From the moment I first read Michel Foucault’s Panopticism, I noticed its relationship to the film V for Vendetta. Even though from the 19th century on panopticism has been the dominate method of discipline for society, I felt there were a lot of parallels with this film. It may seem that dystopias are more obviously panoptic than normal societies, but I actually think that they are generally less panoptic because they generally lack the flow of authority back up from the bottom. In V for Vendetta there are a lot of parallels to panopticism as well as parts of society that are not.
Now, with out going into a ton of detail, as a lot of people will feel that the ideology of panopticism is familiar even if the term is foreign, I’ll briefly tell you the main points. It’s a system of discipline for a society where everyone is constantly being observed. The main part that sets it apart from just a horribly oppressive, strong state controlled government is that power not only can be used from the top down, but also from the bottom up because the chain of command is always looking from broken links. For example, the common man can report police brutality to the chief and can expect the officer to be punished. Another main feature is that everything is to be reported to the person ahead of you on the chain of command and is to also be written down. This allows for any problem or mistake to be tracked quickly to its source. The last major part is about actual discipline. In this philosophy, it is not enough to punish or lock up a criminal, but rather to study and understand them and their crime. By doing this, authorities can hopefully learn how to prevent or rehabilitate future criminals of the same type. Knowledge is a huge part of panopticism.
In V for Vendetta, a terrorist named V is seeking revenge on a futuristic, oppressive English government. Adam Sutler, the commander of the government, is a deeply religious man who imposes strict regulations to keep the country from falling into chaos. The revenge is centered on V’s experience with government lies and brutality and a conspiracy that goes all the way to the top. The St. Mary’s virus, a deadly disease created and cured in the Lark Hill detention facility where V was once prisoner, immune to the disease, and a survivor, is then released by the government to induce fear causing Sutler’s election and then the cure is released for profit. V swears revenge on all who were involved. Evey, a young woman who V saves from the Fingermen (police), becomes his only ally in his revenge plot. We discover the story of St. Mary’s as Detective Finch is investigating to find V.
In the society created in the film, one of the main discrepancies with panopticism is the inability for power to flow from the bottom up. Unlike the truly panoptic society, any corruption, deception or other violations by higher ups goes unpunished. One of the most immediate and obvious cases of this is the Fingermen’s attack on Evey.
One of panopticism’s biggest benefits is that no one is above the law. In theory, this system should have no corruption but in practice that is rarely the case. The Fingermen, who are supposed to be like the secret police to Sutler, would’ve raped Evey had V not saved her. While she was breaking the law being out past curfew, raping her neither punishes, solves nor furthers the understanding of the crime. So the Fingermen are failing to preforming their duties according to panopticism and they also, because of their role in society, will not be punished for what they had intended to do. In a truly panoptic society, there would be a way for Evey to report the abuse and the Fingermen involved would be punished.
One of the biggest sources of support for panopticism in the film is the constant surveillance which everyone is subject to. In a panoptic state, not only is the government watching, but all your neighbors, friends, colleagues, etc. You can never escape the intrusive gaze of the outsiders and any “odd” behavior can and will be noticed and reported. In the film, it is pretty obvious that people are always being watched. They immediately have the video of V and Evey from the Fingermen’s attack. Along with that, they can almost immediately identify who Evey is, where she lives and where she works. When V attacks the news station, they once again have the video to prove he was there.
By being able to surveil all of society all the time, people begin to police themselves (Make this a quote). By always being watched, you assume you cannot get away with anything and therefore must do nothing. When Evey asks, “Why did I do that?” and V replies with, “Because you knew it was right.” it is directly related to this idea. Normally, people do what they think is right for the sake of it being the right thing. Granted it may be less immediate when the right thing is illegal, but I believe that generally the right thing is done. Because Evey knows that she was being watched and the police must know that she aided V, a terrorist, she feels that the morally right thing to do was wrong. The constant surveillance changed her to think that doing the right thing is less important than doing the “normal” thing.
The idea that the system of discipline could change a persons way of thinking is exactly what panopticism tries to do. It isn’t just about being able to punish when things go wrong nor is it about being able to prevent bad things, but it is so controlling and perversive a system that it wants to literally change people’s ideas of right and wrong. This change is much more powerful. It can stop people from even a second thought of wrongdoing. I think that fear is the strongest motivator and panopticism takes people’s fears and uses them to get them to behave the way that is deemed “normal.” In the film, after years of constant surveillance, society as a whole has changed they way they think about right and wrong. In the scene with Evey, she morally did what she felt was right even though it was deemed wrong by society. By seeing her guilt over helping V, you can see that the government has successfully been able to change the way society thinks about right and wrong.
In the beginning of the film we were given a brief history of the famous Gunpowder Plot. It tells the tale of Guy Fawkes but there is one quote in particular that I feel is strongly related to panopticism.
The quote that starts, "We are told to remember the idea..." I feel is particularly resonant with the new idea of punishment under panopticism. The purpose of the punishment in panoptic societies is unlike that of earlier times because this idea is understood. While men represent a physical danger to a society, a much more dangerous and contagious entity is an idea. Earlier systems attempted to destroy the man entirely so that he could not cause any more trouble, but panopticism attempts to understand completely the idea and then destroy it entirely so that it can no longer pose a threat to society. In the mildly confusing words of Foucault:
“The extreme point of penal justice under the Ancien Régime was the infinite segmentation of the body of the regicide: a manifestation of the strongest power over the body of the greatest criminal, whose total destruction made the crime explode into its truth. The ideal point of penality today would be an indefinite discipline: an interrogation without end, an investigation that would be extended without limit to a meticulous and ever more analytical observation, a judgement that would at the same time be constitution of a file that was never closed, the calculated leniency of a penalty that would be interlaced with the ruthless curiosity of an examination, a procedure that would be at the same time the permanent measure of a gap in relation to an inaccessible norm and the asymptotic movement that strives to meet in infinity.”
In relation to the topic at hand, in panopticism, the idea in question must be completely understood before it can be destroyed. By complete dismantling the idea it can then be more easily recognized and dealt with. This knowledge can help prevent future threats to the “normality.” Also, Foucault makes a point to mention a “file that is never closed” which relates to panopticism idea of documenting everything. This new discipline that Foucault theorized works incredible well, but clearly wasn’t used in the case of Guy Fawkes, who was hanged, representing not even the Ancien Régime’s idea of the highest punishment. In England, to this day, November 5th is celebrated as Guy Fawkes day. This signifies that he, not only his ideas, were never forgotten by the people. Granted the day is similar to that of our halloween, the fact that it exists is a panoptic failure. Were England completely panoptic in 1605, not only would Guy Fawkes be a completely unrecognizable name, but his ideas would also be destroyed and forgotten. The recognition that ideas are more powerful than men seems very panoptic, and even more powerful, to me.
Along with this quote, the prison term of Evey runs very similar to Foucault’s idea of the ideal panoptic discipline. She is kept isolated in a cell with no way to gage time. She is continually threatened with death during the investigation, but death never comes to her. She is tortured for information continually. First, she is indefinitely imprisoned. She was just taken one day and thrown into the cell. She wasn’t charged or tried with any crime and she certainly wasn’t told how long she would be imprisoned. Her investigators continually tortured her for information and kept trying to get answers from her. Although she never cracked it definitely seems as though they would keep pressing for information regardless of how long it took. It’s hard to say how some of the other points relate to her prison term because she was never given a judgement or anything of the type, but the film definitely shows a panoptic attempt at prison and one that I find pretty successful.
Another very big part of panopticism is the keeping of written records. This allows for any “odd” behavior or any mistake to be traced to the the source much more quickly and reliably than by word of mouth or if there were no records.
While not perfect, although part of that is due to "The Reclamation” it is obvious that there are a ton of records kept that record everything. The recording of documents is of the utmost importance because it allows for knowledge to be kept accurately. Knowledge, after all, is the ultimate discipline goal of panopticism. In the film the records are not kept as meticulously as they should be, but I think that the attempt itself is enough. Also, the records they are looking for are said to be either deleted or missing, and I would assume mostly deleted due to the nature of Lark Hill, which shows that the records they are looking for existed at one time. The keeping of records may not be carried out as great as it could be and corruption is definitely part of the problem, but overall I feel that the mass keeping of records seems to be a crucial element not only of panopticism but of the film as well.
Although V for Vendetta isn’t the perfect example of panopticism, it definitely has some very strong parallels. The biggest parallel being the constant surveillance used by the government that not only allowed them to be watching everyone, but which also allowed for paranoia to spread and self policing to start. There are a few parts of the film that ma not entirely match up with the ideas of panopticism but those are mostly to add to the feeling of oppression and totalitarianism that comes with a dystopian society. Just because the movie uses panopticism, what’s the point? I think that it is important to see examples in film, tv, books, etc. By recognizing it in these mediums, you may get a better grip on the ways that panopticism is used to change your reality. I think of films as saying, “Look! Look what we can manipulate these characters and the film to do. And guess what? This can happen to you without you realizing it.” It’s not enough to say that “the film’s society is panoptic.” That is useless knowledge. When you can identify the panoptic elements of the film, however, and use those to better see the panopticism in your daily life, then you can take meaning from the film. It can often be hard to take an idea from writing and transfer it immediately into reality so I think that films provide a great bridge from words to reality. For me, the biggest take away I got from the film was how easily fear can be manipulated into control. I always used to think that the Patriot Act was a necessary law to keep us safe, but after seeing the film I questioned that. Is it truly to benefit us, or did law makers take advantage of the fear surrounding 9/11 to tighten their grip on society and infringe on our privacy? I’m not a political blog so I’ll leave the conclusion to you, but I think that these are the important connections that more people need to make between film and reality. Films are an art form and they are generally meant to communicate something bigger than the picture itself. Recognizing this and interpreting it for yourself can help make the ideas more personal or maybe help illustrate a point that we wouldn’t consider on our own.
And just to be extra safe, Foucault's ideas that I've used come from the third chapter from his book Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison and the V for Vendetta ideas come from the 2005 Waner Bros. film written by the Wachowski siblings. The video clips are from youtube and my dvd copy.
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