Though Gordon thinks himself protected by his wealth and influence, one overly-satirical TV show is enough to see him beaten and disappeared by a black ops squad in the night. In another massive departure from the source material, Gordon (Stephen Fry) is a closeted gay man living in fear of losing everything if the party leadership find out he’s not straight. While V assassinates the Bishop, Evey escapes his grasp and takes shelter with her former colleague Gordon Dietrich.

last year for drug possession alone.Īmid this great calamity cowers Eve, the liberal audience’s stand-in, futilely fleeing V’s revolutionary rhetoric. It is impossible to know how many people have died as a direct or indirect result of America’s drug war according to the Drug Policy Alliance, nearly 1.4 million arrests were made in the U.S. Some would rightly cite the current refugee crisis and Trump's willingness to establish concentration camps as ample enough proof, but those whose memories include the Nixon administration might well point emphatically at the War on Drugs, which Watergate co-conspirator John Ehrlichman admitted was an invention to target Black Americans and antiwar activists for police violence. One need not expend much labor to uncover a given instance of the American far right wing ginning up conservative ire over a “problem” they themselves created. More to the point, Norsefire are ultimately found responsible for the very chemical attack that propelled them to an overwhelming electoral victory, one which allowed them a chokehold on governing power going forward. Although the Wachowskis don’t outright name white supremacy as a motivating force behind their fascists, the red armbands, nearly-whitewashed cast, and retention of the party name “Norsefire” are more than enough to suggest their nationalist roots.

It is the differences in V’s worldbuilding on a macro scale, however, that so chillingly mirrors American history.

V de la vendetta alan moore