multimindz's reviews
45 reviews

Amazing satire, perfectly pictures how it feels to be Black in spaces that pretend to welcome you, dealing with structural prejudice, and "well meaning" but totally myopic allies that say all the right things but mean absolutely none of them boldly and vastly (but will get on your case quick the second you point it out to them, no matter how kindhearted and friendly your delivery). It's an awesome, funny and thought provoking read

It's a book of cat memes from 1911 of a bunch of little kitties going off to see the kitty queen for a dinner. Fantastic. 

The movie is one of my fav so I read the graphic novel and then watched the movie right after.

I liked the movie waaaaaaay more than the book. The movie storyline was more succinct whereas in the book, I sometimes had problems following the different storylines. The book made sense but it felt more like White Guy Meandering & Mulling About Society whereas the movie got straight to the point.

What knocked my score to the 3's (I wanted to give it a 5 because it is V for Vendetta alone but that's not fair) is the use of Black People As Society's Canaries trope, where there are no active Black characters talking, living, etc in the forefront. Nope, we're in the background being .... murdered and treated poorly and all the White folks who star in the work do is go "Wow, look at how poorly the Black people are being treated, they're always the first to go." They do nothing but wait for all or most of the Black folks to be eradicated before doing anything, while all the while going "This world is sick, look at how they treat the Black people [and how I do nothing because why have genuine human compassion for Black people, who are also human (News Flash, it's true), until they die. Which works best for me because at least they're gone, I just have to act sad about it]." There are smarter & more humane ways to say or depict the issues of totalitarianism, facism and wide-spread prejudice. The movie handled it better, at least removed the "Black People as Society's Canary" trope. 

The sexism is wowser in the book. You have the daft-but-cute 16 yr old Evey Hammond (aged up in the movie and good thing, that!) who seemed to be an easily led, doe-eyed lamb that constantly trailed out things that made V look impressive, how she would go "oh, I'm so weak and frail but you're so big and strong" (I'm paraphrasing here). It clearly didn't look like some super meta-cognitive move to quip on society's sexism by Alan Moore, it just looked like standard White Straight Cis Man Makes Comic Books And Includes Gender Beside "Man" behavior. He triiiiiiiiied? 🤷🏿‍♀️ And flopped. Even had a Lady Macbeth type character that I almost expected to say "Out, out, damned spot" at one point." I get the whole "messed up ppl like power" thing but that all could have been told way better, when it came to the women. It instead read more like "What I, a straight man, believe a woman gunning for power would act like." The movie was a bit better, had it's drawbacks (thanks to the source material, they can only do so much) but the book was more heavy handed & leaded with the built-in sexism.

It's like Alan Moore was trying to say very poignant things about society but because it's clear via his work he doesn't really interact much (if at all) with whole slices of society (*koff*AnyoneNotWhite,NotMan,NotStraightAndEspeciallyNoCombos/Intersections*wheeeeeeeeze**koff*) it comes off as very "White Man Muses About Society, Ignores His Own Glaring Blindspots", which, bro, is already so many books, dear gods. We already have 1984, Brave New World, the list goes on and on and on and! At least the movie was good. I think if Alan Moore widened up his friend circle (at least to the point a group picture wouldn't look like something the National Front would hardly blink at) before and during the time he created this graphic novel, it would have been a super knock-out, probably.

Perhaps I'm also just tired of "White Guy Muses About Society, Ignores Own Blindspots" works. Been hearing and reading them since I was a kid (usually not by choice, at least this time was), it's lame, myopic af and they miss a lot.

Those two things I mentioned mostly knocked the score to 3.75. I recommend the movie over the graphic novel. At least the movie is thrilling

Not bad but less genderqueer-y than I was hoping for, even with the tempered knowledge of "This was from the 1950s"

It was ok. I guess I was expecting a bit more "gender fluidity itself is ok/a non-issue" but the restrictions to gender (girls are/should be delicate & weak, boys are/should be tough and strong) are really strong. In the 50s, when this came out, it probably was groundbreaking as is but now, it's nifty but definitely shows it's time (and the gender and cis-ness of that gender - a straight guy) of the creator really well. It was a cute read but the "boys/girls are supposed to be [fill in the stereotype blank]" was constant.

Funny, on-the-nose, and amazing. It captures anime con life in a funny and captivating way