Usually, sugar skulls aren’t actually meant to be eaten. They’re just made with edible ingredients before being decorated with things like sequins, paper flowers, beads, and more. Thankfully--for heathens like myself who do want to be able to eat a candy skull at least once in their life--there are some recipes that decorate the skulls only with colored icing like this one, so you can gnaw on a beautifully decorated, vaguely menacing hunk of sugar.
One word of warning before you attempt this: make sure you don’t attempt this on a rainy or humid day. Apparently the moisture in the air makes it really difficult for the sugar to adhere together, and your skulls will crumble.
Aside from The Day of the Dead, November also reminds me of the same story every year: V for Vendetta. For those of you who don’t know the graphic novel/film, the story centers around the Fifth of November.
Remember, remember, the fifth of November
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot;
I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason Should ever be forgot.
The above is part of an English Folk verse published in 1870. The subject matter is Guy Fawkes’ attempted bombing of the British Parliament building. This particular part of the verse is used repeatedly throughout the story of V for Vendetta, so much so that the title of the story has become synonymous with the fifth of November for me.
I’ll admit now that I’m a geek that watches this movie every year on the fifth of November. But why? What captures me about the story that I revisit it so often?
Much like The Day of the Dead, V for Vendetta is an ode to remembrance. Set in a dystopian near future, Guy Fawkes is not a character within the story. Someone who remembers him is. His name is V, and he shares many things with Mr. Fawkes. For one, V wears a Guy Fawkes mask as if it were his own face. For another, he is also trying to blow up Parliament.
Now, you may question why someone we are meant to see as one of the protagonists of the story is doing something so destructive. V explains to the other main character Evey why he feels it’s so important:
Evey: You really think that blowing up Parliament is going to make this country a better place?What I like about V for Vendetta is that it takes a revolutionary zealot and socialized compromiser and makes them talk. Neither Evey nor V care for the way Britain’s government is behaving--but V is the only one who is willing to do something about it at the beginning of the movie. Evey is too afraid of getting in trouble, of having her government strip her very life away from her. For Evey, it is better to live under the crushing rule of an intolerant and bigoted government than it is to risk her life defying them. For V, it’s just the opposite. While V’s meticulous planning and martial arts ability keep him fairly safe most of the time, V risks his life over and over again to live as a free man and to fight for the freedom of Britain’s people.
V: There's no certainty, only opportunity.
Evey: I think you can be pretty certain that if anyone does show up, Creedy will black-bag everyone of them.
V: People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
Evey: And you are going to make that happen by blowing up a building?
V: The building is a symbol, as is the act of destroying it. Symbols are given power by the people. Alone, a symbol is meaningless, but with enough people, blowing up a building can change the world.
Evey: I wish I believed that was possible, but every time I've seen the world change it's always been for the worse.
The difference between Evey and V is where some of the most evocative conversations come from. Evey is easy for the viewer to relate to. We live in our own realities, wishing there was something we could do about all the corruption and bigotry we see, but believing ourselves too small and insignificant to do anything about it. No one teaches you how to become a Precinct Committee Person in high school, no one tells you to look up your local party branch in your county and get involved with them. Even these actions can feel useless when it seems like the system is rigged. Evey’s frustrations and fears come off as realism, something that we ourselves have experienced and therefore don’t perceive as pathetic or weak. From this empathetic position, Evey takes on the feelings of the viewers when watching, expressing what a nice story V is trying to tell, but how they’re not sure one person could ever hope to change the world.
V doesn’t have the same priorities as Evey. Disfigured with burns and with no memory of who he was prior to becoming a vigilante, V doesn’t have a normal everyday life for the government to hold hostage. It comes to light during the story that the fire that robbed V of his face and his memory happened in a government facility where the government was keeping all of the citizens they had deemed to be a threat to Great Britain. This included people of different faiths, different ethnicities, and differing sexual and gender identities. Since V came from one of these concentration camps, he is established as a character that is already outside the system with nothing to lose by defying it. Everything that Evey is afraid will happen to her if she speaks up or does something has already happened to him, and so he doesn’t fear it the way she does.
While this dichotomy between character priorities allows Evey and V to take on the two voices in our own heads--the one that calls for us to hunker down and protect what we have and the one that calls for us to stand up and act--V ultimately ends up functioning as a story, an idea that motivates Evey to action. Stories are given great weight in V for Vendetta. The movie opens with narration from Evey to effect.
Evey: I've witnessed firsthand the power of ideas. I've seen people kill in the name of them; and die defending them.Evey goes on to explain how lies, stories, and ideas can be used as a call to action in a later conversation with V.
Evey: My father was a writer. You would've liked him. He used to say that artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover the truth up.When Evey is captured in the middle of the movie, she finds the strength to go on due to the story of a woman--written on a scrap of dried toilet paper and hidden in her cell wall--who died in the concentration camps before her. The woman’s name is Valerie, and she was sent to the camps for being a lesbian. In her story, she recounts her life as a woman who was free to love whomever she wanted before the government imposed its martial order, and how it was small and it was fragile but it was the only thing worth having.
V: A man after my own heart.
Finally, Evey is threatened with death if she doesn’t assist the government in finding V’s hideout. Instead of giving in, Evey says she would rather be taken out behind the chemical shed and shot, thank you.
That’s when things take a turn. Instead of taking her away, the guard says that she has no fear anymore and that she’s free to go. After a moment, Evey exits the cell to find herself back in V’s home. For plot relevant reasons--mainly that Evey knew enough about V’s home to lead the government to him--V had asked Evey to stay with him until he executed his plan to blow up Parliament on the following Fifth of November. Instead of acquiescing, Evey tricks V and runs away. She goes to stay with a friend. When that friend’s home is raided, V gets to Evey before the federal agents do. However, Evey has already proven that she is untrustworthy due to the amount of fear she has for the government, so what is V to do? In the end, he decides to cure her of her fear--but finding out everything she had experienced in her cell was a lie has a huge effect on Evey.
Evey has seen people kill and die in the name of ideas. Evey’s father was a writer who said artists use lies to tell the truth. Then Evey takes courage from Valerie’s story, and takes power from the one V created around her.
Ultimately, V’s story about blowing up a building becomes true as well when the buildings of Parliament blow up. V’s call to arms a year ago led to an uprising. The symbol was given power by the people. When asked who V really was, Evey responds in a way that makes him out to be a story, an idea.
So, although this movie does a lot to make people remember things like Guy Fawkes and Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, the reason I watch it every year is to remember what is worth living for--and those who fought, lived, and died before me to make sure I could live free.
Don’t let them down. Be part of their numbers. Be the change you wish to see in the world. And if it ever gets a little difficult to remember why you’re putting yourself through all the trouble, pull out this little movie and remember.
No comments:
Post a Comment