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Russia Profile
www.russiaprofile.org
October 28, 2004
The Perpetual Bad Guys
From Soviet Spies to Oily Oligarchs, Russians Continue to Be Hollywood's Favorite Villains
By Alexander Osipovich

More than a decade after the end of the Cold War, Russians still occupy an exalted place in the pantheon of Hollywood bad guys. But forget about KGB moles and scheming Soviet generals - today, the hot new villains are Russian oligarchs.

In "The Bourne Supremacy," one of the highest-grossing blockbusters of 2004, the archenemy of superspy Jason Bourne is oil magnate Yury Gletkov. Early in the film, viewers learn that Gletkov is one of the richest men in Russia, and in an obvious reference to billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky, he is described as the ruthless businessman behind the "Pekos" oil empire. Meanwhile, in "Icon," a made-for-television mini-series starring Patrick Swayze that recently finished filming, the villain is a Russian pharmaceuticals executive who tries to get elected president of the country.

Of course, Hollywood has been portraying ultra-rich, criminally connected Russians since at least the early 1990s, when the "Russian mafia" became a cliche in the U.S. media. According to Paul Heth, an American entrepreneur who operates several multiplex movie theaters in Russia, the persistence of Russian bad guys is due to negative media coverage. "There's all this in the press about oligarchs and the mafia," said Heth. "It's all part of a myth that dates back to the early 1990s, when they were sort of romanticized in the media."

So, not surprisingly, the present-day portrayal of the Russian oligarch in films like "Bourne" is essentially the same as the portrayal of the wealthy, thug-like New Russian from the mid-1990s. Back then, New Russians were portrayed as "crass, vulgar, money-grubbing Neanderthals," writes Helen Goscilo, professor of Russian literature at the University of Pittsburgh.

Goscilo is currently writing a book about the changing portrayal of Russians in American film. She argues that, while Cold War cliches have given way to more positive portrayals, there is still a thread that runs through Hollywood films about Russia: They continue "to spotlight the United States' intellectual, technological, moral and sexual superiority to its backward, untrustworthy ally." In this sense, today's Hollywood films are not so different from the Russia-bashing propaganda of the Cold War.

Russkies

The mid-1980s represented a peak in Hollywood Russia-bashing. In "Red Dawn" (1984), the rather implausible plot features a Soviet invasion of the United States, and the heroes are American teenagers who launch a guerilla war against their Communist oppressors. In "Rocky 4" (1985), the war is between all-American boxer Rocky Balboa, played by Sylvester Stallone, and his cold-blooded Russian counterpart, Ivan Drago. Both films coincided with a spike of anti-Soviet rhetoric from President Ronald Reagan.

With Glasnost, Hollywood began to portray Russians in a more positive light. Goscilo identifies two films from 1990 that marked this ideological transformation: "The Hunt for Red October" and "The Russia House," both starring Sean Connery. In these films, Russian characters are not portrayed as conventional "bad guys." Instead, the central evil is the Cold War itself, especially the threat of nuclear Armageddon.

This celluloid detente led to a near-death experience for one of Hollywood's best-known heroes: British superspy James Bond. After "License to Kill," an unprofitable 1989 film where Agent 007 tried to stop Colombian drug traffickers, the Bond franchise went on a six-year hiatus. It returned with "GoldenEye" (1995), in which Bond's enemies were once again Russians - only this time, they had been reincarnated as post-Soviet criminals. According to Matt Sherman, creator of 007Forever.com, nostalgia was a factor in the return of the Russian villain. "There is a comforting feeling for today's James Bond ticket buyers that their fathers' bad guys are also today's bad guys," he said.

"GoldenEye" heralded a series of films in which rogue Russians, breaking the law for greed or ideology, became the new Hollywood villains. In "Air Force One" (1997), Russian nationalists hijack the plane of the U.S. President. In "The Peacemaker" (1997), corrupt Russian officials sell a nuclear warhead to a Yugoslav terrorist. Goscilo argues that by portraying "good Russians" as well as "bad Russians," these films accomplished a clever ideological trick. She writes: "These films of alleged affable collaboration... simultaneously manage to recycle the old ideological threat through their characterization of 'renegade' fanatics from former Soviet satellites and to exploit Russia's new capitalist image as a decadent, crime-ridden society."

What Russians Think

The surge in negative portrayals of Russians was soon answered by a salvo from the other side. In October 1997, film critic Yury Gladilshchikov, writing in the weekly magazine Itogi, accused Hollywood of vilifying Russians to a degree that had been unseen since the mid-1980s.

Other Russian film critics are also troubled by Hollywood portrayals of Russians. "What bothers me is not the negativism of these portrayals, but the monstrous primitivization of Russians in American films," said Yelena Stishova of Isskustvo Kino, a film journal. "On the level of the collective unconscious, they don't seem to acknowledge Russians as being fully human... I have not seen one single Hollywood film where Russians are presented as a European people."

Tanya, a young Muscovite who was interviewed after a screening of "The Bourne Supremacy," expressed a similar viewpoint. "Russians are always presented as a backward people," she said.

Of course, Russia's own film industry has been guilty of unflattering portrayals of Americans. Perhaps the most egregious example is "Brother 2" (2000), directed by Alexei Barabanov. In "Brother 2," a gun-toting killer from St. Petersburg travels to New York and Chicago, diving into America's criminal underworld to settle a score with a crooked American businessman. But despite the film's anti-American undertones, it is a remarkably American product. The protagonist is essentially a Russian Rambo, and the film belongs to a quintessentially Hollywood genre - the action-movie sequel.

Will Russia and the United States ever be able to get along on the silver screen? One person who hopes for better on-screen relations is theater operator Paul Heth. "Frankly, I'm disappointed, and I think that Hollywood should come up with some better ideas," said Heth. "If anything, I think there should be more Russian heroes and good guys."