V FOR VOMITOUS

While I was recovering from surgery, I had a chance to see V FOR VENDETTA, starring Hugo Weaving’s voice and Natalie Portman’s bald head. I must say that rarely have I hated a movie so much.

Usually when I say I “hate” a movie, it is in the half-serious half-pompous and utterly frivolous way that, for example, a fan of Green Lantern “hates” Kyle Ryner (who is not the real Green Lantern) or the way that fans of Spiderman “hated” the black costume (until it became a supervillain in its own right). In other words, geeky fans are just having fun by disliking something they know, deep down, is not very serious. Fanboys “hate” things because they are things that insult our intelligence, or they are pious-PC dreck, or they treat our beloved schoolboy comic characters with contempt.

But I was appalled by this movie in a most serious way, appalled with a revulsion I can hardly explain. It did not offend my aesthetic sense, but my moral sense.

I am not saying the movie offended the principles of story-telling, such as by being ugly or boring (it was, of course). I thought the movie offended humanity itself, by acting as an apologist for evil, by glorifying terrorism, by upholding as noble the doctrine of nothingness which forms the empty core of nihilism.

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.