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

Abstract

In 2019, the nationalist and populist Finns Party defied expectations and became the second-largest party in the Finnish Parliament. A significant component of the successful campaign was a video titled “V niin kuin ketutus” (“V for Being Pissed Off”). Its violence and the depiction of immigrants as sexual predators caused controversy and attracted nearly half a million views.

From the perspective of comics studies, the narrative short film is interesting because of its intermedial relations with comics. The film depicts a dystopian Finland governed by corrupt politicians and subjected to high levels of immigration; however, this dystopia is situated inside the story world of a comic book in the film. Furthermore, the film extensively appropriates V for Vendetta, a comics work by Alan Moore and David Lloyd (1982–1985, 1988–1989), and its film adaptation by James McTeigue and the Wachowskis (2005). The chapter discusses the ways in which the narrative strategies and aesthetics of these works are appropriated and the politics subverted to support an anti-egalitarian and anti-immigrant agenda and manufacture exploitable political controversy in the contemporary media landscape.