Guy Fawkes Day

I just want to point something out to my American friends.

No one in Britain is running around today in Guy Fawkes masks and quoting lines from V for Vendetta (either the graphic novel or the film adaptation). Halloween was over the weekend; today is Guy Fawkes' Day. I don't know if you realize this, but British people treat it as somewhat of a big deal.

Guy Fawkes legitimately attempted to blow up Parliament. I don't know if you people think that's funny or not, but I think the British people consider it to be a terrorist action and consider it to be a good thing that Guy Fawkes was caught and executed for his crime. These people don't go around triumphantly extolling the virtues of Guy Fawkes; they burn his effigy instead.

I also don't think you people realize that V for Vendetta is a fictional story. The only relation that it has to the Guy Fawkes story is the masks that everyone uses and the quotation/three minute scene at the beginning of the movie. The entire thing is composed of a totalitarian government, which Britain currently does not have, and a terrorist cell attempting to take it down, something that we consider to be evil when a Middle Eastern group does it to their own government but something we appear to approve of in Western culture. It's a political fable, in short, it is FICTIONAL. V never existed. Acting as if he did, and as if V is all this holiday is about, is sadly misguided.

So for all of my friends who posted Facebook statuses quoting V, I'm ashamed of you. You're making a mockery of the British 4th of July. It's as if Britain were to announce that they still ruled over us while we were celebrating our independence. It's rude, it's ill-founded, and it distorts the sense of the holiday.

In conclusion, you just keep being 'funny.' I don't think the British populace is amused.

- Jen -