Thread: Life in our countries - "good, bad and ugly"...

Originally Posted by Eric C.

That is a very interesting video. It causes mixed feelings, but the primary one is, "darn, it doesn't even take freedom of press to be made and shown to the public!" xD The Soviet propaganda failed to dig out any real problem the U.S. had at that point, and instead it was "exposing" the same naive and foolish stereotypes (racism, militarism, the anti-commie policies, etc.) over and over again. I think even most of the Soviets who watched it didn't believe it, as they were starting to learn more about the "evil capitalism" on their own. (whatever it sounds like, that 1.5 mile long line before the Soviet only McDonald's kind of proved that).

Now, was anything like that video, exposing the "America's view on the USSR" broadcasted to the public in the USSR? It seems not, for the Soviet authorities were really afraid of speaking aloud about any hypothetic problem that country might've had, not to mention the real problems they had, that could've easily been exposed. That was the reason anything that diverged from "everything's super awesome in our communist state" was banned from any media sources. If I'm being incorrect here, please share a proof link, anyone. =))

It was all made up, Eric! That was not really Soviet propaganda. It was a White House briefing full of faked stuff.

As for Soviet propaganda about America, didn't you ever read Крокодил? I have a stack of issues dating back to the Brezhnev and Krushchev eras and they actually pointed out the flaws with capitalism fairly accurately. In fact, I was leafing through some of them recently and it struck me that the cartoons in them are still quite relevant today. In fact, maybe especially relevant.

This one, for example about sums up the corruption in DC...




But where America really "out did" the Soviets was in our movies. All the movies like Red Dawn which portrayed Russians with such bad stereotypes that to this day, a majority of Americans still cling to them! In American movies, Russians seem to fit into one of three categories:

1. Evil Russky
2. Cannon Fodder
3. Comic Relief

For more about America's bad stereotypes of Russians, these articles are helpful:

Russian Stereotypes: Western perception of Russia as seen through Russian’s eyes. Part I. | Russian Universe

Representation of Russia(ns) in Western Popular Culture: Klyukvification and Russian Character Types. | Russian Universe


The USSR never created movies with such terrible stereotypes about Americans, at least none that I ever saw. In fact most of their movies were based on literary works or сказки.

American propaganda is the best in the world, but personally that is not a fact I am proud of.

Originally Posted by Deborski

It was all made up, Eric! That was not really Soviet propaganda. It was a White House briefing full of faked stuff.

It wasn't ALL made up or faked. Arguably, it was unfairly selective -- in that more positive discussions of the US in the Soviet media were omitted -- but a "lie of omission" is different from "fakery."

As for Soviet propaganda about America, didn't you ever read Крокодил?
...
This one, for example about sums up the corruption in DC...

Speaking of "lies of admission," I'd say that the Krokodil cartoon is only half-accurate, insofar as it does portray the real problem of corporate cronyism (as represented by the captions "Льготы монополиям" and "для миллионеров").

However, corporate lobbying does not nearly begin to "sum up" the varieties of corruption in DC. Corruption also occurs in populist lobbies representing blue-collar labor and various minority groups; and pork-barrel spending that creates jobs in low-income states by building bridges may be called "corruption" if it turns out that the bridges weren't really needed. But corruption of that type had analogous forms that existed in Soviet politics -- so it was "safer" for Krokodil to focus on a type of political corruption that was more or less unique to America and other Western countries, namely, multi-billion-dollar corporations "buying" special favors from the government.

In short, the Krokodil cartoon is a lot more accurate than, say, the National Lampoon cartoon that portrayed sex-starved Soviet women lining up to buy dildo-vibrators that were made of reinforced concrete and powered by diesel motors. But, at the same time, the Krokodil cartoon presents a somewhat oversimplified picture of the swamp that is DC -- and, more to the point, it simplifies the picture in a "Долой капитализм!" way that reflects the political biases of the editors. (Or, perhaps, the political biases of the bosses who signed the editors' paychecks!).

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

It wasn't ALL made up or faked. Arguably, it was unfairly selective -- in that more positive discussions of the US in the Soviet media were omitted -- but a "lie of omission" is different from "fakery."



Speaking of "lies of admission," I'd say that the Krokodil cartoon is at least half-accurate in so far as it portrays the problem of corporate cronyism (as represented by the captions "Льготы монополиям" and "для миллионеров"). However, corporate lobbying does not nearly begin to "sum up" the varieties of corruption in DC. Corruption also occurs in populist lobbies representing blue-collar labor and various minority groups; and pork-barrel spending that creates jobs in low-income states by building bridges may be called "corruption" if it turns out that the bridges weren't really needed.

Fair enough Throbert. Fake may have been a hasty choice of words. But it certainly was not accurate in any case. I think we can agree that it was biased, unfair and misleading, perhaps.

As for the cartoon, it can only convey so much of the complex problems in DC. It is only a cartoon and cartoons generally make a very simple, but strong point. I felt that one did its job. We can agree to disagree.

Originally Posted by Deborski

In American movies, Russians seem to fit into one of three categories:

1. Evil Russky
2. Cannon Fodder
3. Comic Relief

You forgot:

4. Klingons


American scientists predict that by the 24th century, Space-Russians will have evolved
to look like this, and their women will still be sexy, yet dangerous.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

4. Klingons
American scientists predict that by the 24th century, Space-Russians will have evolved
to look like this, and their women will still be sexy, yet dangerous.

That's what I'm talking about.
Of course, there was propaganda on the both sides. But there is a very big and substantial difference between Soviet and American propaganda. The Soviet one has never portrayed all the Americans like a gang of Klingons-Shminglos and so on. It was very tolerant to the ordinary Amercans. Yes, Soviet propaganda attacked capitalism, racism, "lobbism" (as "corruption in law"), American politicians or CIA agents etc, but it didn't touch the simple people. You can't find a Soviet movie where Americans are portrayed like bastards in everyday situations (although if we want we can find a lot of plots for such movies). On the contrary, American propaganda concentrates on this method mainly, till now.