the soviet and post-soviet review 44 (2017) 209-232 brill.com/spsr Sexism on the Silver Screen: Misogyny and Cultural Continuity in Soviet Glasnost Cinema, 1987–1991 Svetlana Y. Ter-Grigoryan Department of History, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
[email protected] Abstract In the early 1990s, scholars largely viewed the height of the glasnost years, 1987 to 1991, to be a culturally and socially distinct period in comparison to the rest of the Soviet epoch. One of the main pieces of evidence employed in this argument was glasnost filmmakers’ novel use of sexuality and nudity. The debate about the cultural signifi- cance of the glasnost period, however, has been muted in recent decades. In this reevaluation, I suggest that the misogynistic nature of glasnost filmmakers’ sexuality and nudity depictions actually reflected cultural continuity with previous Soviet eras. This study ultimately challenges the idea of a culturally liberal glasnost period, and supports the case for conservatism throughout the Soviet period. Keywords glasnost – sex – sexuality – film – cinema – chernukha – cultural – misogyny In the late 1980s and 1990s, scholars of Russian culture mostly viewed the years of perestroika and glasnost (1986–1991) as a socially, culturally, and morally lib- eral period in comparison to the rest of the conservative Soviet epoch.1 Among 1 Communication scholars and political scientists such as Joseph Gibbs, Isaac J. Tarasulo, and Elena Androunas argued in the late 1980s and early 1990s that the discourses of the glasnost era represented expanded social and moral liberalism in the Soviet Union. Their definitions of “liberalism,” however, typically drew from western notions of egalitarian society, as well as democratic capitalism.