Fascist Lizards and Republican Presidents
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: The Return of "V"
272215JUL05

Fascist Lizards and Republican Presidents

You can always tell when a conservative-Republican president is in the White House. Suddenly, Hollywood studios and television production companies begin to take a keen interest in the political ideology of fascism. Driven by left-wing paranoia, directors and producers start releasing a flood of films and television shows that have us all looking under our beds for Hitler and in our closets for Francisco Franco. One such notable show during the so-called Reagan Years was a remarkable bit of science fiction known as “V”.

“V” first aired in 1983 with a well-received plot of invading fascist alien lizards. These lizards, cunningly disguised as humans with a vocal disorder, openly played to our hopes and desires, offering mankind a smorgasbord of new technology to solve our societal ills in exchange for an Earth-manufactured chemical needed to save their home world. Of course, all of this was just a cover story. In secret, the invaders were plotting to drain the Earth’s water supply and harvest its human population for food. To help achieve their nefarious plans, the aliens, who came to be known as “Visitors”, engineered a state of martial law by uncovering “criminal conspiracies” against the “peaceful” Visitors. The scapegoats for many of these conspiracies were the human scientists who threatened to unravel all of their scheming.

Is any of this starting to sound familiar? Obviously, “V” is an allegorical retelling of the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. From the alien’s swastika-like emblem, to their efforts to round-up and eliminate scientist troublemakers (Jews in the 1930s), everything about the aliens was an open allusion to the Nazi party. And let me assure you that through such clever history-inspired plot elements, the series created an alien race that contained far more motivational depth and fear-inducing realism than your typical green-man-from-outer-space baddie. As a result, “V” quickly became a science fiction landmark, and rightly so, with a huge fan base still active today. Its success ultimately led to “V: The Final Battle”, a three part miniseries released in 1984 that also received a lot of praise, albeit this component of the story focused more upon the action-packed heroics of the human “resistance movement” than plumbing the depths of historic allegory.

Now, any person who follows American politics knows that liberals habitually believe that every conservative has a pair of SS storm trooper boots hidden in his closet. It is for this reason that fascist conspiracies become such a popular plot element when the conservative star rises on the horizon. Anyone who has even the slightest political inclination will be able to watch the original “V” series and see the concealed swipes at the political environment which had ushered Ronald Reagan, the popular conservative Republican, into the White House. One of the most telling scenes involves an argument which erupts between Mike Donovan (played by Mark Singer), a TV news cameraman and member of the resistance, and his wealthy, power hungry, and Visitor-sympathetic, mother. During the argument, Donovan strongly warns his mother that one day you can wake up and discover that you are living in a fascist nation and realize it is too late to do anything about it. With lines like that, it would seem that the Visitors are not the only masters of propaganda.

Of course, Ronald Reagan served his two terms without instituting any fascist conspiracies. During the next decades, we would see one moderate Republican, George H. W. Bush, serving a single term, and one scandal-ridden liberal president, William J. Clinton, serving two terms with a noticeable lack of fascist warnings from Hollywood or television. The entertainment industry went dormant…at least temporarily.

With a sea change in national politics, the gurus of mass entertainment have reawakened with a strong sense of d?j? vu. Most interesting, NBC has deemed it to be the proper time to announce a remake of the original “V” miniseries, with a sequel possibly following soon after. One must wonder “why now?” Of course, the answer is rhetorical as the motivation is clear. With another conservative Republican serving as president, for his second term, no less, the fascist fetish is once again en vogue. History often repeats---just like a television series. And in this case, we have a repeat of both!

As a fan of the original series, I detest the idea of remaking the original miniseries. Sure, with today’s CGI technology, a new “V” could look great, but why tamper with a classic? Haven’t we had enough remakes? Hasn’t Hollywood suffered enough at the box office to get the hint? Where is the originality in the entertainment world? With fresh, new science fiction ideas lining the shelves of countless bookstores around the country, including a sizeable number of “V” spin-off books as well, why is NBC wasting money with a retread?

Worse, I know that the remake is going to be even more politically charged than the original. Don’t take my word for it, read the words of the series creator himself, Kenny Johnson:

“I've fashioned a remake story which maintains the integrity and thematic essence of my original themes and characters while updating it to address current lifestyles and issues facing society today.
The World War Two references have been replaced by much more recent incidents from the dark side of humanity. This has allowed me to sustain the underlying power of historic resonance that made the original so compelling and so well-received by critics and audiences alike.”

Those are some pretty scary words. Why jettison the titanic ordeal of World War Two? As the largest conflict in human history, a war the literally spanned the entire globe, anyone with even a minimal grasp of history can relate to the ordeal of opposing a technically-advanced menace such as the Nazis. Why jettison the very aspect of the story that made it so clever and smart?

Exactly what enemy does Mr. Johnson have in mind to replace the truly evil acts of the Nazis? Of course, the scourge of terrorism seems obvious. But let’s be honest---does anyone really expect Mr. Johnson to use an NBC production to portray Islamic terrorism as the honest to goodness threat that it is? Or perhaps Mr. Johnson has the threat of rogue nuclear nations, such as Iran or North Korea, in mind? Yeah, right! No, we all know how this remake is going to play out. Much like David Koepp, the script writer for Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, who said that “the Martians in our movie represent American military forces invading the Iraqis, and the futility of the occupation of a faraway land…”, I suspect we shall get similar left-wing rant of the evils of a conservative administration and the evils of the American military. No doubt there will be long lectures on the ease of duping people with promises of security against an imaginary foe, sermons detailing how easily liberty is squelched by strong and popular leaders, and how one man’s concept of liberty is another’s tyranny. Sigh, I can see it all now…..

Of course, I could be wrong. Mr. Johnson seems to be an individual with a firm grasp on world history (did you know “V” was originally a script about the French Resistance during World War Two?). Perhaps he will not follow the lemming-mentality of his liberal associates and will work his magic once again to deliver a fresh interpretation of a classic science fiction story. We can all hope. But given the record of contemporary television and movies, I am not optimistic.