CoronaV For Vendetta

Thinking back to some of the dystopian “fantasy” movies of the mid-00s, it’s almost eerie how accurate many of the supposedly surreal predictions were (though still waiting on that sweet moment when new children will cease being born à la Children of Men). And while the premise of 2006’s Natalie Portman-starring V For Vendetta was based on a graphic novel, it is the film’s rendering of a certain plot point that stands out particularly among all the rest at this moment in time. That is, of course, the government’s creation of the St. Mary’s virus in the year 2018 (Children of Men set its dystopian present in 2027–that, indeed, is pretty accurate in terms of projecting right around the time everything might completely go to total shit). 

In 2032, it slowly becomes unraveled that the virus was deliberately “generated” at a shady experimentation facility called Larkhill, after the Secretary of Defense, Adam Sutler (John Hurt), took the advice of current Norsefire Party leader, Creedy (Tim Pigott-Smith), to unleash the virus onto the UK in order for both to ascend to greater power by being the ones to offer “the cure” for it. For added political cachet, they would later blame the entire epidemic on the blanket entity of “terrorists” that apparently only Sutler can protect the country from. All the while, naturally, profiting from the age-old tactic of fear-mongering (which perhaps even Machiavelli couldn’t have imagined being used in this way). Something that biotech companies are also benefiting from in the present real live dystopian plotline that has taken hold of the globe as 2020 shows us just how futuristic it can be while we watch our fellow man fumble around in medical-grade surgical masks (here’s looking at you, Gwyneth Paltrow), shaking in terror that they might be next to contract the coronavirus (which, mind you, tends only to cause the death of those who are already old, yet that little asterisk never seems to be mentioned in the headlines, otherwise fear-mongering wouldn’t be performing its duty to wield power). 

While nobody wants to believe that the virus might have been “helped along”–with conspiracy theories about its origins at the Wuhan Institute of Virology being “unanimously debunked” by various media outposts and “experts”–there can be no denying a certain dubiousness exists about the timing of everything. Starting with the fact that a team run by Shi Zhengli was the first to “unearth” the virus in its novel state in late 2019, subsequently applying for a patent for a drug that might quell the effects of it. “Coincidentally,” soon thereafter, the outbreak occurred in Wuhan, sending further speculations that an animal used for testing at the lab was sold by one of the workers there for extra cash. Most assuredly not out of the realm of possibility. 

As cases of coronavirus both in the form of novel (a.k.a. 2019-nCoV) and person-to-person spread have increased, it’s no surprise that the value of stocks rose in Novavax and Moderna’s favor this past week, two smaller biotech companies still expected to lose out in the bid for a cure for COVID-19  to, who else, Gilead, the same juggernaut that Zhengli formerly tried to appeal to for a patent of remdesivir, owned by, obviously, Gilead Sciences. An American company perhaps “discreetly” relishing the takedown of Chinese preeminence in essentially all fields pertaining to money-making endeavors. Ah yes, how it reeks of a covin (because you can’t spell coronavirus without covin). And then one pictures that scene of Sutler telling his trusted aides and media manipulators, “What we need right now is a clear message to the people of this country. This message must be read in every newspaper, heard on every radio, seen on every television. This message must resound throughout the entire InterLink! I want this country to realize that we stand on the edge of oblivion. I want every man, woman and child to understand how close we are to chaos. I want everyone to remember why they need us!” Cut to a stream of dire news headlines nudging people not to get ahead of themselves in thinking “V” is some sort of symbol of hope, reminding them all that, “Outside the quarantine zone, a new airborne pathogen has killed 27 people.” 

Yes, there’s nothing like the threat of a mysterious and as of yet untreatable virus to subdue the masses and make them susceptible to any suggestion necessary to put an end to the madness. Madness that was only further begat by the Chinese government’s continued silencing of Li Wenliang, the doctor who first tried to warn others about the spread of the virus. In a cruel twist of fate, he ended up dying from it in early February. Yet doesn’t anyone think there was surely a more sinister reason to why they wanted to quiet him in the early stages of it all in order to let the contagion spread (though most would argue they only wanted him quiet so as not to upset their control over the world’s economy)? And even if The Washington Post has spoken against the “fringe theory linking China’s coronavirus to weapons research” due to a so-called inefficacy of bioweapons, this entire horror show feels pretty effective for that CoronaV For Vendetta purpose. The real telltale sign will be when and how “the cure” is unveiled, and who stands to gain the most from it.