Movies & TV Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for movie and TV enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
In Kingsman: The Golden Circle, there is a scene including a secret code known only to the main villain.
The code is "Viva Las Vegan"
Does this have any meaning? I mean, it's kind of surprising coming from a murderous character.
It might be a reference to the old movie/song, since this character seems to really like a lot of nostalgic items, but if it is, I couldn't find it.
It is a simple translation to Long Live Vegans, here is why from this website:
Just to make sure that it is actually answering the question...
In this blog I shall be discussing two interpretations of the statement ‘viva las vegan’ mentioned in the film ‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’. I think it goes without saying –spoilers ahead!!!!!! You have been warned.
I'm not going to quote all of this as the above mentioned website has been named:
In general, vegans are depicted as extremist tree huggers that force their opinions daily. In this film the antagonist, Poppy, was clearly portrayed as being a villain with psychotic tendencies, living an extremely isolated way of life, in the jungle.
It is fair to say that vegans are already widely diminished in society and it is Poppy who brings up veganism at the end. To most people watching, particularly non-veggies, Poppy’s psychotic tendencies feed into the public image and stereotype that vegans are extreme; it shows an extremist, supporting veganism, therefore putting veganism and extremism in the same category.
Poppy was even found to be encouraging others to be cannibalistic. This is obviously something that is not accepted within society and so when she endorsed veganism at the end, it would follow that people would not accept this. Why would someone heed the words of an extremist psychopath?
An instant translation of ‘viva las vegan’ is, of course, ‘long live vegans,’ so Poppy was clearly stating her opinion that veganism is good. This could be because, statistically, vegans tend to live longer (as vegans are at lower risk of having type 2 diabetes, heart disease and many other illnesses). So perhaps, she meant it literally.
Moreover, I noticed in the film, that Poppy presented several hypocrisies of human kind. For example, she stated that alcohol has a negative effect on the body, just as drugs do, yet one is legal and the other is not. Hence, this film could lead us to question whether we ought to trust the law as being a moral guideline. Why it is legal to drink alcohol and not to do drugs, when they both are not good for us? And why is it legal to have sugar, when this is just as addictive as drugs? Along this thought process, you could say that it is legal to eat non-human meat, dairy and eggs, yet despite their legality, these things are, too, addictive and detrimental to our health.
Furthermore, when Poppy encouraged Angel to mince and eat a human he and the audience were made to feel uncomfortable. It was repulsive to see a human being used for meat. It also compelled the audience to feel that Poppy should be punished. As Poppy was a spokesperson for the hypocrisies of human kind, perhaps this was included to make us think about why we have an issue with eating humans when we are animals too.
When we eat non-human meat no one is punished, despite the vast amount of cruelty involved to produce it. Morally, most people are against animal cruelty. Very few people would see an animal crying out for help, whilst it was about to have it’s throat slit, and be fine with it/ let it happen. This highlights that humans are not meant to eat meat, as a lion, for example, would have it’s mouthwatering at the sight of this.
However, a lot of meat eaters would pay someone to do this for them and still claim to be ‘animal lovers.’ Deep down and morally people do not like animal cruelty, yet they contribute to it everyday though eating meat, dairy and eggs and thus this leads them to be hypocritical (without maybe even realising it-I certainly did not think about it when I was not vegan). Therefore, Poppy’s statement ‘viva las vegan’ may be implying that vegans are not hypocritical, as they would accept that eating any animal is wrong, if they claim to love them, and so their morals and actions align.
This opposes, say, meat eater’s morals who claim to love animals, whilst eating them. It is almost the same as someone say they love their mum and then continuing to eat her. Those who eat meat tend to love pets, not animals and so are hypocritical in that respect.
This is all from exactly the same website, so feel free to view it:
https://compassionisthefashion.wordpress.com/tag/viva-las-vegan/
(Of course I have put both a link up to the site and put the web adress itself down just to clarify what I meant to get out to you).
The short answer is: No.
My opinion of it though is: The Villain "Poppy" is obviously not a sane person. I think the director was taking a soft stab at vegans in general as being "wacky" people. Watch Scott Pilgrim vs the World... There is a character that gains superpowers from claiming veganism.
