I enjoy keeping up with my former paper, the Student Voice, and read it most every week. In last week’s issue, I found myself drawn to a letter critiquing Nick Welsh’s interpretation of the fictitious government portrayed in “V for Vendetta.”
I commend Welsh and his counterpart, Jenna Lee, for their insights. I might not always agree with them, but that’s not the point. The point is they have the courage — as do all the writers on these opinion pages — to express their own thoughts on something that apparently interests them.
Reading that letter (Reviewer slips up, March 31), I was disappointed someone could miss the point of film criticism so wildly. There’s nothing in the film that precisely and quantitatively supports Welsh’s interpretation — or the letter writer’s, for that matter.
There’s plenty of subtext in the film to support practically any extrapolation of a former, current or imagined fascist state.
What Welsh did was draw a metaphor as he saw it. Is it correct? Who knows; who cares? It’s not like he compared that phony government to a can of Leinenkugel’s beer or something completely outrageous. But to categorically call his interpretation wrong is just that: wrong.
I hope the letter writer considers using greater tolerance in future rebuttals to interpretations of art.
Mike Longaecker
Alumnus