Entertainment vs. Indoctrination

This post is going to come in two parts because of its length and I am still working on the second portion.

I had the opportunity to watch an interesting and challenging movie the other day. V for Vendetta just came out on DVD abd I watched it for the first time just the other day. I have been impressed with the theatrical adaptations of graphic novels in the past years to include the X-Men Trilogy, the Punisher and Batman Begins which are among my favorite. One thing that I enjoy about them is that they stay along the story of the comic reliably consistently and do a good job of maintaining the “comic feel.”
Before going into depth on the movie, I want to express an observation. Hollywood has a really great thing going for them in the information arena. You see people today, especially in the US, live for ease. We live in the time of instant gratification. Where else can you find a culture with the 15min Pizza delivery? Movies are no different. People would rather watch a mediocre, condensed dramatization of Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice then to take the hours to read it and allow themselves to imagine the story for themselves. Impatience and entertainment rule the movie watcher’s decision making presses. When this person goes to the theatre to be entertained, they are going to be immersed in gratification. Their ability to critically interact on an intellectual level with the story is very low if not non-existent. For Hollywood, this is a prime position. This is when writers and directors begin to blur the line between the fictitious entertainment and the social and political undertones often with amazing results.
When dealing with nonfiction social and political issues, with published research (actually even that is in question today, but that is another topic for another day) at least the reader can look at the citations and references to other studies to determine factual information. The reader then can determine for themselves using critical thinking what their position will be. This allows them to weigh the various sides and work out the issues for themselves. There is only one problem: it takes time and effort that people are often unwilling to do. Enter the Hollywood script writer.
V for Vendetta is a perfect example. The movie-goer is drawn into the theater by a story of a vigilante fighting against an oppressive government to settle a vendetta. When the movie-goer watches the film, they find some pretty contemporary coincidences to some popular talking points in the socio-political arena. The setting is England about 3 decades in the future. The government is an ultra-conservative fascist-modeled oppressive government.