V For Vendetta and Fight Club

[Lenin II]

Both present a revolt against capitalistic society. What do you think?

[Sadena Meti]

V = Anarchist
Fight Club = Nihilist Primitivist


No marxism involved

[Zero]

V (the movie) is to Anarchism what Sex and the City is to everyday life. Read the illustrated series.

I however have not seen Fight Club, so I can't say where thats going on that one.

[Hate Is Art]

so many threads about this, use the search function.

[Lenin II]

Originally posted by rev-[email protected] 05, 2007 03:38 pm
V = Anarchist
Fight Club = Nihilist Primitivist


No marxism involved
Both maintain that governments have always been their peoples’ greatest enemies, both are anti-capitalist and anti-fascist, both are anarchist, masculine and anti-materialistic. In fact, to show their affinities with Marxist culture, if on a somewhat superficial level, the W Brothers’ promotional poster for V was done in the style of the Stenberg brothers, two mainstays of Soviet poster art. Plus, V dressed in black and red.

I'm not saying I'm totally convinced of this, I'm just wondering what you guys think. Please elaborate.

[Clover]

Fight Club is not anti-fascist at all ;)

Durden could be considered a dictator, and he sets stringent socioeconomic controls. The "space monkeys" got the same macho ideals as fascists.

[Pirate Utopian]

say what you want but fight club is overrated

[Keyser]

Even though the film version of V for Vendetta is watered down (Hollywood, what can we expect) in terms of the politics of the original comic (anarchism vs. fascism), the film is still far superior in it's political content to Fight Club.

I'm am not saying that Fight Club was shit, Edward Norton and Helena Carter were great in the film (sadly Brad Pitt ruined it a bit for me), just that too many people take Fight Club way to seriously and make it something it is not.

Fight Club is not supposed to be about fascism, communism, anarchism, capitalism or anti-capitalism, simply it is a film that is very post-modernist. A film were all the certainties of the past and all the ideological causes and battle lines have become blurred in a world that has lost both purpose and meaning, in short a film about social atomisation and deep alienation. This is as close a critique of capitalism that Fight Club gets.

Fight Club does not concern itself with governments and the abuse of power by a dictator, as does V for Vendetta. There is no James Susan (the dictator of Britain in V for Vendetta, played by John Hurt in the film) type character in Fight Club to fight against, actually, Fight Club does not even mention who is the ruler of the USA nor what type of government it has, though all indications are that in Fight Club, the USA is still a bourgeois democracy with a free market capitalist economy, very different to what Britain is in V for Vendetta, which is a corporatist, one party fascist state.

Last but not least, V for Vendetta deals with revenge (by those who suffered under the fascist regime) whereas Fight Club deals with men with good jobs and materially comfortable lives who have not suffered, but simply lost their pupose and sense of meaning in life. This makes Fight Club more of a psychological film, as opposed to political.

[norwegian commie]

good analyse of the two films.

I agree with you. But i feel that there are still some poltical content in fight club. As they criticise the steriotypes in society, the images of the way people "shuld be". And that the materialistic everyday is worthless, and empty.

Alsoe they include some somewhat disquised critics and mabye description of a capitalistisc corporation. As in when the cost of legal settelment is lower than a recall of the production of the cars, they dont do it. Wich is a classic example of a socialistic analyse of the capitalist corporations and their cruel selvfish egoistic way of functioning. Where lives comes behind money.

[Aurora]

Just saw V today,mad film loved it,definetly a good anarchist theme to it.One of my favourite films now :D
Fight Club's a cool film too but not as political at all i wouldnt really call it anti-capitalist. very Nihilist

[Angry Young Man]

Yet to see Fight Club, but in V, the scene with the exploding Parliament brought a tear to my eye.

TO THE BARRICADES!


But A Clockwork Orange is the sex!

[ahab]

fight club: tyler durden is clearly an anarchist, listen to what he fucking says!!!

V for Vendetta: overrated, not that fucking great all they did was blow up buildings and v got vengeance, what the fuck does that have to do with freeing the people. Plus you have no idea what happens to the society after wards, do they go back to a fascist regime? do they create some socialist democracy? wtf?

[Pandii]

I enjoyed both films.

Fight club I think if you want to analyse the shit out of it it has political undertones, denouncing materialism and showing the strength even one person has when they believe in something ie/Durden tell Al (the owner of the tavern) that he wanted to keep the basement, and winning. (I dont really want to be a spoiler of then end, if you havent seen it dont read the next part of this paragraph) The destroying of credit card companies so that the debts go back to $0.

However, I think it is maily post modern, men questioning why they are here, as in one of Durdens monologues, he describes that their challenge in a spiritual one, one where they are fighting to find themselves. The resulting 'space monkeys' I believe is simply men following a dictator of sorts to still eventually find themselves.

Now for V. This movie brought me to tears the first time, and immense joy next second time. I really loved this film! I do believe this film does have marxist undertones:

"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."

A man gets a following against the fascist leaders at the time, and we have the descovery, yet again of who the characters, especially Evey, really ARE.

As said above, the comic has a far move political, especially anarchist, tone.

AndrewG, thanks for the tip on the promo poster! I have one at home and now it has added awesomeness!

Pandii xx