From the time I was old enough to watch TV, I have loved movies: action (боевик), drama (драма), comedy (комедия), horror movie (фильм ужасов) – you name it, I used to like them all. As I got older, one interesting thing became apparent to me: many of the villains in the American movies I liked were Russian. The heroes were Americans. This was nothing to be surprised by considering the political climate of the 80s and 90s.

Movies like Rocky IV, Red Dawn, Rambo, Rounders, Air Force One, and many others possessed the ultimate bad guys. The Russian Mafia, the KGB, and even some of their allies would serve the role of antagonist very well. They were always cunning, at first unbeatable, and finally made to lose the conflict.

In Rocky IV, Apollo Creed, whom we grew to love in Rocky III, comes out of retirement to fight a newcomer from the Soviet Union – Ivan Drago. The Russian was quite tall, very muscular, wore the coolest haircut on the planet, and even used a dark silver mouthpiece just to look a bit more menacing. Simply put, he was a pugilist, yet he was the villain because he was too strong for Apollo and happened to grow up in the Soviet Union. From the first minute of the film you get this sense that it’s USA against USSR. The God-fearing, honest, and humane, United States of America versus the evil, cold-hearted, deceitful, Soviet Union. Any student of U.S. history knows this to be a very gross exaggeration of the truth, however, not in the world in which Rocky Balboa lives.

Though I could go on and on about how some of the best villains in the movies I like are Russian, I cannot help but wonder how this came to be? Was it because of Communism? Stalin? The Cuban Missile Crisis? The Cold War? Weren’t the Russians and the Americans fighting together to defeat the Axis powers in WWII? As a Russian myself, I always wondered why we were made to be the “bad guys.” The stereotypes portrayed in these movies acted as an effective propaganda tool indoctrinating those that watched them. I recently spoke with an American friend with similar movie interests as me and he stated , “Even though I had never had any dealings with Russian citizens when I was younger, because of what I saw in some of these films, I saw them as a little less good – after all, I was quite young, naive, and very impressionable.”

I have never seen a Russian-made movie that depicted Americans with the same level of vitriol, though I am sure they must exist. As I have been living in the U.S. for 11 years now, it has become much easier to watch Russian films; even Netflix now has the Battleship Potemkin, and here is a link to a selection of subtitled Russian movies. I have shared it before & I will share it again 🙂 . It is, in my opinion, one of the best ways to practice. Press “Показать еще” at the bottom of the screen to see more movie titles.

If anybody has seen any Russian-made movies that depict the Americans as the “bad guys,” I would love to hear about them.