Slurpees and Shotguns: How American Portrayals of Russian Characters in TV are Bad for Diplomacy
Stranger Things latest villian is Grigori, a Russian hitman, taking place in 1984. || Graphic created by Alys Dickerson
The opinions reflected in this OpEd are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of staff, faculty and students of The King's College.
Season three of Stranger Things unleashed more than monsters. While the teenage crew continued to battle Dungeons & Dragons-style creatures, the real villains of this season were the Soviet scientists trying to re-open a portal into the underworld—notably the steely-eyed hitman, Grigori. Grigori is the archetypal Russian boogeyman. His hair is chiseled into a flat-top, he never smiles, speaks with his pistol, and the Red Army Choir magically starts singing whenever he appears on screen. Screenwriters must think the USSR factory-produced spies and mobsters because from Grigori to the baddies of John Wick, Atomic Blonde, Jack Ryan, and the Die Hard franchise, Russian characters feel like mass-produced carbon copies. By capitalizing on real-world political fears and national stereotypes, directors can elicit feelings of dread with villains who are flatter than their own crew cuts. But besides simply producing bad art, the writers who rely on manufactured Russian hitmen for their thrills influence real-life relations between Russia and the West—and not for the better.
As Dr. Stephen F. Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies at NYU and Princeton, points out in his book War with Russia, American news and media organizations already, almost monolithically, portray Russia as a crime-ridden swamp, populated by monsters bent on destroying democracy and America. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper even described Russians as “genetically driven” to espionage and foreign interference. While the arts should be a realm to expand our moral and political imaginations, the portrayal of Russians reinforces America’s idea that Russians autopilot on evil.
These films also wound Russia’s trust of the United States. Film and television are a kind of cultural diplomacy. Media crosses borders and reaches audiences diplomats never could, representing American culture and ideas. What message does the Russian killing machine trope send? First, the United States has very little faith in Russia, and America’s views of Russia have stagnated since the end of the Cold War. Second, if Americans cannot even bother to understand Russian culture, history, or politics enough to produce a believably Russian character with a good accent in movies, how can they be trusted to understand Russia enough to work as partners in politics?
The Western vision of Russia is deeply at odds with Russia’s understanding of itself. Even Hillary Clinton and Boris Johnson have found common ground comparing Putin to Hitler. But Russia (and the Soviet Union for that matter) has largely defined itself in opposition to Nazis. According to the Eisenhower Institute, for every American soldier that died fighting the Nazis, 80 Soviet soldiers died. Even now, the second-highest-grossing home-grown film in Russia features a company of Nazi-killing tankers who helped win World War II. Thoughtlessly equating Putin and Hitler shows how out-of-touch the West is with Russia.
Russian officials have discussed banning films in which Russians are carelessly portrayed as blood-lustful villains, and some officials feel compelled to continue distancing Russia from the West culturally and politically. Without baseline respect or trust, diplomatic efforts to prevent escalating tensions will be increasingly difficult—a dangerous prospect given increasing aggression, elections interference, and disinformation.
But what about Russian heroes? Should we be worried about Grigori when Stranger Things also gives fans the Slurpee-loving, ex-Soviet scientist Alexei? What about Natasha Romanov of The Avengers, Robin Williams’ Vladimir Ivanov in Moscow on the Hudson, or Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Ivan Danko in Red Heat? Politically, even these characters hardly improve on the villains. Why? Because their goodness all comes from turning against their country. These heroes send the message that the only good Russian is the one who betrays Russia.
During the Cold War, only a few years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Russian boogeyman trope was at its height, Gene Roddenberry created a Russian hero. Pavel Chekov navigated the Starship Enterprise through magnetic storms and alien encounters with charm and acute skill. The presence of Ensign Chekov in Roddenberry’s fictional universe acknowledged the incredible accomplishments of the Soviet Union in space exploration in our universe. Though even Chekov never mastered the Russian accent. Chekov broke the mold of ‘60s Russian villains with a Monkees-style haircut and loyalty to the starship’s mission to seek out new life and new civilizations.
Americans need to use storytelling to expand our moral and cultural imaginations, including the portrayal of Russian characters in film and TV. There is some hope. Red, from Orange Is the New Black, is a strong and compassionate Russian woman, and Elizabeth and Phillip Jennings of The Americans are conscientious parents and Soviet spies embedded in Northern Virginia during the Cold War. Of course, we meet Red in prison and the Jennings are still spies, but if they are bad guys, at least they are better bad guys.
Healing Russian-American cultural relations from the trauma of the Cold War and preventing further aggression requires not just state but cultural diplomacy. Roddenberry’s Chekov did not legitimize the evils of the Soviet Union, but he did imagine a future in which Russia and the West could work together as equals and partners—a future of which Alexeis and Grigoris could never dream.