V for Vendetta Predicted the Trump Administration

by Brian Moniz

Remember that kick-ass action movie from 2005 where Natalie Portman shaves her head and Hugo Weaving blows things up while dressed as Guy Fawkes? That movie was V for Vendetta, and while many people saw that movie for what it was — a comic book action-thriller turned into a Hollywood blockbuster — many more people saw it as a warning of what could happen in any country when people fear the world so much and believe in scary, fabricated propaganda so much that they will support any brutal dictator or strongman who steps up and tells them, “I alone can fix it!”

The movie tells the story of a rebel vigilante know as V (Weaving), who rescues a young woman named Evey Hammond (Portman) from being raped and mugged by local police called “Fingermen”. After fighting off the Fingermen, V takes Evey to the top of a building to witness the explosion of a statue. This takes place on November 5th, the anniversary of when Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament in England.

V then hacks into England’s major news station and delivers a national message that the people of England are victims of a kind of “Stockholm Syndrome” under their current fascist leadership and need to wake up and make a stand against totalitarianism and authoritarianism. He offers the people of England the chance to join him one year from now, on the next November 5th, and march in the streets against the brutal dictatorship and call for a free England.

There are many parallels between V for Vendetta and the Trump administration. Let us go down the list one at a time:

Lewis Prothero — Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson

The film opens up with the rantings of an incredibly angry and passionate TV host named Lewis Prothero. He spews a bunch of hate rhetoric about how modern day-United States has crumbled because they allowed Muslims, Gays, Immigrants, and other “disease ridden degenerates” into their country who destroyed it from the inside out and turned America into a hellhole. He then blames America’s demise because of “Godlessness!” and invokes Christianity, asking, “you think He’s not up there? You think He’s not watching this constantly!? He hammers the same message over and over of “strangers are bad, and we [the English government] are good,” and after every rant he gives on television, he closes with the words, “Strength through unity! Unity through faith! And as always, ENGLAND PREVAILS!” Sounds oddly similar to Trump repeating his slogan, “Make America Great Again!”

Today, Prothero’s character represents Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. Their shows are nothing but nonstop fear mongering and pro-white, pro-Christian, pro-nationalist, anti-gay, anti-Muslim, anti-Black, anti-immigrant, anti-liberal, fact-free hate propaganda designed to terrify their viewers. Jeanine Pirro and Laura Ingraham are interchangeable with Hannity and Carlson.

British Television Network — Fox News

The news station where Evey works, British Television Network (BTN), is the film’s version of Fox News, where anchors deliver fake news stories that they know, as they are reporting them to England, are totally made-up and complete lies designed to scare and control people. They spin V’s statue bombing as a government-planned implosion to remodel the statue and celebrate the legacy it left behind with a big bang, rather than reporting the truth that it was blown up by a vigilante. One of the Chancellor’s personal henchmen oversees the station’s control room and is asked about the made-up story of the bombing by an employee, to which he replies, “Our job is to report the news, not fabricate it. That’s the government’s job.” If there was ever a line from a movie that perfectly described the work of Kellyanne Conway and her “alternative facts”, this is it.

The Fingermen — Trump’s militarized police

The Fingermen are much like the military-style police today, being misused like a toy by Trump to insight fear into regular citizens and bully cities that speak out against him. They have the green light from the President to use violent force and weapons on anyone they see fit, and as what usually happens when someone is given too much power, many policemen abuse it and have been videotaped beating, brutalizing, and arresting people for nonsense reasons like “standing in their way” or “being out past curfew.” In Portland and Seattle, peaceful protestors are made out to be violent rioters despite video evidence showing the vast majoring of them being peaceful and not resorting to violence. Fox News (BTN) only shows the violent rioters to keep their viewers scared and reinforce the idea that unless they cling to Donald Trump, they will not be safe in America.

Mr. Creedy — William Barr

The Fingermen are controlled by one of Chancellor Sutler’s personal henchmen, Peter Creedy, a.k.a. Mr. Creedy in the film. Mr. Creedy’s sole purpose in the film is to carry out all of Chancellor Sutler’s dirty work, strike fear into average citizens to keep them silent and prevent them from ever speaking out against the corrupt government. Ever since he was sworn in, William Barr has time and time again proven his own corruption by blatantly protecting Trump instead of doing his job as a bipartisan law enforcer. When Robert Mueller turned in his Russia Report, it was full of evidence of obstruction of justice and shady dealings with Russia, but Barr — who got his hands on it first — reported that the findings show no connection with Trump and Russia, to which Robert Mueller spoke back and said that is not what his report said; however, by the time the rest of America got the report and heard Mueller, the damage was done and Trump supporters had already moved on and assumed anything revealed after was just “sour grapes” by the Democrats and that the real Russia findings were all just a left-wing hoax.

Barr has abused his power by getting Trump’s personal loyal cronies, Michael Flynn and Robert Stone, out of prison for showing loyalty to Trump over the country. He followed Trump’s personal orders to gas and use military force to shove back peaceful protestors so Trump could take a photo-op with a bible. Barr claimed he did so because of violence, even though video evidence proved the “violence” he was talking about was a protester throwing a plastic water bottle in his direction that did not even come close to hitting him. Barr is supposed to be a neutral law enforcer, yet, as with all dictatorships, Barr acts as Trump’s own personal attorney and has already proven he will do anything to protect Donald Trump and will always put him before the good of the country.

Gordon Deitrich — Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, John Oliver, Bill Maher, Joy Behar, Jimmy Kimmel, Chelsea Handler, Samantha Bee, Alec Baldwin, any talk show host or comedian who speaks out against Donald Trump.

Gordon Deitrich is the lovable comedian with his own prime time talk show, much like Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, and many others. In the film, he takes Evey in and shelters her from the Fingermen, feeding her, comforting her, and showing her his secret basement. While there, Evey learns that Deitrich is in the closet, owns a Quran, and despises Chancellor Sutler and his authoritarian ways. He puts his own life in danger when he violates television censorship rules and performs an episode where he has a look-a-like of Chancellor Sutler on his show and humiliates him. The real Chancellor Sutler becomes enraged and sends Mr. Creedy and his Fingermen to Deitrich’s home to beat, black-bag, and kidnap him. We later find out from V that Gordon Deitrich was executed.

Gordon Deitrich represents every single comedian, talk show host, news anchor, and public figure who speaks out against Trump’s evil and bullying. Trump named off his enemies list, and one of his supporters mailed them all pipe bombs. Trump said Mexicans are infesting our country, and his supporters shot up public places targeting Mexicans. Trump saw Alec Baldwin mock him on Saturday Night Live, and Trump tweeted out, “Nothing funny about tired Saturday Night Live on Fake News NBC! Question is, how do the Networks get away with these total Republican hit jobs without retribution?”

Little Girl with Glasses — George Floyd

If you have seen V for Vendetta, you know who the little girl with glasses is. She pops in and out the of film periodically, as only an example of a private citizen who is waking up to see the corruption in the government V speaks of. She wears her own Guy Fawkes mask and black cape and runs around her neighborhood spray painting the letter “V” on government fliers that say “Strength through unity. Unity through faith.” She is spotted by a Fingerman who shoots her in the back while running away, killing her. The neighborhood townspeople notice this and grab clubs, wrenches, metal pipes, and approach the Fingerman who defiantly shows his badge to them before a man holding a wrench knocks him over the head.

While this little girl in the film is white and George Floyd is black, and the murder of George Floyd was clearly racially motivated, the overall message is the same in that it took an innocent person being killed in front of the eyes of civilians to act as the final push over the edge for people to rise up and revolt against a corrupt system that brutalizes its own citizens and protects the corrupt men and women who carry out that brutality.

Evey Hammond — The 1/3 of people who silently watch as 1/3 kills another 1/3.

From the opening of the film, we see Evey Hammond as a soft spoken, shy young woman who keeps her head down and avoids trouble. It is not until V sucks her into his movement that she finally learns to live a life free of fear and paranoia. She assists V in his mission to overthrow the authoritarian government and helps him complete his final mission on the 5th of November to blow up English Parliament.

Evey is every person who is sitting by during these Black Lives Matter protests, Women’s marches, Gay Rights marches, and other civil rights protests simply because they are too scared to get involved. There is a saying about Hitler’s rule in Germany that goes, “1/3 of your people would kill another 1/3, while 1/3 watches.” Evey’s character represents that 1/3 that stands by and watches while she witnesses evil happening but stays silent, until it affects her personally.

Chancellor Sutler — Donald Trump

From how he talks down to his own staff, to the way he is always blood-boiling angry, Chancellor Sutler is a clone copy of Donald Trump. Chancellor Sutler ran his hateful campaign by warning England about the dangers of letting immigrants, gays, and Muslims come into the country. Donald Trump began his political career by using Mexicans, Muslims, immigrants, and his political opponents as boogeymen to scare people into voting for him.

Both men have lived their entire lives under the belief that you always have win at everything you do and destroy the people who stand in your way; winning is everything and failure is not tolerated. When Sutler or Trump fail, the first thing they do is look for a scapegoat because nothing is ever their fault. Sutler tells his advisors “To fail is to invite doubt into everything we believe, everything we have fought for! England Prevails!” Trump never takes the blame for anything and calls Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Jeannine Pirro, Laura Ingraham, the anchors on Fox and Friends, and The Fox Five and briefs them on what to say and how to spin current events. He uses his own media outlet to take down the image and reputations of anyone who opposes him from AOC to Joe Biden, to even fellow Republican governors, senators, and mayors who disagree with him.

Chancellor Sutler told his advisors, “I want this country to realize that we stand on the edge of oblivion! I want every man, woman, and child to understand how close we are to chaos! I want everyone to remember why they need us!” When protesters began to sprout up across England, Chancellor Sutler screamed at his men, “I want more than arrests! I want results!” As November 5th approached, Chancellor Sutler used his media outlets to run stories about there being a water shortage, an Avian “bird” flu” going around, and a new mysterious airborne disease infecting people in England; all these stories were designed to keep people inside and prevent them from joining in V’s protest. He spoke out, “Our enemy [protestors] is an insidious one seeking to divide us and destroy the very foundation of our great nation!”

Donald Trump still calls journalists who write negative press about him “enemy of the people.” He labeled Antifa a terrorist group because they stand up to him, yet he has never said anything negative about the KKK or neo Nazi’s wearing swastikas because they are his supporters. As we speak, Donald Trump is sending military troops to Seattle and Portland to “round up” peaceful protestors in vans. There are literally ununiformed police driving up to protestors in unlicensed vans and kidnapping them.

Read that one more time.

Donald Trump is sending un-uniformed police to kidnap his own citizens and take them away in vans as an intimidation tactic to bully peaceful protestors. There is nothing American or patriotic about this. This is third-world dictatorship behavior and if you support this, shame on you.

Chancellor Sutler threw Muslims, homosexuals, immigrants, and protestors into internment camps and locked them away in cages where they were abused and starved to death. Donald Trump still practices separating families at the U.S.-Mexico border and locks them away in cages, destroying families and causing some to die of dehydration and malnutrition.

V — Protestors

At the end of V for Vendetta, V succeeds in his mission to blow up parliament and end Chancellor Sutler’s dictatorship. Natalie Portman later explains to a detective who V was, “He was Edmond Dantes. He was my father, my mother, my brother, my friend. He was you, me, all of us.” V spoke the truth even when no one else would listen. He was Chancellor Sutler’s greatest enemy because he refused to keep his head down, mouth shut, and just do what he was told. He lived by the motto “People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”

Donald Trump hates the Black Lives Matter movement and called the painting of “Black Lives Matter” in front of Trump Tower “an act of hate.” He hates those who do not fall into line like sheep to whatever he says and has no remorse, empathy, or regard for human life except his own. He only cares about himself, as Chancellor Sutler does; and like V, Americans speaking out have had enough of Trump’s authoritarian behavior.

There is an old saying that is interchangeable depending on who you are speaking of, and it goes something like this:

First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I am not Jewish.
Then they came for the Muslims, and I did not speak out because I am not Muslim.
Then they came for the immigrants, and I did not speak out because I am not an immigrant.
Then they came for the homosexuals, and I did not speak out because I am not gay.
Then they came for black people, and I did not speak out because I am not black.
Then they came for the protestors, and I did not speak out because I was not a protestor.

Now they are coming for me, and there is no one left to speak out for me.

About the Author:

Brian Moniz is from San Jose, Calif. He studied filmmaking and writing at San Jose State University from 2010–2013 and got his bachelor’s degree in Radio-TV-Film. Throughout his high school and college years, he worked as a music and movie journalist and critic. Having only recently come out of the closet himself in 2014, Brian enjoys writing about LGBTQ issues. His only regret when it comes to his sexuality is that he didn’t come out sooner.