V for Vendetta is about Anarchy
Anarchists: This Friday marks the beginning of our most important opportunity in decades to communicate with millions about the possibility of a world without capitalism or coercion. On Friday, March 17, 2006, the long awaited film version of Alan Moore’s classic graphic novel, V for Vendetta, will premier throughout the US. V for Vendetta is the story of an anarchist who dismantles a fascist state through propaganda of the deed, inspiring the masses to revolt with a vision of building an anarchist future. The book’s protagonist does not simply promote vague anti-authoritarianism or nondescript appeals to “question authority” but explicitly and compellingly calls for the masses to eliminate the state and replace it with anarchy.Unsurprisingly, this radical message has been lost in the translation to Hollywood’s watered-down film version. Warner Bros. presents a hero rebelling against fascism and advocating “freedom”, yet never suggests that until the state is destroyed, no one will truly be free. Alan Moore has described the script of the film as “rubbish” and had demanded that his name be removed from it.
Time and again, anarchists have seen our message distorted, our comrades martyred, and our stories erased by the corporate and governmental
servants of the ruling class. We cannot allow this to happen again!
An ad hoc group of anarchists in New York City have launched AforAnarchy.com, a website and education campaign designed to reinject anarchist politics into V for Vendetta and radicalize audiences of the film.
We are calling for anarchists everywhere to use the film as an opportunity for education and dialogue. Through the use of literature, speakouts, lit tables, and street theater outside movie theaters showing the film, we can inspire moviegoers leaving the film to join the fight for a stateless society. In New York, we will begin doing these things at sneak previews on March 16th and will continue at theaters for the duration of the films’s run in theaters.
To this end, we have created a number of ideas and tools that we hope you will find helpful. (Further information and downloads can be found
at AforAnarchy.org in the Contact & Press section):
* We have prepared a flyer to distribute at your local movie theater where V is showing revealing the graphic novel’s anarchist politics and encouraging moviegoers to embrace anarchy. We’ve deliberately kept the politics fairly general in an attempt to create a document that can represent anarchists of all tendencies.
Feel free to modify it to suit the needs of your local community. And of course, if you don’t like this flyer, by all means, create one that you prefer.
* Engage audience through costumed role playing of “deleted scenes”—acting out portions of the graphic novel where V speaks in support of anarchy.
* We have designed sticker mock-ups to promote the website that you can download, print on sticker paper, and stick all sorts of places. Of course, we DO NOT suggest that you put them on V for Vendetta movie ads, as this would be vandalism, and vandalism is against the law.
* While many of us are skeptical of the corporate and in some cases even the alternative media, they can be a powerful vehicle for getting the attention of large numbers of people. While we obviously can’t expect them to accurately represent our entire message, we can at least use them to pique people’s curiosity and drive people to the website, where we can present an unfiltered message, To this end, we have prepared a model press release available on the website that you can send to your local media documenting your V for Vendetta related outreach activities., and will be sending a national press release, which can include information on your local actions if you email it to adam@wetlands-preserve.org.
We invite you to use these resources and join us in any or all of the actions listed above. Our hope is to gain a nationwide, significant, and unsuspected response to the film’s release that will lead moviegoers to a far more radical place than the corporate filmmakers behind this film intended, and help to bring thousands of new people to the anarchist movement. We thank you for your consideration and look forward to hearing from you.
For Anarchy,
aforanarchy.com
(an ad hoc collective on individual members of groups like New York Metro Anarchist Alliance, NEFAC, Wetlands Activism Collective,
Freegan.info, Students for A Democratic Society, Libertad Skool Collective and other groups)
