I watched the film ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’ recently. Based on the comic books by Alan Moore, it is in the same vein as The Wild Wild West, full of anomalies and sly humour. It can however also be read as a metaphor for the relationship between the US and Europe and the struggle against Communism. I’m not sure of this is an unconscious carry over from the comics however, since I’m not a great comics fan. It would be dangerous to read too much into this of course, but popular culture so often reveals the underlying trends and opinions in society much better than journalism or academia.
Consider – the European members of the League are almost all either effete or depraved in some way - Dorian Gray – corrupt, licentious; Mina Harker – a vampire; Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde – drug addict; Skinner the Invisible Man – a thief, misusing science for personal gain. Alan Quartermain is presented as the last gasp of the British Empire, while Nemo is now no longer a European, but a sword wielding Hindu mystic, proficient in both martial arts and science. Only the American member is uncomplicated, in the form of Tom Sawyer, fresh faced, energetic but essentially an Innocent Abroad. The members of the League redeem themselves in the end of course – this is still Entertainment not Art.
Their opponent is M (in a sly reference to the Bond movies) who turns out to be Moriarty with a declared aim of triggering world war and seizing power in the chaos. His secret hideout, deep in Siberia, is a hybrid of the Kremlin and the Dark Satanic Mills of Victorian England.
Consider too the ending – Quartermain lies dying while the final coup de grace is delivered to the villain by Sawyer, taking on the mantle of the old lion (the British Empire). At the very end though, the possibility is left open that there is still life in that lion yet.
