Ever notice how certain stereotypes just always tend to make it into movies when there’s a villain lingering about somewhere? Every culture has their stereotypical bad guy in various movies and every one of them is somehow typecast in a way that mirrors every film that came before it. Russians for example are normally depicted only a few different ways in movies, and a good deal of them are exceedingly negative. Despite the effective nature of the films the manner in which such cultures are portrayed is often seen to damage the reputation of those cultures in the US and elsewhere. After all, a few individuals don’t define a culture.
Let’s just talk about how Russians are depicted in movies.
They’re often seen as big, muscular individuals that look like they could break you in two.
Just two examples come to the top of my head. Ivan Drago and the Russian in the Punisher. Both men were absolutely huge, blond, and had the personality of a brick. Neither one of them talked very much and when Ivan did it was to deliver a couple of lines that were delivered in a monotone that made him sound more like a machine than a man. That might have been what the director was going for but in truth it made him sound like a programmed moron. It’s too bad because Dolph Lundgren is actually a very smart man. Also, neither man is Russian, but because of their size and adaptability to the role they were selected to take on the stereotypical part.
Those that aren’t big and muscular often wear suits or fine clothing and are depicted as gangsters or hoodlums.
I could cite any number of movies for this argument. Remember the guys in Boondock Saints that picked a fight with the boys and got their butts handed to them? How about the group of guys in The Equalizer that thought Denzel Washington was a pushover? They were dressed more like gigolos but they still had the gangster look. The biggest part of this is that they look as though they can do some damage but are a little too civilized to just unload like their bigger, more physical counterparts. It’s often seen that the gangster types can get violent, but they don’t often do so as they prefer to let others do their dirty work.
There usually isn’t a middle ground between Russians in films.
What this means is that in the movies a Russian is either poor and struggling or they’re criminals and living a life of absolute luxury. There are not a lot of films that show a middle ground between mobsters and the working class when it comes to Russians. If you know of any please clue me in because I have yet to see it. In television it’s been seen that Russians are depicted as belonging to different socioeconomic classes, but in films it’s one way or the other.
This seems to happen to a lot of cultures in movies. It seems to make for better cinema to put everyone in their place, but it would make for a lot better viewing experience to let real life take its course and depict that.
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