“The Good, the Bad and the Evil”: the images of American “Other” in Russian anti-terror cinema of the 21st century

Abstract

The article examines the images of the American “Other” and their transformation in accordance with the foreign policy contexts. Due to the intensity of its impact on public perception and high sensitivity to international relations dynamics, the Russian film industry serves as a basis for studying this subject. To portray the connection between the foreign policy crises and the range of the American “Other” representations more vividly, the author focuses on such a peculiar genre of contemporary cinema as the anti-terror cinema discourse. This type of the cinema discourse, as proven by the instances of the American “Other” portrayal, comprises a fictitious narrative as well as political allegories. A more detailed study of their existential contexts provides that the negative representation of Americans is nourished by political conflicts. As they accelerate, they generate the tendency of a ‘new anti-americanism’, an intended distortion of the onscreen image of the American “Other”. The article suggests that the modern ways of portraying Americans are hardly novel, hence the sustainability of the ‘enemy’ image. The connection with foreign policy contexts, however, does not allow us to make a definite conclusion about the future of the American “Other” on the Russian screen. The probability of expanding the representation spectrum towards the positive side is also explained by the active exploitation of the Cold War as a metaphor of the highest point of ‘no return’ in the Russian-American relations.