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Summers 1

Buffy Summers

Professor Baker

ENG 1302

12 June 2015

Identity, Music, and Gestalt Theory in V for Vendetta: Projections of Discontent

Traditionally a mask is used to conceal the identity of the person wearing it, yet its very existence draws even more attention to the person under the mask. But what if there is nothing under the mask? What if the masked man is merely a projection of the inner turmoil of the protagonist? Bruce Kawin notes that when dealing with a projection of the protagonist or audience, “the health is achieved by taking the projection back into oneself, in other words by deeply acknowledging the connection between the monster and the official self” (Kawin loc. 7433). In the film V for Vendetta (2006), directed by the Wachowski siblings, the terrorist V functions as a personified projection of Evey Hammond’s disdain for the corrupt dystopian England. The key to his terrorist activity is the use of music, specifically Tchaikovsky's “1812 Overture.”

Film can utilize sound, specifically music, to drive the plot and shape characterization. Sound in film can be diagetic (sound that the characters interact with) and non-diagetic (such as the film score). Both can be used in tandem to create an additional storytelling element not found in traditional literature. Diagetic music in V for Vendetta frames Evey Hammond’s change in characterization, emphasizing her transition from a passive role to an active role. In every moment after Evey is introduced to diagetic music, she is deeply affected and driven by it, causing her characterization to become more aligned with V’s. As a result, Evey is not only a foil of V, but also a part of him. Through the use of the film’s diagetic music (framed by two instances of Tchaikovsky's “1812 Overture”), Evey accepts the “monster” within her, altering both her identity, and the society around her. Through interaction with music, she learns how to influence society, whether it be with her own voice, or the sound of an explosion. As she becomes more experienced with music, she distances herself from the silence that plagued her in the beginning of the movie. Evey also acts as the eyes of the audience as they enter into V’s dystopian world. The audience experiences and shares the same confusion, reluctance, and surprise as Evey does, seeing the faults of this alternate future (and simultaneously the faults of the present) through the eyes of an innocent.

Working Bibliography

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Bullock, Philip. "Ambiguous Speech and Eloquent Silence: The Queerness of Tchaikovsky's Songs." 19th-Century Music 32.1 (2008): 94-128.JSTOR. Web. 11 June 2014.

Currie, James. "Music After All." Journal of the American Musicological Society 62.1 (2009): 145-203. Web. 11 June 2014.

Danziger-Russ, Jacqueline. Girls and Their Comics: Finding a Female Voice in Comic Book Narrative. New York: Scarecrow Press, 2012. Print.

Kawin, Bruce F. "Children of the Light." Film Genre Reader IV. Ed. Barry K. Grant. 4th ed. Austin: U of Texas P, 2012. Kindle AZW file.

Kukkonen, Karin. "Comics as a Test Case for Transmedial Narratology." SubStance 40.124 (2011): 34-52. JSTOR. Web. 11 June 2014.

Sawin, Patricia E. "Performance at the Nexus of Gender, Power, and Desire: Reconsidering Bauman's Verbal Art from the Perspective of Gendered Subjectivity as Performance." The Journal of American Folklore 115.455 (2002): 28-61. JSTOR. Web. 11 June 2014.

Wachowski, Larry, Andy Wachowski, and James McTeigue. V for Vendetta: From Script to Film. New York: Rizzoli, 2006. Print.