Valerie's letter (V for Vendetta)

by **Rigorous Intuition** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 6:04 am

The discovery of Valerie's letter and the depiction of her life is the emotional core of both the book and the film. (The sequence was, I think, the greatest triumph of the film.) From <a href="http://www.shadowgalaxy.net/Vendetta/valerie.html">here</a>. I don't know who you are. Please believe. There is no way I can convince you that this is not one of their tricks. But I don't care. I am me, and I don't know who you are, but I love you. I have a pencil. A little one they did not find. I am a women. I hid it inside me. Perhaps I won't be able to write again, so this is a long letter about my life. It is the only autobiography I have ever written and oh God I'm writing it on toilet paper. I was born in Nottingham in 1957, and it rained a lot. I passed my eleven plus and went to girl's Grammar. I wanted to be an actress. I met my first girlfriend at school. Her name was Sara. She was fourteen and I was fifteen but we were both in Miss. Watson's class. Her wrists. Her wrists were beautiful. I sat in biology class, staring at the picket rabbit foetus in its jar, listening while Mr. Hird said it was an adolescent phase that people outgrew. Sara did. I didn't. In 1976 I stopped pretending and took a girl called Christine home to meet my parents. A week later I enrolled at drama college. My mother said I broke her heart. But it was my integrity that was important. Is that so selfish? It sells for so little, but it's all we have left in this place. It is the very last inch of us. But within that inch we are free. London. I was happy in London. In 1981 I played Dandini in Cinderella. My first rep work. The world was strange and rustling and busy, with invisible crowds behind the hot lights and all that breathless glamour. It was exciting and it was lonely. At nights I'd go to the Crew-Ins or one of the other clubs. But I was stand-offish and didn't mix easily. I saw a lot of the scene, but I never felt comfortable there. So many of them just wanted to be gay. It was their life, their ambition. And I wanted more than that. Work improved. I got small film roles, then bigger ones. In 1986 I starred in "The Salt Flats." It pulled in the awards but not the crowds. I met Ruth while working on that. We loved each other. We lived together and on Valentine's Day she sent me roses and oh God, we had so much. Those were the best three years of my life. In 1988 there was the war, and after that there were no more roses. Not for anybody. In 1992 they started rounding up the gays. They took Ruth while she was out looking for food. Why are they so frightened of us? They burned her with cigarette ends and made her give them my name. She signed a statement saying I'd seduced her. I didn't blame her. God, I loved her. I didn't blame her. But she did. She killed herself in her cell. She couldn't live with betraying me, with giving up that last inch. Oh Ruth. . . . They came for me. They told me that all of my films would be burned. They shaved off my hair and held my head down a toilet bowl and told jokes about lesbians. They brought me here and gave me drugs. I can't feel my tongue anymore. I can't speak. The other gay women here, Rita, died two weeks ago. I imagine I'll die quite soon. It's strange that my life should end in such a terrible place, but for three years I had roses and I apologized to nobody. I shall die here. Every last inch of me shall perish. Except one. An inch. It's small and it's fragile and it's the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it, or sell it, or give it away. We must never let them take it from us. I don't know who you are. Or whether you're a man or a woman. I may never see you or cry with you or get drunk with you. But I love you. I hope that you escape this place. I hope that the world turns and that things get better, and that one day people have roses again. I wish I could kiss you. Valerie X

by **anotherdrew** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 7:51 am

here's a quote that sums up a question that often is asked: <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Is it possible to willingly not address the persons who did that to Valerie? They are all around these days again. While I would love to love them and "rise above vengence" every part of me screams that such persons, if they are to face justice, must face it here, in this world, in this life. That it's up to us. That actions such as those in the letter of Valerie should incure a grave cost, that at some point will be exacted, that some few must be willing to sacrifice their own 'purity' to present that bill and demand payment, but who can think such thoughts and not shudder from the consequences? The word is retribution. Judgement may be the lords but retribution is ours to take.<hr></blockquote> Animals don't do such things, only a special kind of human sickness conducts such activities. How long 'til someone starts cutting the cancer out? and where will we be then? Personally I'm not ready to become batman or some shite, but someday people need to organize.

by **Hugh Manatee Wins** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 6:14 pm

This would've been better processed in the 'Vendetta' threads already going for analysis. I'm cross posting this in this thread analyzing film as a tool of governance- <a href="http://p216.ezboard.com/frigorousintuitionfrm10.showMessageRange?topicID=3427.topic&start=61&stop=66">p216.ezboard.com/frigorou...61&stop=66</a> <blockquote>Quote:<hr>So many of them just wanted to be gay. It was their life, their ambition. <hr></blockquote> Hmm... I once sat next to a fundamentalist preacher on a plane. He was proudly telling me how he had rooted out of his congregation an old unmarried couple "living in sin." They were a widow and widower who had found consolation in each other's company. This same minister boasted of how he had disowned his own daughter for going to Hollywood to be an actor. "That place is run by faggots," he informed me, "and their loaded with AIDS, too." He showed me how he was loading the whole Bible into his laptop for the benefit of others. I wanted to tell him that I had AIDS and would bite him if I heard another word from him just to scare him with his own nightmares and have the satisfaction of him wondering whether to sit next to me for the long flight. So despite the sympathetically sensitive and martyred lesbian who just wants love in a cruel word we can empathize with and even respect, I see another layer in the words I've bolded in Valerie's letter which look to me like exactly the scare cues that inflame the religious right, more agit-prop. >I met my first girlfriend at school. (Damn those schools!) >staring at the picket rabbit foetus in its jar (schools and abortion!) >I enrolled at drama college. My mother said I broke her heart.(breaking up families!) >with invisible crowds behind the hot lights and all that breathless glamour. (Sounds like a porn film shoot!) >So many of them just wanted to be gay. It was their life, their ambition.(I KNEW THIS SIN WAS A CHOICE!) >held my head down a toilet bowl (something Arnold Schwarzenegger had done in a movie and 'joked' about doing in politics) >The other gay women here, Rita, died two weeks ago. I imagine I'll die quite soon. It's strange that my life should end in such a terrible place, but for three years I had roses and I apologized to nobody. (Gays choose to die out of stubborn defiance!) >or get drunk with you. (Drug-taking alcoholic hedonists!) The sympathetic and hostile get to see what they want to while being played against each other in the culture wars. Here it is again in 'Sophie Scholl,' about another young woman who resists fascism in WWII Germany as a member of the White Rose Society but was caught and beheaded. <a href="http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?at_code=244472&no=216936&rel_no=1">english.ohmynews.com/arti...6&rel_no=1</a> Some will see it as an inspiring tale of resistance and some will see a woman getting her head cut off by power. Martyrs are both rousing and demoralizing to behold. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=hughmanateewins>Hugh Manatee Wins</A> at: 3/18/06 4:21 pm

by **Homeless Halo** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 1:00 am

Personally I find martyrs to be rather boring. I see no ulterior motives behind the release of this movie, aside from the obvious, that is, to get you to spend money.

by **blanc** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 8:16 am

glad you are back!

by **blanc** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 8:23 am

...even if you think I'm Al Gore and I'm unlikely to agree with much you say..

by **NewKid** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 12:23 pm

Interesting that just as I was reading this thread I was watching Cspan's morning call in with Reddhedd of Firedoglake and a Powerline guy and a caller identifying himself as a Republican spoke of being "mad as hell." He said he thinks this administration is "going down the tubes" "as people are seeing what's happening" and he "hopes we hit the streets with our guns." He "thinks that's what it's going to take" for the politicians "to answer to us." When asked by the Cspan guy to clarify, he said "I think we have to have a civil revolt" and that "politicians aren't going to let us have it; they're going to make us take it." The guy didn't sound like nutcase, but a pretty normal middle aged southern sounding white dude. Reddhead appeared to be biting her tongue to contain her joy and amazement at the comment and the Powerline guy made a comment about how blogging's better and they quickly went on to another viewer.

by **thurnandtaxis** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 4:21 pm

It's funny that friday when the fire inspector came by the carpentry shop I work at, we got involved in a general discussion about the spiraling costs of living. He expressed a similar sentiment to the "powerline" guy about a revolt being the only way things are going to change. He also seemed to say that he thought V was the movie justifying his ideas. However here's what comic writer Alan Moore had to say about this bastardization of his work: <blockquote>Quote:<hr>It's a thwarted and frustrated and perhaps largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values [standing up] against a state run by neo-conservatives — which is not what "V for Vendetta" was about<hr></blockquote> <blockquote>Quote:<hr> It was about fascism, it was about anarchy,<hr></blockquote> more at link: <a href="http://www.mtv.com/shared/movies/interviews/m/moore_alan_060315/">www.mtv.com/shared/movies...an_060315/</a>

by **Hugh Manatee Wins** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 6:44 pm

Crossposting my too-long post from another thread>>> In short, media incitement of a few violent acts to justify the growing police state and chill the faint-hearted is as useful to the White House here in America as it is in Iraq. This movie is a step in that direction. As ever-increasing numbers of Americans realize that Iraq is Vietnam II, countermeasures are thrown against the wall to see what sticks in an effort to ward off military and economic withdrawal. Similar to replacing the Bill of Rights with the Pledge of Allegiance, the tactic of replacing 'Victory' with 'Vendetta' to perpetuate a culture of violence is one of the most poisonous. This represents an upping of the dose of cruelty in the body politic that might finally flare up into the Brown Shirt movement being wished for by Bill O'Reilly, David Horowitz, and Senator Lindsay Graham who recently warned against "fifth columnists" here at home impeding inevitable victory in Iraq. If you haven't read 'Mein Kampf' yet... And, sadly, this tactic will probably run that depleted uranium-coated ball a little further down the field as intended. (Sports is used as indoctrination through mock warfare but that is another movie. See 'Win One for the Gipper.') ‘Vendetta’ illustrates exactly how media has become a form of military mind virus called 'psychological warfare' over the last sixty years. In 'Vendetta' the anti-war movement is Orwell-ified into the very problem it is trying to stop, intentionally created violence as a tool of governance called 'Rule Through Tension.' “You’re a terrorist. No, you are. No, you are.” 'Vendetta' is thus a tool for continuing permanent war which neo-con-artists like to call the Clash of Civilizations, a religion-fueled power grab previously known as The Crusades. Stoking culture war divisions within the US enables the same war in more oil-rich regions of the planet. A relevant aside on the makers of 'Vendetta'- Interesting that 'Vendetta' comes from the makers of 'Matrix.' 'The Matrix' was pre-emptive fictionalization of a reality now beginning to dawn in the minds of many Americans: we have a massive state-controlled media steering our national psyche to control us for total war doctrines in the name of 'national security interests' first institutionalized after WWII in Truman's1951 Psychological Strategy Board. The PSB was under the direction of the CIA and advised by representatives of all the national security state intelligence agencies. The function has since been moved around and renamed in a beaurocratic shell game but continues just as the Total Information Awareness program does. Military doctrine: That which is possible is done. Early internet spam had text with this PSB information embedded in it to begin to inoculate spam filters against the spread of this very information on the internet, a tactic I've dubbed 'spamjacketing' after the FBI's counterintelligence campaigns to 'badjacket' effective social justice movement organizers by accusing them of being 'spies working for The Man.' So 'The Matrix' served to  head off the internet truth movement's discovery of state-controlled media by spinning a pre-emptive fictionalization of post-WWII reality in America, full immersion in a fabricated web of social-engineering mind viruses spun by CIA and PR media-spiders pushing Council on Foreign Relations and National inSecurity State policies. Some message managers are motivated by money and some by social control, the ultimate result of having money in an oligarchy. The hot topic of psychological warfare can be cooled by offering alternative narratives through fictionalization, exaggeration, or distraction. Exaggeration example: "Spongebob Squarepants is trying to turn our kids gay!" By encouraging people to scoff at this ridiculous notion they are inoculated against seeing how propaganda is directed at children specifically because the mirror neurons in their brains are more vulnerable to visual messaging. Children really are on the frontline of scientific fascism and vulnerable to mind viruses, not pedophiles on the internet, the narrative hyped to fearful parents to get them to buy filtering software to ‘dumb down’ the internet. Distraction example: "The Clintons are hiding the Whitewater land deal scandal." This waving of the media hand helped hide the hand holding the real scandal, the CIA’s use of Arkansas Mena airport to ship arms to Central and South American for Reagan-era terrorist wars against the poor in those countries AND the importation of cocaine which flooded America’s poor black neighborhoods furthering the narrative 'the poor get what they deserve, are dangerous, and must be policed brutally.' 'Vendetta' functions as class warfare agit-prop to further the tactic of creating a Brown Shirt movement to unleash pro-war Americans against anti-war Americans. This strategy is exemplified by David Horowitz' book 'The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics' meant to chill college campuses with a new McCarthyism lest the middle-class anti-war movement grow into a mass movement of visible resistance amongst the recruitable poor youth who have been siphoned off to occupy the American Empire by the economic draft ever since the draft ended in 1973. Even the NAACP and Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow:PUSH Coalition have financial relationships with the military industrial complex and shepard their constituents into ‘jobs’ in the US military with a range of implied ‘benefits.’ Crucifying a teacher like Ward Churchill or Jay Bennish in the media reinforces the intended chilling message to critics of the government and is even used as distraction to hide dark US intelligence secrets such as using Nazi war criminals as assets and using Gestapo tactics against social movement leaders. See the dates of ‘little Eichmanns’ flap in early 2005 along with the National Security Archive’s release of WWII papers about the CIA’s recruitment of Nazi Adolph Eichmann’s assistants. Military doctrine: One soldier lays down covering fire while another advances. This is why 'Vendetta' portrays anti-fascists as bin-Ladenesque bomb-throwing Shakespeare-spouting art-collecting Volvo-driving terrorists. Only the latte-drinking and cheese-eating are missing from this scorned elitist stereotype wielded against 'hate-America-first-ers.' The goal of perpetuating endless war using religion for fuel is given away in the anti-hero's self-description- “A vendetta held as a votive, not in vain” Votive candles are used in religious ceremonies. Vendettas are endless cycles of violence. "So they won't have died in vain" is a justification for more dying regularly trotted out when the futility of slaughter is finally noticed again as it has been regularly since WWI, the 'War to End All Wars.' The false hope offered in that 'nickname' defines propaganda use to mass-market subsequent wars and was first developed by Edward Bernays who become known as the 'father of propaganda.' Bernays was the nephew of Sigmund Freud and wrote 'Propaganda' in 1928 to summarize what he had been developing for the government and commerce elite, a methodical way of steering the masses into desired behaviors 'for the good of the country.' <a href="http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Propaganda/Propaganda_Bernays.html">www.thirdworldtraveler.co...rnays.html</a> <blockquote>Quote:<hr>p37 The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.<hr></blockquote> Confirming and exploiting more fully the psychological underpinnings for tactics described in the 15th century book by Machiavelli called 'The Prince' allowed the post-industrial uberclass to halt the Enlightenment before it empowered the common man too much 'for their own good.' Bernays was horrified when his book was embraced by the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels as a guide to steering a population with terror towards war. 'Vendetta' is just one more link in the long chain of media events designed to divide-and-conquer populations to perpetuate violence. The ability to foment war on demand is the prime function of government propaganda which must work harder for each subsequent 'sales campaign.' This review by Jeff Giles highlights these agit-prop tone- <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11769182/site/newsweek">www.msnbc.msn.com/id/1176...e/newsweek</a> <blockquote>Quote:<hr>...the movie plays like a clumsy assault on post-9/11 paranoia. .... The film may spark interesting debates—about the nature of terrorism and governments, about the inalienable right of artists to shock and provoke—but what we're dealing with is a lackluster comic-book movie that thinks terrorist is a synonym for revolutionary. .... the loquacious masked man who calls himself V (Hugo Weaving) dwells in an underground lair filled with art he's stolen back from government censors. .... Buildings are symbols, V tells a haunted young woman named Evey (Natalie Portman), after saving her from some vile, rampaging cops: "Blowing up a building can change the world." <hr></blockquote> The New Yorker's David Enby gives more adamant warning about the poisonous nature of this film, possibly due to recognizing the culture war tactic of demonizing the educated and cultural creatives- <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/critics/cinema/">www.newyorker.com/critics/cinema/</a> <blockquote>Quote:<hr>“V for Vendetta,” a dunderheaded pop fantasia that celebrates terrorism and destruction, is perhaps the ultimate example of how a project with modest origins becomes a media monster. .... (V, the main character) keeps everyone at bay with a teasing verbal dexterity that hovers between the awesome and the tedious. When he saves a young woman in the street, Evey (Natalie Portman), from being assaulted by government thugs, he treats her to a rapid alliterative patter (“A vendetta held as a votive, not in vain”), and Portman does a disbelieving double-take—the movie’s only funny moment. V is into Shakespeare, too, and, like a windy ham actor in his dotage, quotes “Macbeth” at every chance. .... Yet even if one enjoys the craft of “Vendetta,” and, viewing it as an extravagant pop myth, cuts it as much slack as possible, there’s no getting around the fact that this allegedly antifascist work lusts after fire and death.<hr></blockquote> James Wolcott notices how 'Vendetta' seems meant to alienate and antagonize both sides of the culture war and the War on Terra- <a href="http://jameswolcott.com/archives/2006/02/the_red_and_the.php">jameswolcott.com/archives...nd_the.php</a> <blockquote>Quote:<hr>V for Vendetta may be--why hedge? is--the most subversive cinematic deed of the Bush-Blair era, a dagger poised in midair. Unlike the other movies dubbed “controversial” (Fahrenheit 9-11, The Passion, Munich, Syriana), it doesn’t play to a particular constituency or polarized culture bloc, it’s working on a deeper, Edger Allen Poe-ish witch’s brew substrata of pop myth. Cultural conservatives will loathe it without seeing it (they love not having to leave their houses to lament the latest installment of civilization’s decline and fall) once they hear of and read about the movie’s disturbing political parallels (a fascistic TV host with a witty resemblance to Berlusconi, fertilizer explosives a la Timothy McVeigh; torture, renditions, and subway bombings; black hoods that will be forever associated with Abu Ghraib). Yet lots of cultural liberals with educated tastes will find it anxiety-producing and irresponsible too, not only because they’re more comfortable with humanistic stories and documentary techniques than with pop spectacle (as Kael discovered whenever she praised upstart movies like DePalma’s Carrie or The Warriors and received letters from profs and Ph.D couples complaining about her soiling the New Yorker’s space on trash), but because V for Vendetta doesn’t just depict a 1984’s dystopia--it advocates radical remedy, and illustrates what it advocates with rhapsodic, operatic, orgasmic flourish. .... V for Vendetta instills force into the very essence of four-letter words like hate, love, and (especially) fear, and releases that force like a fist.<hr></blockquote> This is an American class warfare tradition going back to the fear-mongering over anarchists and socialists in the early 20th century that resulted in the precursor to the Patriot Act known as the Palmer Raids run by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI which arbitrarily swept up hundreds of immigrants for abuse and deportation. <a href="http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/understanding_fascism.htm">www.rationalrevolution.ne...ascism.htm</a> (Fascism Part I: Understanding Fascism and Anti-Semitism by Geoff Price) <a href="http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/rise_of_american_fascism.htm">www.rationalrevolution.ne...ascism.htm</a> (Fascism Part II: The Rise of American Fascism by Geoff Price) ‘Militainment’ for recruiting now competes with ‘infotainment’ which was first used to fill up the many new cable TV channels in the 1980s. The transition of American national identity from the Cold War sheriff in the white hat to the War on Terra’s brutal ‘Dirty Harry’ is being led by psycho-political cross-over icons like Arnold Schwarzenegger who recently pushed the cruelty envelope too far by campaigning against “special interests” like nurses, teachers, and firefighters. One has to wonder whether the White House is capable of pulling back from its torture gulags to regroup its PR image. Is it worth the effort or will lessening resistance in other ways be tried instead? I expect we will see more ‘shows of force’ in our country long ago transformed into a corporate-sponsored ‘reality show’ in the interest of further dividing the American public over the War on Terra all while maintaining the cover of 'plausible deniability' that characterizes propaganda, psy-ops, and strategic influence. This is divide-and-conquer tactic is also behind the intentional stoking of culture war wedge issues like the Civil War, Confederate flags, and the ubiquitous 1974 southern rock song by the band Lynyrd Skynyrd 'Sweet Home Alabama' with its celebration of iconic segregationist Governor George Wallace. The song has not just regional but national ‘pride’ lyrics which declare ‘my country right or wrong’ like “Watergate does not bother me, does your conscience bother you? Tell me true.” Why? Because the American south is a prime military recruiting pool where bitter hostility to 'liberal elite yankees’ like the Kennedys is stirred with frustrated poverty to be fermented into a violence-prone population tapped as a corporate security gang run by the Pentagon. This scam was recognized by General Smedley Butler who single-handedly stopped the 1934 attempted fascist coup against FDR and wrote the famous anti-militarist essay 'War is a Racket' in 1935. Eisenhower also realized that a Nazi Party-financing fascist elite had taken over the US government under the Allen Dulles-led CIA and tried to warn us against the "military industrial complex" which, by the way, killed the Kennedys. But by now you probably know that and that's another movie. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=hughmanateewins>Hugh Manatee Wins</A> at: 3/19/06 4:02 pm

by **greencrow0** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 12:24 am

I understand one of the plotlines in this movie 'V' is 'blowing up the Parliament buildings. I was afraid some of the anti fascist propaganda would take that tack. The only way to defeat the fascists is to be non violent like Gandhi. Things like withholding our taxes, public sit-ins (and going to jail for it) Saving our money instead of going along with the religion of commercialism. Boycotts of fascist corporations and the MSM. refusing to fight in their wars. Political activism and re-taking the elections by having contiguous parallel elections. In other words....the voters go into the official polling booths and vote...then, the activits set up booths outside where they hand 'receipts' to the voters according to what way they voted, signed and witnessed....so if there is a disparity...there will be receipts. That kind of thing....not violence...that's what they would like us to do...and I even have a sneaking suspicion that's the reaction this movie is intended to arouse.... That would be just playing into their hands so they can do their crack-down thing. GC

by **BannedfromDU** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 3:11 am

"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." --Thomas Jefferson

by **BannedfromDU** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 11:10 am

"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to insgovernmentute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." -The Declaration of Independence

Valerie's letter (V for Vendetta)

Valerie's letter (V for Vendetta)

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Re: Valerie's letter (V for Vendetta)

Re: Valerie's letter (V for Vendetta)

hello homeless

HH

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