Individual and Collective Determination: Anarchism and Utopianism in V for Vendetta

Abstract

V for Vendetta depicts a dystopian version of the United Kingdom in the 1990s, preceded by a nuclear war in the 1980s that devastated the rest of the world. Since both the comic and the movie are set in a dystopian setting ruled by Norsefire, the fascist government, scholars broadly argue that V for Vendetta should be considered a dystopian work. However, in this paper, I set out to prove that it is indeed a utopian work by drawing on definitions of utopia, eutopia, and dystopia. Although Moore and McTeigue present the comic and the film in a dystopian setting, they should still be considered utopian for establishing a utopian anarchist revolution. It is essential to read V for Vendetta with a utopian lens to see the importance of individual anarchist mindset in the utopia that Moore and McTeigue suggest. The comic and film demonstrate that constructing a utopian anarchist state needs individual and community determination. This paper ultimately suggests a new reading of the politics of film and the comic, contrasting Moore’s opposition to the film and encouraging reading them together rather than contradicting one another.