The document provides a Marxist analysis of the film V for Vendetta. It analyzes how the film portrays several key Marxist concepts such as class conflict, hegemony, ideology, and false consciousness. Several scenes from the movie are discussed in relation to these concepts. For example, one scene shows how the mass media is used to spread the dominant ideology and create false consciousness among the public. Overall, the document argues that the film serves as a reflection of how the ruling class uses tools like the government and media to manipulate the proletariat and maintain the status quo of capitalism.

1. The Gunpowder Plot: The Light at the End of Tunnel
By
Mehtap Malumbo
For
MMC220 Theories of Mass Communication
Faculty of Communication, Izmir University of Economics
(Fall 2009)

2. Abstract
This paper analyses the Matrix’s series producer’s V for Vendetta film. The paper attempts
to relate Marxist media concepts such as hegemony, false consciousness, ideology, with
focus on capitalism and class struggle. The film serves as a mirror to project the Marxism
concepts onto our thoughts. Lack of sufficient English resources to support this work
motivated the use of materials translated to Turkish from originals of different languages.
The analysis starts with true origin of the films and moves on to portray the Marxists
concepts with help of various scenes. The last paragraph concludes by putting forward
personal opinion about the film with respect to Marxism media concepts.
Key Words: Class Conflict, Hegemony, Ideology, Class struggle, mass media, legitimizing
government acts, dominant class, false consciousness
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3. The Gunpowder Plot: The Light at the End of Tunnel
Introduction
The Gunpowder Plot named after the conspiracy to blow up the Houses of Parliament on 5
November 1605. The detonation was to take place on State Opening day, when the King,
Lords and Commons would all be present in the Lords Chamber. Fawkes, remembered
wrongly as the principal conspirator, was a minor cog in the wheel. The plot was
discovered through an anonymous letter. On the 4th of November search was made of
Parliament and Fawkes was found with the gunpowder and arrested. He was tried and
sentenced to death by hanging. Fawkes was executed on 31st January. Ever since, The 5 th
November is variously called 'Firework Night', 'Bonfire Night' or 'Guy Fawkes Day'. It is
custom for Britain on, or around, 5th November to let off fireworks and children to make
effigies of Fawkes. A dedicated web site is at UK Parliament (10th, January, 2010). V for
vendetta is the film based on this episode that depicts the future of capitalism.
V For Vendetta : Looking At The Media Throgh Marxist Window
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” (Collin 2008:
201). The history of societies is actually the history of conflicting classes, the oppressor
and the oppressed; both sides have stood in constant opposition to one another. This
conflict occurs openly or behind the scenes, and is bound to end through revolution or with
the extinction of one of the conflicting classes. Each class is defined by its influence to the
economy (also known as power). Each class protects its interest within the economy.
Capitalists’ interest is to protect the governing power and increase profit. The so called
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4. class conflict includes all the conflicting interests and the struggle between the capitalists
and proletariat. The capitalists, who own the economic power, create hegemony over the
governing institution and its subordinates thus affecting the attitude, values, personality
types and culture of a given society. They shape the society to their needs (Ollman, 2006).
They impose their own values and ideas. They construct the social existence. The Society’s
social existence determines the consciousness. As Marx puts it, as Capitalism conflicts
become profound and intensifies thus can not be concealed, the proletariats become
conscious of their interest, this forms the “class consciousness”. In such circumstances,
neither class nor ideology hinders the proletariats true consciousness to act according to
their interests. This situation leads to the so called “revolution” (Ollman, 2006). Dominant
class spreads of its own ideologies through the mass media. Ideology means serving
power. “Ideologies are the wrong ideas legitimizing the ruling political class” (Eagleton,
1991: 18). Society’s ideology is determined by the social existence. Thus those who own
the process manipulate society’s ideology. Those who do not have their own ideology
internalize that of the dominant class. The ruling class imposes their ideas to create
hegemony, is a way of getting approval. “Contract” concept is derived from mutual
approval between the capitalist and the proletariat. In democratic societies ruling class can
not dictate their ideology hence use hegemony. Therefore people are focused to what the
ruling classes wants. As a result, single minded ideologies are formed (Ollman, 2006).
According to Marx, Ruling class members strugle against the process according to their
understanding of that process using their ideology. Thus concealing the conflicts or the
resolutions (Lefebvre, 2009).
Mass media serves to camouflage the class differences and defend the rulling class
from protelariat. The unique goal is to avoid class conflict and maintain political order.
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5. Marxism not only interpretes the chaos today but suggests the way out of this chaos
through class struggle (Ollman, 2006).
Henri LeFebvre says, “A French Marxist has taken the concept of class conflict and
manipulation and developed it into the notion that people living in capitalist societies are
living in a state of “terror.” First, any society with radical class differences, with a small
privileged class at the top and a mass of people living in poverty, has to be maintained by
compulsion and persuasion. Second, these class stratified socienties become over-
repressive and develop sophisticated ways of masking repression and making unsuspecting
individuals the instruments of their own repression and the repression of others.” (Reading
Brick 2009: 40)
Engels establishes that governments are born from the society but stay at the top of
society and is gradually alienated from society. Although governments result from the need
to control the class conflicts and maintain order, it realizes these functions through
fulfilling the interests of the ruling class (Aksoy, 1999). A Capitalist government
legitimizes itself when delivering its functionalities by concealing the inequality and the
privileged class. The goverments deviates the truth to disguise class struggles. The
government’s function to respresent the nation is exaggerated to camouflage its
relationship to the ruling class and present it differently. Marx notes, “There is an obvious
relationship between a government and a dominant class, by definition, a government is a
society's dominant institution (Collin, 2008).
Analizing The Film V For Vendetta
Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the British Parliament building on 5 November 1605 but he
did not succeed. 400 years later V initiated an individual struggle against the authoritarian
regime and his individual struggle becomes a nation struggle. Guy Fawkes’ wants to
accomplish this ideology in the England of 2020.
Hegemony , Ideology
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6. My first step will be to consider the scene where, V and inspector meet. The Inspector,
despite and order to drop the investigation goes ahead to search for the truth. V tells that
the Goal is to make a profit from virus’ antidot. To serve the purpose hundreds of people
die due to a virus. After the election virus’ antidot appears. This scene focuses on the
relationship between government and dominant class. Mass media creates panic and chaos
and alligns the societies’ ideology to that of the dominant class. Towards the end of the
film, policemen shoot at V but he is still alive. The commander asks in a surprise why he
does not die. V answers by saying: “I am an ideology and ideologies never die.” this
emphasises that the ideologies are too strong, and never die by killing one person.
Dominant class, define thoughts patterns. Adorno, Negative Dialectics says: “the
definitions which make the object concrete are merely imposed upon it – this rule applies
only where the faith in the primacy of subjectivity remains unshaken” (Wayne, 2003: 155).
False Consciousness
In another scene, V goes to state TV channel, BTN, to call for revolution. V is hatched by
police and Evey helps him. When V was fighting the police, Evey passes out. She wakes
up at V’s house in fear and cries: “God, what have I done? I maced that detective. Why did
I do that? I shouldn’t have done that”. V says “You did what you thought was right. Is that
what you really think or what they’d want you to think?” This scene orients us to Marx
False Consciousness concept. Mass media spreads the dominant ideology creating false
consciousnesses. Marx states: “Our idea is not our own idea”. An ideology that does not
protect the interests of the society, one that does not belong to the society but the society
accepting this ideology as its own shows false consciousness.
Mass Media
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7. In another scene the chancellor gives orders to have different statements made about V’s
progress. The TV channel delivers what the government wants. The dialogue between the
media employees portrays the power of the mass media. The scene shows that mass media
are not impartial and they support dominant class and media ownership. “You think people
will buy this? “Why not. This is BTN. Our job is to report the news, not fabricate it. That is
the government’s job.” The media further conceals the truth from the society by delivering
false news. “A psychotic terrorist “V”, attacked the control booth with high-powered
explosives and weapons that he used against unarmed civilians in order to broadcast a
message of hate. It is believed that during this heroic raid the terrorist was shot and killed.”
False massages are broadcasted to suppress possible chaos or revolution. Mass media
continuously publishes news which includes fear and chaos; “War in the United States is
moving to England”, “the Ministry plans to increase the prices of water coupons”, “and a
new type of virus caused the death of 27 people.” Fear and panic fuelled by the media,
spreads quickly within the society. This fractured and divides the country hence the society
elects a chancellor selected by the dominant class. Political and economic actors use mass
media to influence public opinion.
Class Conflict and Government Acts
In another scene the camera zooms to the Chancellor when he aggressively addresses his
audience: “We stand on the edge of oblivision. I want everyone man, woman, child to
understand how close we are to chaos. I want them to remember why they need us!” A
Government reverts to a “we” identity to hide the economic exploitation that roots the
inequality resulted from social structure that divides the society into two opposing classes.
To form such an identity internal personal differences are suppressed. On the outside,
external differences are made prominent to maintain the suppress (Aksoy, 1999). This
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8. statement implies “we” notion. This notion eliminates personal differences between
people, individuality is removed. V and his advocates become “others”. "We" and "others"
are sharply defined. Marx says, “With Communism, nations, religions, geographic sectors,
classes, professions, races and families will disappear. There will no longer be gender
patterns and dominant class can no longer treat all as of the same gender pattern. Society is
formed of individuals (Ollman, 2006).
Conclusion
It was the objective of this paper to shed some light to the societies’ past and the future by
establishing the relationship between what is delivered in a film and what is targeted. My
argument has been that the dominant class endeavours to manipulate the proletariat in the
aim to increase their economic power thus maintaining their status quo. The dominant class
uses the mass media and the government as the tools to spread their ideology hence
creating hegemony. Additionally to suppress possible revolutions, and class conflicts the
dominant shape the social structure through communality or individualisation. Society
believes in ideologies that do not belong to them or do not serve their interests. It
internalizes the dominant class ideology spread through mass media or government. This
legitimizes the dominant class’ status quo.
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9. List of References
1. Aksoy, H. (1999) Marksizmin Temel Kavramları. Istanbul: Tohum.
2. Collin, D. (2008) Marx’ı Anlamak. In Ergüden, I. (Trans). Istanbul: Versus Kitap.
201
3. Eagleton, T. (1991) Ideology an Introduction. In Özcan ,M. (Ed) Ideoloji. Istanbul:
Ayrıntı yayınları :18
4. Lefebvre, H. (2009) Sosyalist Dünya Görüşü Marksizm. In Görsev, D. (Trans).
Istanbul: Yordam Kitap.
5. MMC220 Theories Of Mass Communication Reading Brick. 2009.
6. Ollman, B. (2006) Marxsizme Sıra Dışı Bir Giriş. In Kars, A. (Trans). Istanbul:
Yordam Kitap.
7. Wayne, M. (2003) Marxism and Media Studies. USA: Pluto Press. 155
8. http://www.parliament.uk/gunpowderplot/ (10th, January, 2010)
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