaker 1: on Insta at Hank Tina. Our executive producer is Christopher
Speaker 1: Hesiodes were produced and edited by Mike John's Special thanks
Speaker 1: to David Wasserman. Next week, we continue our November discussion
Speaker 1: of V four Vendetta, the graphic Novel, with book two.
Speaker 1: This Vicious Cabaret Popcorn Book Club is a production of
Speaker 1: I heart radio,