Rewatching Watchmen after Watching THE INSURRECTION
Yeah….thing about rewatching HBO’s Watchmen in 2021 (an interminable 2 whole years after it was both set and released) is that watching a vast, hidden, insidious white-supremacist organization with ties to US Senators, correctly assert an overwhelmingly significant event to be a complete and utter hoax hits reaaaaaaal different than it did <checks notes> just a couple of years ago.
Especially one pulled off by a man claiming to have perpetrated said hoax in the name of creating a “stronger, loving world committed to caring for the weak, reversing environmental ruin and “cultivating true equality.” Think something like that would fit in a QAnon post? Just kidding, everything fits in QAnon, that’s why it was so attractive to so many people. QAnon is the all-are-welcome, fully-inclusive grab bag of Conspiracy Theories, happy to accommodate any and all tinfoil hat ramblings. If it were a French statue, it would be the tablet on the Statue of Liberty: give us your poor, your under-learned, your unwashed masses yearning to breathe free and believe whatever the fuck they want. QAnon even manages to bake its missteps and patently false predictions into its sworn creeds: “trust the plan” even when it’s proven wrong “misinformation is necessary” so the false prophecies are a feature, not a bug.
On first watch, I remember admiring the gamble Lindeloff et al took on having the undeniably evil group be the ones in possession of Veidt’s confession/declaration. Lindelof’s America had already abbreviated the Giant Squid Event to “11/2” indelibly linking it to 9/11 and, intentionally or not, linking the 7th Kavalry to “Truthers” or those who believe that American Deep State actors had some hand in the attacks on September 11th, 2001. It’s entirely plausible for the world to abbreviate such an event, and it’s equally as plausible for the world to assume you’re equating the fictional event with the real one.
But it is truly remarkable just how well Watchmen managed to half-anticipate the pressing issues of today. Not in a Simpsons-predicted it kind of way but almost a reversed one, if you squint. In Watchmen, the extremist group is correct about their accusations of hoax…but that doesn’t make them any less horrible or deplorable, especially in their plan to exploit said secret to further their fascist goals. QAnon is both horrible and wrong and only works to foment fear and rage, in order to sell merch. A previous nefarious scheme had QAnon, sorry, Cyklops using mesmerism, delivered through mass media technology, to turn unsuspecting the populace against each other. Again, Lindelof nails it, but just off to the side.
But what is truly noteworthy, and one can only assume, purely accidental, is the show’s indictment of masks. Both literal and figurative. “Masks make men cruel” one character solemnly intones; others require their masks to do their jobs (or kink up their sexual relations) but when you can hide your identity, your accountability vanishes. One “can’t heal under a mask, wounds need air” another wise man instructs.
It’s a fine metaphor for online interactions and the promulgation of misinformation, it also now serves to clumsily comment on our current predicament. After initial adoption hesitancy, the prevailing wisdom now dictates masks are not only necessary but double-masking may be the newest normal to come into vogue. But instead of cruelty, they have become a sign of care; instead of a cult, they have become a sign of community.
And not for nothing, but I can’t remember a more satisfying content-consumption experience than the annihilation of that insidious, cruel and vicious white supremacist organization by a righteous avenger. And Lindelof, being a giving man, lets us have it twice. Casually miraculous, indeed.
