V vs. Obama
It’s obvious, isn’t it?
A benevolent overlord descends from the heavens and promises peace, goodwill, eternal happiness, a cure for H1N1 flu and a health-care plan for everyone.
Trouble is, the benevolent face of peace masks darker, malevolent forces at work.
The lizard people in the sudden-hit miniseries V — more than two million viewers in Canada for last week’s premiere; another 14 million in the U.S. — want to take over the world, any way they can.
Some on the alien-conspiracy wing of the political lunatic fringe are already reading real-world messages into V’s tale of spaceships and sexy space aliens, as personified — embodied, if you will — by Anna, played with a wry nudge-and-a-wink by Brazilian-born actress Morena Baccarin.
Anna and her kind, the theory goes, are a metaphor for President Barack Obama and his inner circle of toadies, Rahm Emanuel, Robert Gibbs and David Axelrod, who, as we all know, are actually lizard people in disguise, bent on forcing their neo-socialist agenda on the world. We know this, because a certain U.S. cable-news network, known for its fairness and balance, says so.
Never mind that V is supposed to be fiction. It’s about a heroic TV journalist; how could it not be fiction?
Scratch beneath the surface, however, and that may be reptilian blood you draw.
V is a thinly disguised warning about the Obama administration, right?
“Look, there are always going to be people who will look for agendas in everything,” V producer Jeffrey Bell said this past summer, when broached with the subject.
“This show was conceived during the Bush administration. It was made during an Obama administration. There are people on either side who will find things. You can say, ‘Look how stupid these people are for following blindly and believing everything the government is saying.’ Then there are others who will say, ‘Look at these people who are promising everything with no price; they are leading them to their own doom.’ We want to get people to show up and watch V and talk about it. But to tie it to the Birthers or anything is kind of, you know, ridiculous.”
Deniability is plausibility, right?
“You’re not listening to me!”
Seriously, though, V packs a powerful punch, message-wise. Is that not true?
“Look, how this works politically is fun for people to talk about, but all we’re trying to do is tell really exciting, entertaining, emotional stories.
“Seriously, there is a wish-fulfillment element to it. If (all their promises) came true, you would be really excited, wouldn’t you? And then, if it turned out that you were one of the two or three people who knew more than anybody else, you might seem crazy.”
If V is about anything other than spaceships and outer-space aliens making outlandish promises, V creator Scott Peters added, it’s blind faith.
“When we originally conceived the show, I opened up and broadened the theme to be about blind devotion,” Peters explained. “What happens when you don’t ask questions about the things you believe in? I think that can be applied across the board, whether you’re talking about a political issue or a religious issue or a relationship issue.”
No one in V has yet to say, ‘Take me to your leader.’ That may come later.