What does the Russian people think about being portrayed as the bad guys in most of American fiction?
We find it funny as hell, most of the time. For one — all of them act like thinking is some painful process that they try to avoid at all costs. Most of the time they “speak Russian” with such a terrible accent as to make them almost completely unintelligible. Sometimes the language they speak isn’t even Russian, and it’s anybody’s guess if it’s even a real language.And finally, if you want to portray the Russian criminal through the use of profanity — please, PLEASE get a real Russian (if not to act then to, at least, advise the actors)! Because if I have to listen to another horribly mangled “sukablad” from Steven Segal, which he seems to believe is a word that means anything you want it to mean and can be used anywhere in any sentence — I’ll bust a gut laughing!
Why does the media always portray guys as nothing but a bunch of buffoons?
It always does? James Bond is a lovable lunkhead with a pool table in his backyard for his beer-drinking friends? You’d never catch Don Draper wearing sandals and socks, or Sherlock Holmes yelling “wheres my sammich?!” or Walter White getting “oh there he goes again” laughs. Always is wrong. Sometimes entertainment media male characters are buffoons because if everyone on Seinfeld was competent and smart and decent, it’d be even more about nothing than it already was. Humor often comes from incongruity. And there’s more humor to be mined from Phil Dunphy being this sort of dork who has a weird exercise bike than from him being confident and in control.
How is the United States portrayed in the Russian media?
It is portrayed as God.Whenever something goes wrong in Russia, you can always blame the USA, because it’s omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent, and its agenda consists of putting spokes into both wheels of the glorious, industrious and fair government of Russia.Some drunks pissed in your entrance hall? The FBI sent them!The road in front of your apartment looks like a WW2 war zone? Barack Obama bombed it at night from his UFO.The money allocated on public amenities were squandered and instead churches were built in place of demolished schools, so now your kids have nowhere to study? USA did that!Some prostitutes, tried criminals, shady mafia dealers and failed sportsmen get elected into the State Duma (the parliament) and pass on inane, prohibitive and totalitarian laws? Guess who’s invisible hand is at work here!You got raped and try to get that to the police? Too bad they will not accept your statement and will probably rape you again for the sheer audacity of trying to spoil their perfect crime statistics. Guess who instituted this system? USA!It’s beach weather in December? The USA test their climate weapons!The oil prices drop? USA! Ukrainians overthrow their ex-con (three major crimes, no joke) president whom we shoved into their faces? USA! Your salary gets cut? USA!Well, the pattern is fairly obvious here.
Why do Americans always portray themselves as heroes in war movies, despite what recent events have shown?
Ummm...because our SOLDIERS ARE HEROS. I am sure if Al-Queda makes movies they depict their sorry terrorists as the heros. Wonder if they have one out yet about 9/11. We are lots of things and some soldiers have done things wrong, but our soldiers are HEROS, don't ever forget it. For that matter the soldiers of most of the countries who come to the rescue of others are HEROS.
How does the media’s portrayal of the police effect the public’s perspective of the police?
In most instances the Media, if you are referring to the news media, the police are portrayed accurately. However if by media you mean Fiction movie roles then some people think they are watching reality TV and those who think know it is just fiction and it has no influence with them.
Why is Russia "always" a considered a bad guy?
Not always and not at all times; see my answer here:What has been the impact of Russian culture on Germany?Yet at least for Germany, we made our experiences in the last two world wars (where in WWII the Germans shared the status of the “bad guys” - both sides acted unbelievable cruel). Occupation of Germany by Russia (GDR) was also not that flourishing like that by the Americans.Beside that: we lived for decades between the two poles - US and Russia, and tended to see this as “good and evil”, which for some cases might be discussed…
Why does Hollywood, in cahoots with western media, always strive toward Russophobia? Why are they always so dead set on vilifying Russia?
Because controlling public opinion is essential, so that when the U.S. takes various actions (ranging from sanctions to military action), they need the U.S. public on board. If the U.S. public is not on board, people may begin to protest (which looks bad) or worse, people may start electing the “wrong” officials. Nope. They need to ensure that everything continues to run like a well-oiled machine. And it’s working like a charm.
Why does the Western media portray Poland as anti-Democratic or Facist when all of this is completely false?
It is a problem of using shorthand instead of full notions.“Poland” is used instead of “the current Polish government”. Obviously it is wrong/bound to miss if one uses generalities to describe a whole country of millions of people. One can reasonably say something only about well-defined actions/programs. Themselves factually correct or not, statements should be qualified.There are tons of massive grassroots actions across the Polish society, which are not exactly a full statement of an unqualified support for the actions of the government.The “Democratic” word is used without saying precisely what is meant by that. There is a specific notion “Liberal democracy and rule of law”, and this is explicitly and proudly what the current Polish government is against. But there is also a notion of “Democracy” reduced to only “we have elections in the prescribed intervals, and people thus elected, if they have won majority of parliament seats in the election, rule the country without limits. Majority should rule, shouldn’t it?”.By the latter definition of “Democracy”, current Polish government is 100% democratic. So is the Russian one, for example. So was Venezuela quite recently, under Chavez. And so was Germany, couple of years 1933+. The latter is not to compare Poland to Nazi Germany, it is to illustrate that “Democracy”, reduced to the election and “who has majority in Parliament”, is a wide enough word to include early Nazi Germany.The “Fascist” label is a bit too much as a diagnosis, however looked at. I believe it is used because some actions/programs, current Polish government, implemented or attempted, align with a fascist playbook. But this is a role of the media, if you see a danger, you start calling names. Some other governments could be called “communist” in headlines, as an example, as a way to start a discussion about policies which raise strong fears that they are not the correct ones.That “early warning” is understandable. The “objectively fascist” label can be applied only when the society got reconstructed in a fascist mode, and that could be a bit late to discuss whether this is desirable.