Carnivale: stereotypes of Russians in Western media

[alexandral]

There is something I have encountered few times in the last two weeks. First, in "Sarah Connor Chronicles". As soon as I saw Dimitry-the-Russian-programmer I thought "Aha! He will be the evil character who stole the Turk". And of course, he was the evil character who stole the Turk.

And after "Sarah Connor" I am watching "Carnivale". The Creature of Darkness is revealed as Russian. Oh dear. These things don't bother me too much usually, but when there are too many of them - this can't just be random.

I am thinking really hard and trying to remember an American show where a Russian person wasn't:

1. Evil
2. Programmer (of evil variety)
3. Low intelligence but good at chess
4. Scary mafia guy involved in human traffic

Oh my, look - I am a programmer myself.

To be honest, the stereotypes of Russians are much "softer" than stereotypes of some other nations or religious and sexual orientation minorities.

Comments

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

It's such lazy writing; it's as if the writers are aware that they need a baddie but know they're not supposed to portray certain groups as automatically evil so they go for some group that won't complain but they don't need to write any nuances for. Of course, they then still do the same with other minorities, but then can point to the fact that they had a 'white' villain too.

Plus it makes it terribly easy to spot the baddie: you know as soon as you hear an Eastern European or Middle Eastern accent that they will be a wrong 'un.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

I agree with everything that you saying, I think the point about "a white villain" is spot-on.

Plus it makes it terribly easy to spot the baddie: you know as soon as you hear an Eastern European or Middle Eastern accent that they will be a wrong 'un.

This is so true.