Why is there in almost every fucking action movie a character from Eastern Europe, and 98% of time it’s some drug dealer, mafia, mob boss, smuggler, thief, gang member or leader or some criminal in general. Even if it’s not a plot point, they have to at least mention it.
It doesn’t have to be Russia, it’s either Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Hungary, Montenegro, Albania etc. I heard this in movies on TV at least 100 times just this year.
Why the fuck do you always have to at least mention Eastern Europe in any way? You ruined and pillaged the region 30 years ago and turned it into a hellhole it is today full of criminals, corruption, bourgeoise and fascists politicians, what the fuck do you want anymore?
Rant over.
Why the fuck do you always have to at least mention Eastern Europe in any way? You ruined and pillaged the region 30 years ago and turned it into a hellhole it is today full of criminals, corruption, bourgeoise and fascists politicians
That is one of the reasons to have these characters and plots - to whitewash US and NATO. “See, we only did what we had to do! They be evil and gangster!”.
Also, there is usually some line about how these mafia types are “former Spetsnaz” or “former KGB”. For the same reasons.
This. And I’d say it’s also to paint over the fact that various organized crime rings around the world were created or sustained by US intelligence efforts, either to complete specific destabilization or repression tasks in a given region, and/or as a source of income via weapons and drugs dealing.
Lmao, as if an American would know where or what Belarus is. I’ve had someone ask me with a straight face, “Is that near Mexico, or India?”
Pretty sure Belarus was “featured” in Hollywood recently. Iirc, the movie “Bodyguard for a killer” revolved around a “dictator from Belarus” in an international court.
Yeah.
Was that supposed to be like parody of Lukashenko?
Probably. Or - no less likely - they just wanted a “generic bad guy from badguyland” and just picked a random country. To quote an old movie: “Where’s this ‘Albania’? Who cares!”
Is that near Mexico, or India?
You should answer “in cosmological terms, yeah.”
Well it’s closer to India but it’s about halfway between the two.
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Not exactly, that would just make people feel sad, or worse… empathetic.
The propaganda has been fine tuned to teach Americans that they are individually better then everyone else, and that everyone else are mindless savages.
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Could also be Latin America.
Don’t forget that one.
And every Hispanic is called Hector
'EctOR
ding ding ding
Every cartel member is a fat, bumbling, stupid, incompetent Hispanic fool, but also an extremely cunning, ruthless, chemist and criminal mastermind that is always one step ahead of the protagonist.
Like Jesus Christ, please pick a side Hollywood, they can’t be both stereotypes at once.
Haha
As ridiculous as it is, it’s also classic fascism logic (per Umberto Eco): The enemy is both strong and weak.
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Damn, poor Fidel gets left out and Che gets all the attention haha
Maybe because they couldn’t take down Fidel, they leave him out ;-)
They also do it with Muslims. The good ones are always compradors in the service of empire. Heck they even did it in black panther and made killmonger the bad guy.
It can be fun to play the game, when you realise there’s a spy or some such character in the background, to bet on their nationality.
Okay, it’s not actually fun, because when the answer is revealed you realise that whomever wrote and directed the film thinks you, the audience will fall for the cheap, bigoted propaganda. As you say, it’s often Eastern Europe. If not, it will be China or Latin America.
It’s frustrating, and the thing that ruins many, many movies and series. Netflix seems to be the worst at this. But it is also the main reason that I stopped watching / enjoying Marvel movies, so Disney does it, too. (On the whole, I think Disney is a lot subtler with its propaganda, but I’d be interested in hearing whether others agree.)
I get so wound up that they think I will just nod along and clap at their racism. If I did not understand the technique as blatant propaganda, it would be easy to criticise it as lazy writing.
Parenti talks about this in Make-Believe Media, by the way – it’s well worth reading. But if entertainment media is one of or your main source(s) of joy in life, I’d suggest you avoid the book or find another hobby before reading it!
EDIT: Deleted a phrase.
Because eastern Europe was never forgiven for the USSR.
I really likes the horror Movie “No escape” also called Follow Me. It’s about a Jake Paul-type Vlogger/streamer who goes to Russia for an exclusive Escape Room and the whole movie sorta relies on the American view that everyone is a criminal, really good ending. They even have a scene where the loud American main character makes an ass of himself and his guest by yelling out on his stream that without all the crazy monsters and guns Russia is kinda cool, everyone else in the room silently acknowledge that he’s a dumbass. The ending is spectacular.
spoiler
Basically the Russian “criminal guy” that they were all suspicious of turns out to have been playing a prank on the main character in conjunction with all of his friends that were in on the joke and they made sure nobody was accidentally hurt during the Escape Room prank. But the American kills the Russian guy before he can under it was all fake. Really good movie its on hulu or something check it out
Yugopnik and Izdihar made some cool videos on this kind of thing.
