V for pissed-offedness : Anti-immigrant subversion of dystopian superhero intertexts

This is a self-archived version of an original article. This version may differ from the original in pagination and typographic details. Author(s): Title: Year: Version: Copyright: Rights: Rights url: Please cite the original version: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ V for pissed-offedness : Anti-immigrant subversion of dystopian superhero intertexts © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Ralf Kauranen, Olli Löytty, Aura Nikkilä, and Anna Vuorinne; individual chapters, the contributors Accepted version (Final draft) Rantala, Oskari Rantala, O. (2023). V for pissed-offedness : Anti-immigrant subversion of dystopian superhero intertexts. In R. Kauranen, O. Löytty, A. Nikkilä, & A. Vuorinne (Eds.), Comics and Migration : Representation and Other Practices (pp. 139-152). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003254621-9 2023 V for pissed-offedness: Anti-immigrant subversion of dystopian superhero intertexts Author: Oskari Rantala (University of Jyväskylä, Finland) Article published in: Comics and Migration. Representation and Other Practices, edited by Ralf Kauranen, Olli Löytty, Aura Nikkilä, and Anna Vuorinne, Routledge 2023, pp. 139–152 DOI: 10.4324/9781003254621-9 Series: Global Perspectives in Comics Studies, edited by Harriet E.H. Earle Oskari Rantala ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2547-7238 ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Oskari-Rantala Website: https://oskarirantala.fi/academic Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/OskarixRantala This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in Comics and Migration. Representation and Other Practices on 2023, available online: https://www.routledge.com/9781032184579 It is deposited under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercialNoDerivatives License, which permits noncommercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered. Chapter 7 V for pissed-offedness: Anti-immigrant subversion of dystopian superhero intertexts Oskari Rantala In the 2019 parliamentary elections, the Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset) defied expectations and became the second largest party in the Finnish parliament. The nationalist and populist party succeeded in increasing its number of seats despite major challenges during the previous term, including a party split and most of the MPs exiting. A significant component of the highly successful campaign was a video advertisement titled V niin kuin ketutus. The phrase is tricky to translate precisely, but literally it means “V for being pissed off”, or “V for pissed-offedness”, as ketutus is a noun.1 Being a narrative short film rather than a simple advertisement, the video caused controversy and was a topic of heated discussion due to its depiction of violence and the portrayal of immigrants as sexual predators. Nonetheless, it reached hundreds of thousands of views before the elections, and one of the main actors even became an MP. From the perspective of comics studies, V niin kuin ketutus is interesting especially because of its intermedial relations with comics. It depicts a dystopian Finland governed by corrupt politicians and overcome by high levels of immigration; this dystopia is situated inside the story world of a comic book in the video. Furthermore, the advert extensively appropriates V for Vendetta, a comic by Alan Moore and David Lloyd (1982–1985, 1988–1989), and its 2005 film adaptation directed by James McTeigue and written by the Wachowskis. Whereas the original dystopian graphic novel takes a strong political stand against English fascist movements, as well as the anti-minority policies of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives, the film adaptation is more concerned with the erosion of civil liberties in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and the “War on Terror”. In this chapter, I discuss the ways in which the narrative strategies and aesthetics of these works are employed and their politics subverted in order to advance an anti-egalitarian and anti-immigrant agenda and manufacture exploitable political controversy in the contemporary media landscape. The first sec1 Other possible translations would include annoyance and irritation, but being pissed off is the translation used in the official English subtitles. 140 tion addresses the political context and publication of the advert. In the second, I detail the contents of V niin kuin ketutus before delving into a discussion of the similarities and dissimilarities of the heroes and villains portrayed in the advert, the graphic novel, and the film adaptation. The final section of the article focuses on the connections of V niin kuin ketutus and the emerging style of right-wing politics foregrounding culture war, controversy, and transgression. Introducing the renewed Finns Party The parliamentary elections of 2019 were crucial for the Finns Party. Two years prior, the party had split after a contested leadership race when Jussi Halla-aho became the party leader. The majority of the party’s MPs and all the government ministers left in protest, and it was also ousted from government as the other members of the centre-right coalition rejected Halla-aho’s radical anti-immigration program (Seuri, Palojärvi, and Teittinen 2017). The 2019 elections were essentially the first time that the renewed Finns Party was able to fully introduce its new approach to the voting public. Not counting the inconsequential 2018 presidential elections, no major elections had been held since the leadership change. An important shift in Finnish politics had taken place, but it was yet to be determined whether there was support for a more unapologetically anti-immigrant party in the mould of the Italian Lega Nord, Alternative for Germany, Austrian Freedom Party, or French National Rally (formerly National Front). These are all parties that the new Finns Party would soon align itself with in the European Parliament. V niin kuin ketutus was published online on 20 March 2019, two weeks before advance voting was set to begin. The nearly seven-minute video first caused dispute when a shorter teaser version was aired in movie theatres. Moviegoers who objected to the advert started to voice their concerns through social media, criticising the cinema chain Finnkino for giving a platform for an ad that was commonly described as “racist propaganda” and “far-right violent fantasy” (see tweet Finnkino 2019a and the replies). On 25 March, the feminist and anti-racist advocacy group Fem-R accused Finnkino of mainstreaming racism (Fem-R 2019). Finnkino individually replied to this and nearly a hundred other calls to discontinue airing the advert with the same short statement, which was posted repeatedly. According to this statement, they supported “tolerance, freedom of speech and democracy”, pledged to “not accept racism or discrimination”, and announced that the Finns Party campaign would be ending the next day (e.g. Finnkino 2019b; 2019c; 2019d). Even though the campaign ran its course and ended as planned (Sunila 2019), several foreign far-right news sites such as Voice of Europe and Fria Tider suggested falsely that the Finns Party advert was taken down due to accusations of racism (Emma R. 2019; Fria Tider 2019). An English-language version of the ad was uploaded a week after the original V niin kuin ketutus, but its views comprise but a fraction of those found in the original. In the English version, the “V for” wordplay of the Finnish title has understandably been replaced and the title is KETUTUS – A story of being seriously pissed off.2 The Finnish title does require some interpretation. “V niin kuin” means “V 2 I use the original Finnish title in this article, as it highlights the intermedial connections that are relevant for this discussion. 141 for”, but the title is somewhat humoristic, as the word ketutus does not start with the letter “v”. For a Finnish-speaking audience, it is obvious that the last word of the title is a placeholder for the stronger expletive vitutus. The meaning of both expressions is roughly the same but ketutus is a more playful and less vulgar term. This underscores the issues around what can be said in a political advert aimed at a mainstream audience. Similarly, a great deal of the political subtext is not stated explicitly. Instead, certain things are clearly hinted at with a knowing wink at the audience, as I will demonstrate in the next section. Strategies involving doublespeak and flexible play with symbols and meanings have a strong history in the European radical right (Vaarakallio 2017, 199–200). The election cycle was marked by high tension and even some acts of violence, which are exceptional in Finnish politics. The former Finns Party chairperson and a leftist candidate of Somalian origin were assaulted at the same time as V niin kuin ketutus was making headlines. As a result, politicians in many parties condemned the advert and accused the Finns Party of inciting racist hate crimes. Being in the spotlight was beneficial for the party, however. Scholars have suggested that manufacturing controversy is a viable strategy for populist parties in the contemporary media landscape; thus, by criticising the video, the political opponents of the Finns Party in fact increased its visibility and reach (Laakso, Puukka, and Koivisto 2019). As the storyline of the video featuring corrupt politicians, predatory immigrants and a violent vigilante monster is ultimately framed as fiction, condemning the advert can be played down as a lack of sense of humour or irony. As scholar Maria Mäkelä (2019, 458) points out, the film is a pastiche of speculative fiction, making it easy to argue that the narrative was not supposed to be taken at face value to begin with. She argues that this rhetoric of fictionality provides an effective counterargument to any criticism of the story: it was not supposed to be true and therefore its supposed racist elements do not warrant a discussion. Specifically, Mäkelä (2019, 457) considers it a parody of “Marvel comics, dystopian Hollywood blockbusters and video games”. Undoubtedly, several references to various kinds of popular culture narratives can be found, but a more thorough discussion is in order. Above everything else, V niin kuin ketutus references a single comics work (which is not a Marvel comic) and a specific dystopian Hollywood blockbuster. Imagining an immigration dystopia V niin kuin ketutus opens in a dimly lit space filled with old posters and books. An unidentifiable person walks through this library, picks up a comic book titled V niin kuin ketutus from the shelf, and sits down to read it. When the comic book is opened, the camera zooms into an illustrated image of Helsinki Cathedral. At this point, the viewer is transported into the story world of the comic and the drawing is replaced by a real-life video image of the same tower with the camera soon panning over the city. A voice-over narrator starts reciting the text that was some seconds earlier visible in captions on the 142 comic book page: “There was once a small nation, inhabited by content and happy people” (V niin kuin ketutus, 00:34).3 Even though the name of the country is not mentioned, it is obvious that the events are taking place in Helsinki, Finland. In addition to the cathedral, other recognisable landmarks such as the Parliament House soon make an appearance. The narrative starts like a fairy-tale and the narrator quickly paints a picture of a country where people are patriotic and everything is well. Then a stain in the idyll is introduced: “One day, the country’s democratically chosen leaders decided to betray the promises they had made to the people” (Vnnk, 0:50). The narrator informs the audience that the corrupt political elite do not care about the people and instead are focused on making themselves rich by taking in too many refugees. How this economic arrangement actually works remains a mystery. Visually, the narrative shifts back and forth between video segments recorded with live actors and illustrated comics panels, reinforcing the experience of reading a comic book. Especially the scenes filling in the backstory with a larger cast and more action are represented in comics format. In one scene, a young white woman is pulled by dark hands into a car that stops next to her on the street, suggesting that a rise in immigration leads to sexual violence. In another, bribed mainstream media brands anybody taking part in an anti-rape demonstration a racist. According to the narrator, “the country that once was safe for women and children […] was now a thing of the past” (Vnnk, 2:45). The verbal narration is often vague and does not make as specific accusations as the visual storytelling. As the comics panels explicitly reveal a harrowing and violent kidnapping, the narrator laments the irresponsible immigration policy, which leads to “those who were never in need of an asylum” (Vnnk, 1:50) also moving to the country. When the safety of women and children is mentioned, the images reveal a hooded figure with a knife in his hand. It is a clear reference to the deadly knife attacks in Turku, Finland, in August 2017, perpetrated by a radicalised asylum seeker. The attacker, who was inspired by jihadist terror groups and targeted women especially, was the first person to ever receive a sentence for terrorist crimes in Finland. The illustrated image shows the actual scene of the crime with the Turku Market Square and Orthodox Church in the background. The video also contains some aggressive jabs at the perceived opponents of the Finns Party’s agenda. When the corrupt politicians bribe a newspaper editor to make the mainstream media their propaganda platform, a money-filled briefcase changes hands in front of the headquarters of Helsingin Sanomat, the largest Finnish newspaper, which is often vilified by right-wing populists for its liberal bent. A moment later, the narrator describes the instructions that members of the political elite hand down to their suffering people: “Most importantly, people were told not to give way to fear and hate” (Vnnk, 3:01). The lines echo a phrase frequently used by the former Finns Party chairman and founder Timo Soini, who acted as the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time of terrorist attacks in Nice in 2016 and in Stockholm in 2017. While Soini urged people not to give way to fear (e.g. Saroniemi 2016; Waris 2017), the more militant wing of his party demanded that it was, on the contrary, “time to give way to fear” (Waris 3 Subsequently, I will refer to V niin kuin ketutus as Vnnk (in references, see Finns Party 2019) and provide an approximate timestamp for the quotations. I use the English subtitles of the original rather than the English version, even though the differences between the two seem to be minimal. All word choices and timings are not identical, however. 143 2017). After Jussi Halla-aho took power, Soini was expelled from the party and became a prime example of a person who was not aggressive enough in pushing the anti-immigrant message. Ironic wishes of “not giving way to fear” are frequently used quips in the new and more radical Finns Party circuit (e.g. Halla-aho 2019). After establishing the dystopian world, the main storyline of V niin kuin ketutus begins. As a result of the influx of immigrants, there is financial hardship and “ordinary Finns” – all played by white men – lose their jobs and end up homeless. The people who are not listened to become frustrated or, as the title puts it, pissed off. Their growing anger is depicted as black smoke rising all around the city and finally taking embodied form, as a monster is created in the depths of the earth. This quasi-superhero is a naked and growling muscular man with a long beard and superhuman strength. The creature tracks one of the members of the leading cabal to his limousine, in which he is cruising around the city with scantily clad women. The monster attacks the people in the car, scaring away the politician’s companions. He then forces the man to repent his wrongdoings, resign, and leave the country in shame. When his work is done, the monster vanishes into thin air. At this point, the reader in the library closes the comic book and it is revealed that he is the Finns Party leader Jussi Halla-aho. Looking straight into the camera, he announces that in reality, “there is no Pissed Off Monster, and it is not going to come and save anyone” (Vnnk, 6:18). Instead of waiting for a supernatural saviour, he urges the electorate to vote for his party and for change. The sole reason Halla-aho gives is that the old parties will not “change their objectives” (Vnnk, 6:24). What exactly needs to be changed and how his party plans to accomplish it remains unsaid. It is an interesting political advert in the sense that it does not promise anything. V niin kuin ketutus simply depicts a dystopian reality that is itself fictional. The rhetoric is negative: voting for the Finns Party will lead to something else. The crux of the advert is obvious, of course – namely, that the party plans to heavily restrict immigration if it gets into power – but no promises are made or plans laid out. In fact, immigration policies in Finland are already strict and the percentage of the foreign-born population is lower than in any other Nordic or Western European country (OECD 2021). Pissed Off Monster versus V V niin kuin ketutus plays with many tropes of popular culture but an obvious reference point, already apparent from the title, is V for Vendetta. Written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd, the dystopian tale about a postapocalyptic Britain under a fascist regime first appeared in Britain in 1982– 1985 and in the US in 1988–1989.4 In the story, a lone terrorist of seemingly superhuman competence attempts to take down the regime by assassinating prominent party members and inciting a popular insurrection. His goal is to plunge the country into chaos, out of which a new system of free citizens might grow: “With anarchy, from rubble comes new life” (Moore and Lloyd 1990, 258). 4 Originally, the strip appeared in the comics magazine Warrior between 1982 and 1985. When the magazine folded, the story remained unfinished for a few years until it was picked up by DC Comics and published in comic book format in the US. The black-and-white Warrior segments were coloured and republished in 1988 and the story concluded the following year in the last four comic books of the 10-issue series. 144 The enigmatic main character, known as V, hides his face behind a Guy Fawkes mask that has later been popularised as a symbol of anti-establishment rebellion by a plethora of movements, ranging from the hacker-activists of Anonymous and wealth-inequality protesters of Occupy Wall Street to Arab Spring demonstrators. More recently, it has been used by democracy protesters in Hong Kong as well as Donald Trump supporters who stormed the US Capitol in 2021 (Siu 2019; Pengelly and Luscombe 2021). There is some irony in the fact that aspects of the story have been liberally employed by agents across the political spectrum, even by the far right (e.g. Nyqvist 2019), when the original hero of the comic strip was fighting fascism and espoused an anarchist ideology. Against the backdrop of nuclear war, brutal secret police, and ever-present surveillance cameras, V wages a one-man war against the one-party state. Moore and Lloyd’s comic discusses the justification of political violence, the philosophy of anarchy, and resistance against authority. In addition to the unconventional content, the drawing style is somewhat experimental, with Lance Parkin (2013, 90) dubbing Lloyd’s approach a visual joke. Strong contrasts and the omitting of object outlines lead to a striking black-and-white style that is at odds with the story the images are telling: “morally, there was nothing but gray. We were asking the reader to consider some interesting questions” (Moore, quoted in Khoury 2003, 75). Despite fighting genocidal villains, V is an ambivalent antihero who comes across as a potentially deranged and morally compromised character capable of murder and torture. V is a borderline case between an extremely competent but still ordinary human being and one with clearly superhuman abilities. In this sense, he resembles comics superheroes such as Batman and Night Raven, who are mentioned as inspiration alongside dystopian writers like George Orwell and Aldous Huxley in Moore’s 1983 essay describing the genesis of the character (Moore 1990, 270). Like the Pissed Off Monster of the Finns Party advert, V is not a superhero in the classic sense. Peter Coogan (2009), for example, defines the superhero as the trinity of mission, powers, and secret identity. Both characters do have exceptional powers and a clearly defined mission, but they lack the double identities of hero and their secret alter ego. On the other hand, V does have an intriguing origin story, a prevalent trope in superhero narratives. He had been an inmate and a human guinea pig in the fascist administration’s research facility, in which most test subjects died horrendously. However, one of the inmates, known as “the man in room five”, manages to destroy the whole facility and escape. In a pivotal scene, the comics narrative shows the threatening naked silhouette against the burning buildings, a sight witnessed by the doctor whose diary entries constitute the textual channel of the comics narrative in the episode. That is the moment when “the man in room five” – the number that the Roman numeral V stands for – is transformed into V. The importance of the moment is underlined by the repetition of the panels in different comics scenes (Moore and Lloyd 1990, 67, 83), representing the persistent memories tormenting the doctor. Bishop Lilliman, another one of V’s victims who had been present, states that he is still having horrifying nightmares about “a black shape against the flames” (Moore and Lloyd 1990, 60), before V kills him. 145 In the movie adaptation, some major plot elements are rearranged, but this scene and the origin story of V remain intact, even though some details have been altered. Now, the research is instrumental for manufacturing a virus scare which helps the totalitarian regime win crucial elections. What remains, however, is the striking visual of a dark silhouette of a man standing against the flames when he has set himself free. Mimicking the panel repetition in the comic, the film employs the same frames in several scenes even more extensively (McTeigue 2005, 33:14, 57:16, 1:22:20, 1:37:55). V niin kuin ketutus also mimics the scene when the anger of fed-up Finns has reached a boiling point. As the Pissed Off Monster is rising from the volcanic depths, he is presented in a similar way: a threatening, naked figure in the dark set against fiery lava streams. He even has a flaming V emblem on his chest. Both the Pissed Off Monster and V are avenging figures, ready to fight for oppressed people and violently meting out punishments for political crimes. Even though one features in a seven-minute ad and the other in a 250-page graphic novel (or a two-hour film), the arc of the story is similar. There is injustice caused by the morally and politically bankrupt leaders, which the avenger is going to take out, vanishing after his work is done. In the end of Moore and Lloyd’s story, V is killed by police bullets, but his protégé Evey Hammond takes his place as V at the crucial moment to incite the masses to take down the dictatorship. In the graphic novel, a period of brutal chaos ensues, and it is unclear whether V’s insurgence is successful. The film ends on a more hopeful note, as the police state is toppled in a seemingly bloodless coup. The vigilantism of the cinematic V is more unproblematic and the ending less ambiguous, and in some respects the Finns Party advert is a descendant of the film rather than the graphic novel. Villains, fascists, elites The most striking difference between V for Vendetta and V niin kuin ketutus stems from the political dimensions of the narrative. Whereas the Orwellian government of V for Vendetta is run by militaristic fascists, the Finns Party’s dystopia seems to be a product of corrupt liberal elite. Suitcases filled with money, expensive suits, private limousines, and the dramatic cut to a European Union flag when the sinister abuses of power are discussed reference the stereotypical conception of a globalist elite. Outlined in various conspiracy theories, globalism has been adopted by more mainstream nationalist and populist politicians, such as Donald Trump and Jussi Halla-aho, who have used it prominently (e.g. Borger 2019; Suomen uutiset 2018b). In V for Vendetta, V’s opponents have ethnically cleansed Britain and violently repressed minorities, mirroring the objectives of real-life fascist groups that were active in the 1970s. The fascist organisation that took power in the comic strip is called Norsefire, the letters of which are obviously reminiscent of the British far-right party National Front. In the 1970s, National Front campaigned against non-white immigration, organised violent demonstrations, and enjoyed some electoral success until Thatcher took the Conservative Party in a more nationalist direction and marginalised the more radical right-wing movements (Trilling 2013). 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