There’s nothing quite like the anxiety that surrounds an election month. The life-altering decision can leave anxiety balls bigger than eggs clustered in the back of your throat, especially in the year 2024. Americans have only two more days to make their decision, which feels incredibly akin to a battle for our country’s soul, and in between shoveling down Tums faster than left over Halloween candy, most of us are desperate for a distraction.
While dystopian series like The Handmaid’s Tale hit so close to home it feels like a hate crime, there are plenty of excellent films to help curb the overwhelming sensation of losing control. The 2005 political action film V for Vendetta fuels the righteous anarchist in everyone and better yet – the adaptation of Alan Moore‘s masterpiece is available on streaming.
Alan Moore demanded his name be struck from the property after the disappointing adaptations of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and From Hell, but we have to wonder if he ever regretted the decision (he does not). As the beloved title circulates on Amazon’s Prime Video just in time for November 5th, it’s overlapping with the perfect American not-holiday – the 2024 General Election.
It’s been nearly 2 decades since V for Vendetta hit theaters, but the dystopian film, which some fans believe takes place in the same universe as 1984– has maintained its cultural relevance far better than it has any right to. A large part of that is the insanely relatable Evey Hammond (Natalie Portman). An entry-level employee for the propagandist British Television Network, and an everyman living under the fist of tyranny. She speaks the first lines of the trailer, “I wish I wasn’t afraid all the time,” and girl, me too.
She’s scared all the time, exhausted by life, and trapped under an authoritarian regime that was, not so long ago, the Great Britain we know and love. After the rise of the Norsefire party, a fascist and totalitarian regime staunchly against immigrants, homosexuals, and various religions, the country is left heavily surveilled and violently oppressed.
But unlike those of us stuck in reality, Hammond has the mysterious and dangerous V (Hugo Weaving) on her side. The enigmatic vigilante represents the rebel in us all, and his Guy Fawkes mask carries the weight of history. The cheerful face is based on a 1600s Englishman, Guy Fawkes, one of 13 men who masterminded a plot to assassinate the Protestant King James. The assassination was discovered on November 5, the same day it was set to go through, and and Fawkes was tortured before being executed. The day parliament was meant to burn was declared a day of celebration, one characterized by bonfires and the distinctive mask.
The USA is nowhere near V for Vendetta’s level of authoritarianism, but it’s a future many Americans – mostly women – live in fear of. In recent years, dozens of laws that surveil women’s reproductive health care have been passed. One Republican lawmaker, Katie Britt, even proposed a national database to keep tabs on pregnant people. In many ways, the election has come down to this not-so-simple issue.
Plenty of women are wringing their hands over a potential future without pregnancy-related health care in the real world, and while V for Vendetta can’t assuage that terror, it does deliver some oh-so-necessary endorphin rushes.
A classic 2000s action wonder it’s loaded with explosions, and best of all, the bad guys all get their comeuppance in the end. The flick single-handedly revitalized the sales of Guy Fawkes and reaffirmed it as a symbol of anarchists around the world. V for Vendetta might not tip the election in your preferred direction, but it will definitely ignite your rebellious yet patriotic feelings.
Just don’t blow up the Senate over it.