The Resurgence of Cold War Imagery in Western Popular Culture Daniel Van Jelgerhuis

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FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

THE RESURGENCE OF COLD WAR IMAGERY IN WESTERN POPULAR CULTURE

DANIEL VAN JELGERHUIS

A Thesis submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2015

Daniel Van Jelgerhuis defended this thesis on April 16, 2015.

The members of the supervisory committee were:

Lisa Wakamiya

Professor Directing Thesis

Robert Romanchuk

Committee Member

Leigh Edwards

Committee Member

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the thesis has been approved in accordance with university requirements.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ...... iv

1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1

2. REAL LIFE ...... 6

3. ANACHRONISM ...... 14

4. NOSTALGIA IN SCIENCE FICTION ...... 17

5. US AND THEM ...... 21

6. CONCLUSION ...... 23

Works Cited ...... 25

Biographical Sketch ...... 27

iii

ABSTRACT

The portrayal of Russia in Western popular culture has served various purposes,

particularly between 1945 and 1991. With a few exceptions, Soviet citizens, particularly

Russians, have been shown as, alternatingly, backwards peasants and cunning enemies. In the

post-1991 period, this tradition of showing Russia as the enemy continued in film and

television, but tapered off in favor of more seemingly relevant foes on the world stage. While film analyses focusing on the portrayal of Russia and Russians have been done, the renewal of focus on Cold War imagery in reference to Russia and the West has not been commented on.

Because of the so-called Illegals Program uncovered in 2010, the attempted “reset” between the United States and the Russian Federation, increased Western media coverage of human rights issues in Russia, and many other types of exposure, including the annexation of Crimea

and the conflict with Russia-backed anti-Kiev militias in eastern Ukraine, Russia has taken center-stage and is subject not only to international scrutiny, but also to rehashed prejudices and outdated knowledge of the country that stems from old antagonisms. The television programs The Americans, Archer, and Doctor Who all look at Russia and the relationship of

Russia with the West through a Cold War lens. I argue that this resurgence is in response to both Cold War nostalgia and a renewal of Russia’s relevance on the world stage. By analyzing these programs, it will be shown that the types of information and impressions that are being promoted by popular culture of late at once serve to provide nuance to an ordinarily one-sided and limited portrayal of Russia and its people, and at the same time reinforce old, stale images of the “Evil Empire” that only serve to prevent understanding and cooperation between the citizens of the West and of Russia.

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

That is, the Cold War is a dialectic without the possibility of historical progress or, to be more precise, a dialectic in order to avoid historical change, since the ultimate purpose of Cold War enmity is to consolidate both of the warring political systems. - Roland Végső

Much of the Cold War, and much of “peacetime” US/West-Russia relations, is characterized by misunderstanding and subsequent assumptions based on misunderstandings and blunders that might seem comical, were it not for the fact that enmity between the West and Russia has been made to seem intractable. A hallmark moment took place in March of

2009, with a symbolic joint press conference between then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. At this meeting, a red button was presented for both Clinton and Lavrov to press, symbolizing the attempt at a reset of US-Russia relations. The word for “reset” was supposed to have been written on the base of the button in both English and Russian, but due to a typographical error (and the fact that the Russian was transliterated into English) the Russian text did not read “reset” but “overload” (peregruzka = overload,

overburden in place of, perezagruzka = reset, reboot). The irony was not lost on Lavrov, who chuckled as he pointed out this mistake (Associated Press). The more cynical elements of the

Western press jumped on the Lavrov-Clinton exchange as further proof that there can be no reset between the two nations. Overall, it was a silly gimmick that backfired, but Lavrov and

Clinton, being diplomats, did their best to turn the mistranslation into something more palatable, each citing that the other has quite the “burden” in terms of work towards this ostensible reset.

When a diplomatic event plays out as a farce, it’s hard not to draw parallels between popular media and real-world happenings. Films, video games, books, comic books, television, music - much of what is considered to be popular culture - are sold as amusing and enjoyable and even thought-provoking entertainment, but they also function as a medium for the dissemination of ideology. Popular culture can also prescribe resolutions to long-standing cultural misunderstandings and perpetuate new ones in their place.

John Hartley proposed in his 1999 work Uses of Television that television has become

sort of “transmodern teacher,” as it is a medium that has both global and localized reach. It has

the capability of forming global communities, as well as localizing content to particular regions.

He also claims that, if television is to be considered teaching, it is “part of the convergent GEM-

conglomerate (Government-Education-Media)” as each component serves a role in television

and vice versa. He states that “government teaches via drama (politics as theatre); media

govern by education (entertainment is both ideological and instructional); education

dramatizes government (schooling instills (self)-discipline)” (44). If Hartley’s theory is applied to

perpetuation of cultural stereotypes in popular culture, it may be said that the stereotypes are

inherited from political narratives, narratives that impact real decision-making in both the

civilian realm and the realm of governance and international relations. What emerges is what

Michael Delli Carpini and Bruce Williams called the “hyperreality” and “multiaxiality” of the so-

called New Media, in which political narratives inform mass media and popular culture, and

popular culture and other media contribute to American political knowledge and opinion ("Let

Us Infotain You: Politics in the New Media Age" 170).

What many citizens in the West know about Russia is acquired from a variety of sources, including popular television programs informed by or based upon current events. If television performs the educative-socializing role that Hartley identifies, popular programs draw upon and reinforce ideas that dominate news narratives and current events. Contemporary Western, and particularly American and British, ideas about Russia and the former Soviet Union were formed during the Cold War. Today’s producers and writers draw from the tropes and stereotypes established during this time of tension and conflict, and in the context of present tensions, revive these tropes to depict current Russia-US relations.

Television programs have the capacity to perpetuate tired tropes, but more importantly can address topical concerns with an agility that film cannot. Programs such as The Americans,

Archer, and Doctor Who use tropes and character types established in the West during the Cold

War in response to increased tensions in present-day US-Russia relations and new, more fluid relationships between politics and popular culture. In addition to demonstrating how contemporary programs draw from Cold War era political narratives, I will demonstrate how the popular perception that a revival of the Cold War is underway is, in part, being perpetuated by popular culture.

Hartley’s theory of television as “transmodern teacher,” coupled with research that contends that popular culture and entertainment media have a significant impact on the formation of opinions (Mulligan and Habel), lends credence to the idea that the stereotypes and images perpetuated in popular culture have significant, real-world impact. My attempt to merge the study of international relations and the study of popular culture draws from recent studies of the relationship between political economy and media studies. Political economy and

media studies present diverging models of agency on the part of the consumer. Political

economy (and political science as a whole) is generally top-down in its view of effects of events and products such as media (Fenton 13). The field of media studies is concerned with the agency of the consumer and prefers to take a holistic approach when looking at the same issues. In Media Studies: Key Issues and Debates, Fenton argues that while agency lies with the consumer, the consumer is not entirely free to create meaning:

The media messages matter because they make some interpretations more

likely than others. The cultural capital that audiences bring to media texts are

not uniform – different people from different social backgrounds will have

different social and interpretative tools at their command. By ordering the

distribution of cultural tools as well as cultural products, social structure serves

as a constraint on the process of making meaning. Cultural consumption is a

social act; it is always affected by the social context and the social relations in

which it occurs. In other words, audiences may be active producers of meaning

but the process takes place in conditions and from commodities that are not of

our making. (21)

Fenton argues that the top-down model of political economy goes hand in hand with the models of agency presented in media studies. Both organize and limit the creation, implementation, consumption, and effects of media. I argue that this is also the case with the relationship between real-world events, and the production and consumption of popular culture. This is, however, a contentious stance. Theorists in the area of critical political economy base their critiques and theories in a firmly Marxist worldview. Theorist and critic Robert

McChesney rejects the views of modern cultural studies, something he has asserted is but a

ghost of its former self (McChesney 86). This rejection, however, is in favor of past cultural studies and theory, which was much more amenable to McChesney’s view of the capitalist media-government diad having total control. Theorists such as Angela McRobbie, however, operate under a premise that is much more akin to Fenton’s. Through what is described as neo-

Gramscian hegemony theory, McRobbie, and others, attempts to “account dialectically for the interplay of the ‘imposed from above’ and the ‘emerging from below’” (McGuigan 76). Fenton’s assertion that some interpretations will be more likely than others based on the construction and presentation of the media message is crucial to analyzing how Russia and Russians are portrayed in popular media, as well as how that message might be received. For this assertion to function, the agency of the consumer must be considered alongside the agency and power of

Hartley’s “government-education-media” conglomerate.

CHAPTER 2

REAL LIFE

In June of 2010, ten Russian nationals were arrested by the FBI on suspicion of spying

for the Russian Federation. The arrests came after more than a decade of investigation under

the heading “Operation Ghost Stories.” The operation’s name likely alluded to the existence of

sleeper cells of Russian spies living in the United States under assumed names, some for longer

than the length of the investigation. The so-called “Illegals Program” has been a component of

Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (known as the SVR, and a component of the KGB before

the fall of the Soviet Union) since its establishment as the foreign intelligence gathering arm of

the Russian Federation. It, like many large, state-operated intelligence agencies, embeds agents

in countries where useful intelligence is likely to be gathered. The revelation of such an extensive program was a shock to many. “Operation Ghost Stories” unveiled a system of deep- cover intelligence operatives attempting to use their respective business, academic, and social connections to assess potential recruits for the Russian government (“Inside the Russian Spy

Case”).

While the existence of spies in the United States has been a matter of public knowledge for some time, their activity usually involved individual American agents operating on behalf of the Soviets, at great risk to themselves, in a position that handled sensitive information. The difference between American federal agents who spied for Russian intelligence services, such as Aldrich Ames or Robert Hanssen, and these so-called “Illegals” is that the “Illegals” were all

Russian citizens and were operating in fairly ordinary conditions, leading fairly ordinary lives.

Press reports on the arrests that followed the discovery of the “Illegals Program” and the

subsequent exchange of prisoners between Russia and the United States compared it to tactics

employed during the Cold War: “The Russian plane then took off, followed by the U.S. jet in an

echo of Soviet-era spy trades across the Iron Curtain in Central Europe.”1 The fact that sleeper cells existed well into the beginning of the 21st century was an unnerving reminder of the era of

McCarthyism and the Red Scare that gripped the United States in the 1950s. At that time it was

communism, the ideology of the enemy, that was lurking in the shadows. The Illegals Program

brought to light a new paranoia: the fear that our friends and neighbors, however ordinary,

could very easily be the “enemy” in disguise.

An official “reset” of US-Russian relations was decided upon in March of 2009, but news

of the arrest of the ten spies was released the following year, not three days after Russian

President Dmitry Medvedev met with United States President Barack Obama at the White

House for a discussion on economic cooperation. In that same year, Evgeny Buryakov arrived in

New York as a civilian and posed as an employee of a branch of Russia’s Vnesheconombank. In

January 2015, Mr. Buryakov was charged with various counts of espionage after a lengthy FBI

surveillance operation found evidence that he, along with two other men in Russian diplomatic

positions, was passing information relevant to international sanctions recently placed on

Russia, as well as attempting to recruit or otherwise obtain information from American citizens

working in the finance sector with the intention of relaying it back to the SVR.2 The revelation

that there are still Russian agents working in the United States further supports the American

public’s comparison of current events with those that characterized the Cold War era.

1 Faulconbridge, Guy, and Heinz-Peter Bader. "Russia, U.S. Swap 14 in Cold War-style Spy Exchange." Reuters. N.p., 09 July 2010. Web. 30 Nov. 2014.

2 Hays, Tom. "US Announces Charges in New York Russian Spy Ring Case." ABC News. ABC News Network, 26 Jan. 2015. Web. 03 Feb. 2015. 7

Around the time that news of the Illegals Program was made public, former CIA-case-

officer-turned-teacher-turned-writer Joe Weisberg was called on to write a treatment for a

television show based partially on the Illegals Program. Instead of setting the events at the time they occurred, he set them in the early 1980s – a period of heightened Cold War tension. The end result, The Americans, premiered in 2013. While the use of entertainment television as an instrument of ideology is not new, the emergence of Weisberg as both federal agent and television writer-producer reflects a new development in the relationship between politics and popular culture. Weisberg is a member of a group of former intelligence agents and special forces operators who work as consultants and, increasingly, media-creators.3 A top-down model of cultural production demonstrates that studio demand for shows that treat topical events lead to hiring and production decisions that control reception. By drawing from the ranks of intelligence agencies and providing the illusion of access to insider knowledge of the workings of the intelligence community, studios and intelligence agencies alike contribute to the perception of the shows’ legitimacy and accuracy as a source of information about recent events.

Weisberg moved the events from their historical context to the 1980s to frame the

Soviet/West conflict in a recent past that many of the viewers might remember and understand, rather than the as yet un-narrativized present. The fact that a current event inspired Weisberg to create a program set in the 1980s leads the viewer to make connections between past and current events and suggests that earlier cultural paradigms can help us make sense of current events. Weisberg, along with many others working in television programs and

3Shapira, Ian. "Ex-spies Infiltrate Hollywood as Espionage TV Shows and Movies Multiply." The Washington Post. The Washington Post, 24 Jan. 2015. Web. 03 Feb. 2015.

film production, grew up during the Cold War recalls the media narratives of the era. He has

expressed a certain level of nostalgia for this era, as have others.

Weisberg has stated that became disillusioned during his time inside the intelligence community, yet he is not immune from the temptation to connect, and equate, current US-

Russia relations with those of the Cold War:

I saw that my job was going to entail recruiting people who didn’t provide much

valuable intelligence, and yet they had to put their lives at great risk…and I don’t

think I felt good about pursuing that… they’re [CIA agents] forced to tell this

huge lie to their kids. Eventually they tell them the truth, and what toll does that

take on the kids, who one day find out that their family has been lying to them

for so many years?4

Weisberg cites this atmosphere of untruth and the tension it would (or hypothetically could) cause as inspiration for a number of the conflicts on the show. His attachment of his experience in an intelligence agency to the reality faced by his characters ties the two eras together.

The series begins with classic spy-action fare. An undercover Russian agent seduces a

Department of Justice bureaucrat in the hopes that he will reveal useful information about the goings-on in the United States government. She later joins her partner as they and his cohort track and capture a KGB colonel who has defected and begun providing classified information to the FBI. His reports include information about deep-cover Soviet agents living in the United

States. The Russian agents miss the boat that was to be the drop-off opportunity for the colonel

4 Waxman, "Q&A: The CIA Officer Behind the New Spy Drama ‘The Americans’." Entertainment.time.com. Time, 30 Jan. 2013. Web. 28 Jan. 2015.

to be sent back to Moscow, and subsequently they are forced to keep him in the trunk of their

car. These agents are exactly who the KGB informant was warning the FBI about; they have

been in the country for about fifteen years, posing as a married couple in the same neighborhood where the FBI counterintelligence agent tasked with finding them has recently

moved to. The false domesticity of the agents, and their close proximity to their target, is a plot decision designed to both heighten the tension of the show and reiterate the underlying

message that brought Weisberg to create the program: not only is Russia the enemy of the

United States, but these enemies could very well be the neighbor right next door.

Regarding the difficulties of his experiences in the CIA, Weisberg had this to say about

the necessity of lying:

Fundamentally, lies were at the core of the relationships. I lied to all my friends

and most of the people in my family. I lied every day. I told 20 lies a day and I got

used to it. It was hard for about two weeks. Then it got easy. I watched it happen

to all of us.5

In the same article, Weisberg indicates it was his disillusionment with this world of lies that led

him to quit his job at the CIA. Having to lead a double life and constantly lie is also central to the development of the characters of the FBI agent on the show. The struggle has its origins in

Weisberg’s own experience. Weisberg is even purportedly trying to show that “[m]aybe, the enemy is as human as you are” with his portrayal of these undercover Russian agents largely in a domestic setting, dealing with problems of trust, relationships, and intimacy in a way that

5 Holson, Laura. "The Dark Stuff, Distilled." The New York Times. The New York Times, 30 Mar. 2013. Web. 09 Apr. 2014. 10

would be relatable to anyone.6 Weisberg creates sympathetic, fully-developed and well- rounded characters out of “enemy” and “friend” alike in The Americans. This does not,

however, contradict the image of Russia as rival and enemy that has long existed in the

American psyche (Davis 174). Weisberg’s position as a former CIA employee who used the

roundup of the Illegals Program as inspiration for his television program is a very different

posting, in terms of perpetuating Western hegemony through established narratives. Still, as a

part of an established paramilitary-media complex, he has only ended up in a less clandestine

version of his former job.

Anna Vasilyevna Chapman also gained public attention following the reveal of the

Illegals Program, though for entirely different reasons. She had served as one of the undercover

Russian agents tasked with obtaining useful intelligence for the Russian Federation. Ordinarily,

spies who are publically sent back to their home countries do not live in any sort of limelight

and are, naturally, reviled in the country upon which they were spying. Chapman’s case is quite

different. Her notoriety began in the United States where, as is often the case, the first thing

commented on was her appearance.7 After the prisoner exchange, Chapman acquired a certain

level of fame. Though she certainly was no hero in the United States, she was a figure of

popular interest in the media.

She was, however, welcomed as a hero in Russia. Since her return, she has started an

espionage-themed clothing line and her own line of lingerie, proposed to Edward Snowden over

6 Waxman 7 Clark, Andrew. "I Wouldn't Have Sent Anna Chapman Back, Jokes Joe Biden on US Television." The Guardian. The Guardian, 11 July 2010. Web. 6 Mar. 2015. 11

Twitter,8 and been a consulting member of a major Russian bank. She has also hosted a

program called Mysteries of the World with Anna Chapman (REN TV). Among other topics, the show explores paranormal phenomena (one episode was titled “The Truth About UFOs”). On top of all this, she has considered pursuing a career in politics by representing her home city of

Volgograd in the Russian Duma, naturally as a member of Putin’s United Russia party (Novosti

Volgograda). This non-stop clamoring for attention, as a part of Chapman’s new public persona, is ironic when associated with someone who was working in a clandestine service. Were it not for her having been exposed as a spy, she would not have had the opportunity to capitalize upon her new-found fame. This contrast with Weisberg and his associates, who worked as spies and went into writing books and working on television programs and films once their service had ended, is certainly gendered. Placing Chapman in front of the camera, rather than behind it, may be said to generate a new post-Soviet narrative for former clandestine agents, one that emphasizes visibility in social and television media. To the degree that this narrative is “new,” however, it is almost certainly scripted for her. Behind the camera, her Twitter feed and V

Kontakte profile, Chapman’s new “agency” consolidates her activity and promotes it as a branded lifestyle, under the guise and promoted image of the “sexy spy.” Amid tweets of inspirational quotes by historical figures are bits of informational trivia (“Did you know that humans are unique among mammals for having ‘whites’ in their eyes?”), which are intended to generate interest in her television show and links to her commercial ventures, including her fashion line. Chapman has been packaged and branded and pushed to the front line of many

8 РИА Новости. "Сноуден и Чапман не смогут пожениться в транзитной зоне "Шереметьево"" РИА Новости. РИА Новости, 05 July 2013. Web. 06 Mar. 2015 12

facets of modern Russian culture in a way that is obviously geared towards attracting the male gaze.

CHAPTER 3

ANACHRONISM

Where The Americans deals with a complex topic with realism and gravitas, Archer takes

a decidedly less grim, but no less potent, approach towards the portrayal of the Cold War.

Archer (2009-present) is a spy-spoof, but it is not set in any particular time period, or rather it is

set in several simultaneously. Archer exists in an anachronistic timeline, which combines

elements of the 60s, 70s, and the present day. For example, a “brand new” first generation

Dodge Challenger is given as a gift in one episode – a car that was produced between 1969 and

1974 – yet, every character has a cell phone. In another episode, the actor Burt Reynolds is a

prominent guest star. The show’s position in time is uncertain, and so too is the status of the

Cold War. The silliness of this complex notion of temporal impermanence belies its suggestion

that the Cold War never truly ended.

Sterling Archer interacts with the still-existing KGB occasionally during the course of his

missions, which are complicated by the fact that his mother has been having a long-term covert

love affair with the head of the KGB, Nikolai Jakov (pronounced “jackoff,” if the show’s humor

was not sufficiently subtle). The action of the show occasionally shifts to Jakov inside the KGB

headquarters on Lubyanka Square. One episode, “White Nights,” takes place almost entirely in

Moscow. KGB agents and bureaucrats are regularly seen as bumbling, incompetent fools living

in a backwards country suffering from poverty and corruption. These stereotypes are exploited

for the sake of comedy, but the use of the “timeless” timeline in conjunction with the well-

known stereotypes of Russia being backwards and corrupt exposes an underlying lack of

movement, at least subconsciously, away from the Cold War era – an era when images of

Russia as an impoverished nation led by inept bureaucrats were perpetuated through American

and British propaganda (Hixson).

Adam Reed, the show’s creator, designed the show to have a mixture of aesthetics,

including the timeline. In an interview with Vlada Gelman for The A.V. Club, he describes this

decision as the result of “laziness” and his own personal preferences for 70s muscle cars and

60s fashion. But it is clear from this interview that the Cold War had an impact on his life. His justification for creating a world where the Cold War never ended is that so much television in

the past decade or so has been focused on the element of terrorism, either of the Islamic

extremist variety or otherwise, and he wanted a return to classic espionage fare. Here, Reed

addresses the question of why the KGB is the main antagonist for many of the show’s episodes:

Part of that was just my personal weariness with real life, especially. But also, in

thriller fiction these days, everything is always about terror. I get enough of that

on the news, so I didn’t want to deal with fundamentalists or any sort of thing

like that. I just wanted to keep it as lighthearted as the Cold War was, which

obviously it was a fun time for everybody. (Gelman)

Here Reed identifies a comfort that he, and others, find in an old enemy. This comfort is found,

as comfort often is, in ignorance that has been afforded by privilege – the sort of privilege that

allows Reed to make sarcastic remarks such as the ones in the interview. While Reed may be

able to look back on the absurdity of hiding under his desk during duck-and-cover drills in grade

school with amusement, he clearly has no idea of what the Cold War was like for many citizens

of the Soviet Union. While a manufactured threat of a missile gap sparked the arms race and

stoked the tensions between the United States and Soviet Union, the overexertion on the

Soviet economy led to the suffering of its people. Reed has fallen prey to the anti-Soviet narrative of his day, and this is evident in his perpetuation of the Western assumption of Russia as an impoverished, dirty, and corrupt land, all for a few laughs.

CHAPTER 4

NOSTALGIA IN SCIENCE FICTION

Nostalgia is a significant factor when considering the reappearance of trends in popular culture as well as an apparent return to Cold War-style antagonisms between the West, and mainly the United States, and Russia. Svetlana Boym identifies two distinct forms of nostalgia,

“reflective” and “restorative” (13). Of these two, the more relevant is restorative. Boym describes this type of nostalgia as being subject to

two main plots: the restoration of origins and the conspiracy theory…This

worldview is based on a single transhistorical plot, a Manichaean battle of good

and evil, and the inevitable scapegoating of the mythical enemy. Ambivalence,

the complexity of history, the variety of contradictory evidence, and the

specificity of modern circumstances are thus erased, and modern history is seen

as a fulfillment of ancient prophecy. (14)

It was this type of nostalgia that led to the creation of a particular episode of Doctor

Who. Doctor Who, like Archer, utilizes a loose timeline, as the main premise of the show is that the protagonist is able to travel through time and space, though he does not often control the direction of his craft. Most episodes are either a combination history-lesson-with-aliens-added, or standard extraterrestrial sci-fi fare. There is almost always a problem for the Doctor to solve, and very often there is some moral or ethical issue to grapple with. This is relevant to an episode that deals specifically with the Cold War, as the arrival of the action on a Russian submarine in 1983 is meant to be a random event that nonetheless has relevance to contemporary affairs.

The “Cold” in “Cold War,” the episode’s title, derives from both the episode’s placement

in the Arctic and also the Cold War that the West and Russia were engaged in at this time. At

the start of the episode, we find the Doctor and his companion having landed on a Russian

submarine that is traveling near the North Pole in 1983. As luck would have it, this submarine is

running a simulated nuclear launch when things begin to go awry. The vessel, as it turns out,

also had a scientific purpose: its resident scientist has obtained a block of ice that ends up

containing a member of a reptilian, humanoid alien race. This alien runs amok and eventually

takes control of the submarine’s nuclear weapons.

With knowledge of the ongoing Cold War and an appreciation of nuclear end-game theory, the alien’s plan to destroy the planet is fairly simple: launch the submarine’s nuclear payload and instigate a global thermonuclear war. This does not transpire, but the omnipresent threat of nuclear war and the easy manipulation of this tension by an outside force plays on the media’s, government’s, and corporations’ own capitalization on this fear (Chomsky and Herman xiv).

The episode’s writer, Mark Gatiss, reintroduced the alien-antagonist and admitted in a behind-the-scenes video that he is somewhat “obsessed” with the Cold War era.

I’ve always wanted to do Doctor Who on a submarine. It…cries out for it. And I’m

kind of obsessed with the Cold War. Actually, how close we came. There were

lots of incidents around that time in the mid-eighties when things got

very…sticky and, as the Doctor says “lots of itchy fingers on the triggers.”9

9 Behind the Scenes of Cold War - Doctor Who Series 7 Part 2. Perf. Mark Gatiss, Matt Smith, Jenna Louise Coleman. YouTube, 13 Apr. 2013. Web. 9 Apr. 2014. 18

His comments about how close the world nearly came to being subjected to a nuclear war likely refer to the highest moments of tension during the Able Archer NATO military exercises of 1983 and the downing of Korean Air Lines flight 007, also in 1983. This revival of an enemy within the Doctor Who universe, coupled with the revival of an “enemy” in the form of a nuclear USSR based on the nostalgia of a television writer, is a continuation of a trend seen in the other two programs.

Nostalgia notwithstanding, the very nature of the British Broadcasting Company, which broadcasts both television and radio episodes of Doctor Who, is unique in comparison with FX, the American television channel that hosts The Americans and Archer. The BBC is a state-owned entity and has had, since its inception, a strong public service element and serves to socialize its citizens. While the BBC is known for impartiality, it is impossible to divorce the state and the media in this case, as they are one and the same despite any claims of independence. As

Badsey makes clear, “…the BBC is a state broadcaster funded publicly and ultimately regulated by the state through the parliamentary system…Furthermore, the BBC is Charter-bound to support the state in time of war. This commitment defines the bottom line in the relationship between the BBC and the government” (67). This relationship certainly strengthens the assertion that the Cold War imagery in Doctor Who is certainly much more complicated and arguably geared more towards dredging up suspicion and distrust.

The fact that three Western men of very close age (Gatiss was born in 1966, Weisberg also in 1966, and Reed in 1970) have created programs that, in large or small part, comment on the Cold War era with such interest cannot be a coincidence. In 1983, the year the episode is set in, Gatiss and Weisberg were 17 years old and Reed was 13. All were likely shaped by the

environment created by Hartley’s “government-education-media” conglomerate, and their

respective projects reveal the extent to which their nostalgia and experience determine their ability and willingness to recreate top-down media narratives, and their agency (or lack thereof)

to create new narratives.

CHAPTER 5

US AND THEM

In his 1947 article “Some Sources of American Hostility to Russia,” Arthur K. Davis first

emphasizes the similarities (historical, societal, cultural, etc.) between the two nations before

providing examples of ethnocentrism, insecurity, perceptions of institutional rivalry, and use of

Russia as a scapegoat for ills, both foreign and domestic. His claim that “[t]he rise of Soviet-

American hostility, once well started, may be explained as a vicious circle, each nation interpreting the other’s behavior as a threat and responding accordingly, until both define the situation in terms of self-preservation” (174) is relevant today, naturally substituting the word

“Soviet” with “Russian.”

Cooperation between the US government and media for the purpose of distributing

propaganda have been in effect for some time, and were at their height during the Cold War

(Hixson page xiii). The collaboration between popular culture and mass media has continued

through the present day, and has manifested in a close relationship in the form of media

liaisons between US military and paramilitary organizations and film-production. One such

example is the film Act of Valor, which portrays the semi-fictional exploits of several Navy SEAL

teams around the world. The film was commissioned by the United States Navy and exercised

major on-set presence, including the Navy reserving the right to cut anything that they deemed

unacceptable for what was essentially a 110-minute recruitment film. The blurring of

propaganda and entertainment extended into casting decisions, as many of the SEAL operators

were portrayed by active-duty SEALs. These same SEALs consulted on the film at the behest of

the Navy (Zakarin).

This kind of direct interaction is not common, however. Weisberg’s program, for example, is different from Act of Valor in that the impetus for the creation of The Americans is a

response to demand from the entertainment industry for espionage-themed television.10 What television producers and writers rely most heavily on are the decades of hostility fostered by media and governmental perpetuation of images and plots. Weisberg’s association with U.S. intelligence agencies, moreover, allows the producers of The Americans to claim that the show represents past events in a truthful manner. Despite Weisberg’s claims to the contrary, the show – in its very depiction of intelligence agents at work – may advocate for the work of

American intelligence agencies during times of strained national relations. Or, more self- servingly, it may advocate for television that interprets current events, “informing” viewers while supplying a top-down narrative that does not encourage significant viewer agency in interpretation.

The television program 24, while entirely fictional in content, similarly portrays Russia and its leaders as corrupt, and any other incidental Russian characters as criminals or criminal- adjacent. A major antagonist during the show’s sixth season was a former Soviet general-turned ultranationalist terrorist who sought to reestablish the USSR and weaken the United States by attacking it with nuclear “suitcase bombs.” Howard Gordon, who wrote, produced, and was eventually showrunner, and Joel Surnow, who was a co-creator and producer, both lived during the Cold War in the United States. Both depict Russia and the West in perpetual Cold War, with the American protagonists successfully negotiating terror plots.

10 Shapira

CHAPTER 6

CONCLUSION

The American public’s perception of Russia and Russians is largely shaped by media, be it news or entertainment, and it is self-perpetuating. The presentation and portrayal of Russia and Russians in Western popular culture is largely negative and the frequency of the use of

Russians as characters in shows and films tend to correspond to events happening in the realm of politics. In the wake of the end of the Cold War, the restructuring and recovery that occurred afterwards, and this current period of “normalization” of relations between the West and

Russia, it is not unreasonable to suggest that popular culture contributes heavily to perceptions in the general population.

It is interesting to note that during the time of these programs, Americans were more or less split in terms of favorability towards Russia. In fact, favorability increased between 2009 and 2012.11 Between 2012 and 2015, however, favorability decreased dramatically and

unfavorability, naturally, increased between 2012 and 2015, with unfavorable ratings going

from 44% to 70%. While the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the subsequent military

intervention on the part of Russia in other parts of Ukraine, certainly aided this decline in

opinion, it began roughly around the latter part of 2012, the year in which Vladimir Putin was

dubiously reelected president. It is also the year in which the feminist punk protest group Pussy

Riot staged a “punk prayer” in Moscow’s Christ the Savior cathedral and were subsequently

arrested and charged with “hooliganism” with two of the members being sentenced to two-

11 Jones, Jeffrey. "Americans Increasingly See Russia as Threat, Top U.S. Enemy." Gallup. Gallup, 16 Feb. 2015. Web. 12 Apr. 2015.

23 year prison terms. Whether these events sparked the downturn of American sentiment towards Russia, or if it was a delayed reaction to the reveal of the Illegals Program, or some combination of factors, the preceding popular culture narratives certainly did nothing to dissuade Americans from altering their viewpoints.

In The Americans, Archer, and Doctor Who, there is at some level a perpetuation of the anti-Soviet/anti-Russian narrative developed during the Cold War. By either direct and purposeful collusion or merely the mirroring nature of popular culture and mass media, the

Cold War has been held over in the collective cultural memory of the West. The recent resurgence in Cold War references or major plot points in television programs reflects the fact that one of the most powerful weapons in the arsenal of a state is media. In Western democratic societies, the compliance of a citizenry is key to a government seeking to pursue particular actions. By unearthing, or perhaps merely scratching the surface of, the Cold War tensions of the 1980s and prior, showrunners, producers, and writers are doing the state’s work for them. It should be concerning to those who are in charge of these programs, regardless of their intentions, that events are being interpreted for them through the lens of the Cold War.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Education

Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, 08/2013 - 05/2015 Master of Arts, Slavic Studies Thesis: “The Resurgence of Cold War Imagery in Western Popular Culture”

Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, 05/2012 - 12/2014 Master of Arts, Russian and East European Studies

Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, 08/2008 - 04/2012 Bachelor of Science, Russian and Biological Science

Other Relevant Education

Study Abroad Research Program, Vladivostok State University of Economics and Service, 06/2014 – 08/2014

• Studied the Russian language in an intensive two-month program in Vladivostok, Russia

Summer Workshop in Slavic, East European, and Central Asian Languages Indiana University, 06/2013 – 08/2013

• Studied the Russian language in an intensive two-month program in Bloomington, Indiana

Study Abroad Program, Moscow State University, 05/2012 – 06/2012

• Assisted the site leaders in the coordination of group functions

Professional Experience

Graduate Instructor, Florida State University, Department of Modern Languages, Tallahassee, FL, 08/2013-Present

• Taught basic grammar, syntax, and vocabulary of the Russian language to undergraduate and graduate students who were in their first or second semester of the language

• Met with students outside of class who needed further assistance with the language

• Mentored students who expressed a desire to continue studying Russian and wished to advance more quickly

Resident Assistant, Florida State Housing, Tallahassee, FL, 08/2009 – 04/2012

• Established cohesive community with residents and fellow resident assistants

• Informed students about University Housing policies and enforced them when needed

• Developed communication skills and ability to work in a group setting

Language Proficiency

Russian – advanced in reading, speaking, and writing

Conferences and Presentations

Synthesizing Eastern Europe, University of Toronto, 4/2014

• Attended the annual Synthesizing Eastern Europe conference at the University of Toronto on April 24th and 25th of 2014

• Presented paper entitled “The Resurgence of Cold War Imagery in Western Popular Culture”