scholarly journals Totalitarian Worlds: Nineteen Eighty-Four and V for Vendetta

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gonca KARACA
Keyword(s):  
V For Vendetta

scholarly journals Shakespeare for Revolution: From Canon to Activism in V for Vendetta and Sons of Anarchy

2020 ◽  
pp. 85
Author(s):  
Maria Consuelo Forés Rossell
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Culturally Diverse ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
First Century ◽  
Cultural Activism ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
Political Weapon ◽  
V For Vendetta

Shakespeare’s works have long been a place of cultural and political struggles, and continues to be so. Twenty-first century non-canonical fiction is appropriating Shakespeare for activist purposes. The present article will analyze this phenomenon, applying the concept of cultural capital, the theories of cultural materialism, intertextuality, and appropriation in relation to popular culture, in order to study how Shakespeare’s plays are being appropriated from more radically progressive positions, and resituated in alternative contexts. Among the plethora of Shakespearean adaptations of the last decades, non-canonical appropriations in particular offer brand new interpretations of previously assumed ideas about Shakespeare’s works, popularizing the playwright in unprecedented ambits and culturally diverse social spaces, while giving voice to the marginalized. Thus, through entertainment, non-canonical fiction products such as V for Vendetta and Sons of Anarchy recycle the Shakespearean legacy from a critical point of view, while using it as a political weapon for cultural activism, helping to make people aware of social inequalities and to inspire them to adopt a critical stance towards them, as free and equal citizens.

scholarly journals (Anti)Fascism and Superhero Comics: An Anthropological Examination of Innovativeness in Comic Books as Exemplified by "V for Vendetta"

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Miloš Zarić
Keyword(s):  
Comic Books ◽  
Graphic Novels ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Semiotic Model ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Semantic Dimension ◽  
Alan Moore ◽  
The Way ◽  
V For Vendetta

The paper analyzes the V for Vendetta comic books, written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd. These volumes are graphic novels whose characteristics place them in the literary genre of the critical dystopia, but they have also been associated with the genre of the superhero comic, which, according to a number of authors including Alan Moore, is inextricably linked to the ideology and practice of the political right, which in its extreme form assumes the form of fascism. The way that fascism is treated in that work, as well as in two other comics discussed in the paper (Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s Watchmen and Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns), is linked to the way in which the process of creativity/innovativeness functioned in the context of the revision/deconstruction of the superhero comic book genre in the 1980s, both on the collective (intra-genre) and the individual level, on the level of the thought structure of the British writer Alan Moore. Using the structural-semiotic model of analysis, the paper seeks to fathom the logic of this deconstruction procedure "broken down" into the three comic books discussed in the paper, with particular emphasis on the analysis of V for Vendetta, with the aim of establishing its "hidden", connotative semantic dimension. The study adopts a modern view of the comic book according to which the essence of this medium, which distinguishes it from other narrative and graphic forms of expression as well as from film, can be recognized in the specific, sequential way of combining its visual and narrative components, thus generating meanings whose interpretation depends on the intention of the author but also on the view of the reader.

Revisionism and the British Invasion (1981–1993)

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Murray
Keyword(s):  
Alan Moore ◽  
V For Vendetta

This chapter examines the development of the revisionist trend in British comics as well as the so-called British Invasion of American comics and its afermath during the period 1981–1993. It argues that revisionism was a continuation and refocusing of the satirical reaction to the superhero genre that has been in evidence in British comics for decades. The chapter first considers Captain Britain, written by Alan Moore for Marvel UK, before discussing Marvelman and V for Vendetta, also created by Moore, this time for Warrior. It then turns to Watchmen (1986) by Moore and Dave Gibbons, one of the most influential superhero comics of all time; Paradax, a character introduced in 1985 by Eclipse Comics in Strange Days #3; Zenith (1987); and the satire Marshal Law (1987). It also analyzes publications that parody the superhero genre, including How to Be a Superhero (1990) and 1963 (1993).

Aestheticizing Violence Within Transmedia Storytelling Context

2021 ◽  
pp. 484-500
Author(s):  
Ferhat Zengin ◽  
Bahadır Kapır
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Social Organisation ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Transmedia Storytelling ◽  
The Social ◽  
Totalitarian Regimes ◽  
V For Vendetta

In this study, V for Vendetta (2006) directed by James McTeigue, is analysed based on Henry Jenkins's transmedia storytelling terms. Henry Jenkins defines re-creating a story with different media tools as “transmedia storytelling” and evaluates this new storytelling form that emerged in the digital age as a new aesthetic linked with active participation that creates new demands on the consumer. V for Vendetta with a large fan audience has a story that became the symbol of the social movements that emerged against totalitarian regimes created in the modern state and social organisation. The story V for Vendetta that was first published at the beginning of 1980s as a dystopic comic book prioritising violence and terror experienced changes in the story with the effect of different narrative media. Within this context, this study with Henry Jenkins's transmedia storytelling theoretical basis analyzes how the main narrative elements of the story such as terror, violence, fear, and freedom are reflected in the V for Vendetta movie by using semiotic methods.

Villain Becomes Hero

2019 ◽  
pp. 137-144
Author(s):  
Allan Metcalf
Keyword(s):  
Young Woman ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Graphic Novel ◽  
Fascist Regime ◽  
Alan Moore ◽  
Second Coming ◽  
V For Vendetta

Another diversion is necessary to acknowledge the return of Guy Fawkes in the present day. No, it’s not his Second Coming, but there is awareness of Guy Fawkes as a role model for modern-day activists and protesters. It has come particularly from Alan Moore and David Lloyd, creators of the graphic novel “V for Vendetta,” a serial first published as a book in 1988. It imagines a ruthless Fascist regime in England in the 1990s, opposed by a lone rebel who calls himself simply V, and who always wears a mask that is a simplified adaptation of the sketches of Guy Fawkes back in the 1600s, but with a smile. The resemblance to Fawkes is emphasized at the very beginning, where unlike Fawkes he casually blows up the houses of Parliament after reciting “Remember, remember, the fifth of December” to a young woman he has just rescued from the police. The story became a movie with Hugo Weaving as V and Natalie Portman as the rescued girl Evey. The masks were used by Occupy protesters and others early in the 21st century. Rather than an arch-villain, V and the mask now signal opposition to government tyranny. This chapter briefly cites Guy Fawkes’s 19th-century adaptations and references, including the beginning of Thomas Hardy’s 1888 novel, Return of the Native.

‘Sparks of Meaning’: Comics, Music and Alan Moore

2015 ◽  
Vol 140 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-162
Author(s):  
Tim Summers
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Comic Books ◽  
Musical Theatre ◽  
Significant Part ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Musical Culture ◽  
Alan Moore ◽  
V For Vendetta

ABSTRACTComics have become a significant part of modern popular culture. This article examines the ways in which music is involved with comics, and develops methods for analysing musical moments in comic books. The output of the writer Alan Moore (b. 1953) is used as the domain for examining music and comics. This popular author's works are notable for their sophisticated use of music and their interaction with wider musical culture. Using case studies from the comic books V for Vendetta (1982–9), Watchmen (1986–7) and the second and third volumes of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2002–12), the article demonstrates that the comic can be a musically significant medium (even to the point of becoming a piece of virtual musical theatre), and argues that music in comics serves to encourage readers to engage in hermeneutic criticism of musical and musical-literary texts.

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