Zepke Stephen: Head in the Stars. Essays on Science Fiction

to rob banks and distribute time/money to the poor. This
‘revolutionary’ action finally culminates in the people
being liberated from their wage-slavery, allowing them to
overwhelm the walls dividing the haves and the have-nots.
Although there is perhaps a faint suggestion here that the
revolution begins by abolishing private property, what
seems to motivate the protagonists, and finally explains
their ‘remarkable’ status, is their ability to love across social
divisions and so exemplify the truism that not only is love
‘equal’, but it is also humanity’s saving grace. Similarly in
V for Vendetta the superhuman abilities of the hero V are
explained by his exposure to a chemical during experiments
on political prisoners held in detention camps. But this is
merely ‘background’ to the story, which instead emphasises
V’s education and culture, his tender empathy, patience
and strength. In other words, V’s superhuman abilities are
not extraordinary but in fact the distillation of everything
that makes human’s ‘good’, a fact symbolised by those in
the popular uprising that ends the film all donning V’s
mask. Finally, however, the film qualifies the universality
of V’s gifts inasmuch as the popular uprising is only made
possible by V’s super powers and self-sacrifice. Perhaps this
level of political ambiguity in the film is unsurprising given
that V’s actions are modelled on those of Guy Fawkes!
In their dubious appeal to universal human values
as the ground of a revolutionary politics these films are
similar to those dystopian films that are concerned with
an individual’s escape from an oppressive system. Such
films are ‘critical’ insofar as they imagine a future in which
human individuality and freedom are under threat, but
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