The Malaysian Insider

NOV 5 — What do fireworks and a big bonfire each year on this night mean? Aside from some inherent, nearly prehistoric ignition of pyromanic glee in children, the only (tenuous) link to Guy Fawkes, who is “celebrated” on this date in the UK, is the fact that our villain attempted to blow up Parliament.

Are children then also encouraged to exercise such arsonic fervour when they grow up? No, that would be too simplistic. Instead, what is being invoked here is probably the link between fire, hell and the demonic.

Fawkes was the most famous protagonist among Roman Catholic restorationists from England who failed to execute the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The plan was simple — blow up Parliament while the Protestant King James I and the entire Protestant, and in fact some Catholic, aristocracy were inside. A necessary sacrifice to end what they felt was systematic discrimination against English Catholics.

The religious-political motivations involved led to post-Reformation and anti-Catholic literature to personify Fawkes as the Devil. But centuries on, and with the state mostly relieving itself of the church, little of this translates to the children of today.

Simply put, the myth has faded. It no longer holds any power or significance.

Instead, popular culture has filled this vacuum. Guy Fawkes was the inspiration for the lead character in the 2006 movie "V for Vendetta", itself an adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name by the slightly mad genius Alan Moore.

It depicts London in a near-future dystopian society where V, a monstrous freedom fighter/terrorist with extraordinary powers, seeks to effect socio-political change while simultaneously pursuing his own violent personal vendetta by, you guessed it, blowing up Parliament (although the targets differ in the novel).

Having made more than RM500 million, you could say that the film was successful and now forms part of the cultural consciousness of many Brits, if not a significant populace of the developing and developed world.

It has probably not made anyone who watched the film think that blowing up major government institutions in the UK would be a good idea — most people would have made up their minds about this before that. So exactly what has the film done?

Significantly, V's primary intention was to blow up buildings, instead of removing political rulers. It simultaneously appropriates the myth of Guy Fawkes and then subverts it by giving it a less "inhumane" treatment.

"A building is a symbol, as is the act of destroying it. Symbols are given power by people. A symbol, in and of itself, is powerless, but with enough people behind it, blowing up a building can change the world," he says in the movie.

If perhaps the rest of the time, the government is depicted as evil and V as inherently well-intentioned, in this moment he admits that what he is doing is pure myth. The destruction of an empty building is materially exactly that, empty.

What V means by a symbol is the myth. According to Roland Barthes, the French structuralist, a myth is a system of communication, a mode, a tool.

Barthes wrote that "some objects become the prey of mythical speech for a while, then they disappear, others take their place and attain the status of myth. Are there objects which are inevitably a source of suggestiveness, as Baudelaire suggested about woman? Certainly not: one can conceive of very ancient myths, but there are no eternal ones; for it is human history which converts reality into speech, and it alone rules the life and the death of mythical language. Ancient or not, mythology can only have an historical foundation, for myth is a type of speech chosen by history: it cannot possibly evolve from the 'nature' of things."

Today, of course, the term myth comes with negative connotations. It implies a disingenuity, a deception, which requires a deconstruction to find some inherent "truth." But each day, we engage in myths that are useful and help us conduct everyday life — brand associations are a clear example, but one can simply use money in currency form as a cheekier case study.

In each of the uses of myth outlined in this article, there is a common thread — they are all linked to power. Even the loose change in your pocket.

In "V for Vendetta", the fascist Chancellor and his cohorts quite blatantly spout very rhetoric language, "Strength through unity. Unity through faith!" or express the required myth to maintain autocracy, "I want this country to realise that we stand on the edge of oblivion. I want everyone to remember WHY they need us!"

That V himself dons a Guy Fawkes mask throughout the film also points to the importance of the myth, or the idea, rather than the actual actor or agent ("Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea... and ideas are bulletproof").

Myths operate at a secondary level of significance. Just as the word "pig" primarily denotes the animal, it secondarily connotes something which is either lazy, greedy or disgusting. The Parliament, in this case, is a symbol of legitimacy of the sitting government, a myth that is given power by a logical legal system. At the primary level, the destruction of Parliament signals the end of the current regime. But that nothing besides the skyline changes materially, further lifts the veil from the eyes of the people who then begin a popular revolt — legitimacy lies in the people, not constructs such as law or the constitution — as Evey, V's love interest concludes, V was "all of us."

Yet, the question that is begged here is, who, or what, is "the people?" And by what authority do they presume to validate their popular coup? Is it yet another myth built upon the presuppositions of self-determination?

Of course, throughout the film there are many lingual and visual cues which engage in readily available myths to present the viewer with "meaning". The man who fights with knives rather than guns is somehow more noble, the act of graffiti is seen as being of the people and the fact that the Chancellor very much has the look of a man with sinister intent.

So where does all this leave Guy Fawkes? Well, V may have rehabilitated his image to some, but to others, it is a reminder and reinforcement of the demonisation. It all depends which myths you subscribe to.

"Are you like a crazy person?"

"I am quite sure they will say so."