I am convinced that political correctness has sunk to a disgusting low. During the height of the Cold War no one in the Soviet Union would possibly see an American-made movie. Also, the Soviets were indeed the common-though "enemy". Consequently, in all the Bond and Bond-esque movies the enemy was about 90% sure to be the Rooskies. When I started to watch these movies and really get into them (about the age of 13) was roughly the same age I got big into politics. I came to the conclusion while watching them that, of course, newer movies of this style must not have the Russians as the bad-guy all the time seeing as, well, they aren't the bad-guys anymore.

How wrong I was.

Recently the American Army began releasing a game called Army Ops where you become an American solidier in a fight against terrorism. The enemy side will always appear to be terrorists. When this game was released the US Army made special efforst to ensure that everyone realized the terrorist was NOT designed to look like a Moslem or a middle-eastern man in general. Especially due to Sept 11th I believe no Bond or Bond-esque flick will ever feature Islamic fundamentalists as the enemy. And the Germans are a no-no to everyone except Tom Clancy apparently. In fact, Clancy appears to be the only one with enough balls to print something with an Islamic enemy. Yup, there was this great little book called Sum of All Fears. See, in this book which is a series that Clancy fans absolutely love the United States has to battle against a terrorist Islamic group. I can just picture a conversation between Paramount's head guys...

Dave - hey, books often end up good, why not make this one into a movie!

Bob - Oh. Oh, wait. No no. We can't make it about the Moslems. No they'd get all pissy about that. And people would call us racists. Shit, well who can we make it about? Oh, I know! The Russians!!

Dave - But Bob, the Russians haven't been an enemy to anyone for ages.

Bob - So?

Dave - So why not keep it as the Islamic group?

Bob - Are you a fucking moron Dave? God Dave when did you get so stupid? The Moslems will throw a fucking hissy fit if we make it about them!

Dave - Oh. That's true.

Bob - So we'll make it about the Russians.

Dave - Um, but our last 37 political/war movies have been about the Russians

Bob - Fine, the Nazis then. Happy Dave?

Dave - I still think it should be the Moslems.

Bob - So the Nazis it is.


God, it makes me so mad. Such a good book had to suffer so much because of fucking political correctness. When I was 10 I figured the French were really good people to put up with all the abuse American media pushes on them. Then I went to France and realized they hand it all back to Yankees when they're tourists! Later all the Canadians-are-dumb American media comes pouring in and like everyone I laugh along with it and enjoy it thuroughly. Hell, Blame Canada was a song on every teenager in Toronto's Napster for a while. And I got to thinking; wow, we are pretty good people for being able to joke about ourselves like this. Now I can't even say that. No, not in comparison to what those damn Russians have had to put up with. For 50 years they've been the only fucking enemy allowed to be portrayed in movies.

On a second note, what the fuck is with all these pussies writing reviews on Sum? Here, let me quote a couple.

- "a movie about mass terrorism is bad for people's minds. i'd hate it if when the super bowl or the world series is blown up and then when they find the person responsible for it, they say that they got the idea from a movie. that would make any hollywood producer think twice about making another mass terrorism movie."

- "Even thou the critics didnt like this film, and many remembering 9-11 wont, it is still a good film well researched and very possible" (okay so this has nothign to do with my topic, but I hate people this stupid in relation to film)

- "After studying the Holocaust in detail in three different classes, reading books such as Night by Elie Wiesel, I had a deeper feel for this movie and its plot. Sad to think anyone would ever do that, I know it's just a story, but it makes you think; What if?" (What if? The nuke in the movie left no radiation. No 'what if' allowed)

- "I would give it five stars but it freaked me out because all that could really happen."

- "One man stated that the movie needlessly took the Lord's name in vain. I agree -- NOT Necessary. Make a good movie, but don't cross the line. All men will melt before the presence of God, sooner than later."

- "Look.....if you're interested in what's goin on in the rest of the world, and you don't think "Putin" is a brand of vodka, I'm SURE you'll like it." (I want to hunt down this woman personally a explain to her every one of the million of unrealisms in this movie. I'd start with a neo-nazi walking through an Israeli airport with a nuke on him and never once being searched)

- "I really enjoyed this movie. It made me think about what would happen if we ever did get in a conflict with Russia...no matter what reason"

- "This movie is an eye-opener to the reality of a nuclear war. I would not reccomend seeing this film if you still have fears or worries from 9/11."

I'm not making this thread to whine about political correctness. My mom always said "complaining is for those who don't want to take action". No, this thread is here to say thank you to our ex-Soviet buddies. Thank you Russia. Thank you for putting up with our and everyone elses pathetic little hang up with not offending anyone. I'd like to propose Russia to be a model to follow in this regard. Every ethnic, religious and national group out there - grow the fuck up and bow to the Russians, for they are the only ones who aren't pussies.

Very good point a long read, but a good point.

What about Operation Flashpoint, that had Ruskies, but that was set in the eighties whn they were the enemy.

Those are pretty stupid quotes from reviews

It shouldn't matter what has happened in recent events, Its just a film. People are so scared of their own damn shadow, its unbelievable. The thing is, there are people who agree to these guys/gals writing this stuff.

People didn't mind Rambo III even though it was a serious matter at the time, people loved it because Russians were getting killed.

Well, thats my two pence

Sort of like in Fahrenheit 451. They started banning books because someone was always pissed off or offended by them. Eventually the books got so lame they just banned them. Political correctness is okay, but let's not let it get out of hand. Books are books, movies are movies, people shouldn't be offended by them really. And if they are, they don't have to read them or watch them.

One way to solve this is to create a book based in another universe where you can make some alien or something(or someone) the bad guy, and you don't have to worry about Terran ethnic groups. Takes a bit of doing, though.

everybody loves to hate the russians.

"You know, if I was a director, I would make a film. Or not so much make as finish one off. Take From Russia With Love – all I would add is just one more shot! I would put it in just after Bond carried off the coding girl in triumph to London. Just a single line on the screen: "Operation Implant successful. Over to you, Katya Ivanova…"

The above is a quote from "Tass is Authorised to Announce" by Julian Semyonov, and the speaker is KGB agent Vitaly Vsevolodovich Slavin.

"Moscow was a tense, dark city, all shadows and averted eyes, with intrigue in its very air, a city where writers should have turned out spy novels by the yard. So then, where was the Russian le Carré? Dead or in jail, if he or she existed at all. In fact I believed that Russian writers were not allowed to write spy novels — or political novels of any sort."

This is from an article by acclaimed American spy novelist Alan Furst, in the New York Times, April 22 2002.

I've only read one of Furst's novels – Dark Star – and I enjoyed it. But the paragraph directly above disappointed me a little. He does say "believed", so perhaps he has since discovered some Russian spy writers, but my first instinct as a journalist (which he then was) would have been to check out whether my belief was correct.

For Russian writers were not only allowed to write espionage novels: they were encouraged, for obvious reasons. After Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin in 1956, it was essential that the Russian people were persuaded once again to believe in their public – and secret – servants. A spate of films and novels about heroic KGB officers appeared in Russia during the Cold War, just as they did in the West; Vladmir Putin is on record as saying that The Sword and the Shield inspired him to apply to the KGB.

The most successful of the Russian spy writers was Julyan Semyonov (sometimes written Julian or Yulian Semenov). He wrote dozens of crime and espionage novels, many of them filmed. He's best known for his 12 novels featuring the Russian agent Isaev. In the most famous of the books, Seventeen Moments of Spring (also translated under the title The Himmler Ploy), Isaev is a high-ranking official in the Nazi SD in the final weeks of WWII, going under the name von Stirlitz. The TV adaptation is probably the best-known Russian series of all time, and is still frequently shown - crime figures fall a few percentage points in Moscow when it's on.

There are, to my knowledge, only three books by Semyonov that were translated into English, all out of print: "Petrovka 38", a crime novel set in Moscow; the aforementioned SMOS; and "TASS is authorized to announce", also a spy novel, but featuring a different agent, Slavin.

In trawling the internet for information on Semyonov – there's very little not in Cyrillic – I found numerous reviews in which he is lambasted for being propagandistic. There are elements of this, of course - Semyonov would not have been allowed to publish anything overly critical – but, as has been pointed out, it's not as if our side has not had its fair share of gung-ho heroes, usually aimed willy-nilly at bad guys of the moment. "What might save us, me and you, Is that the Russians love their children too" sang Sting in 1985. Cloying? A little. But there's nothing like seeing how the other side thinks to sharpen your own perceptions, and I'd recommend these for that reason alone.

Of the two spy novels by Semyonov in print, SMOS is by far the better. It's also easier to read for a Westerner: Stirlitz is up against the Nazis, so it's a less complicated allegiance: Slavin is fighting the CIA, and the propaganda question may nag at you. SMOS also has a much better premise: Stirlitz is a double agent, and in danger of being exposed at any moment by Himmler, Bormann, etc; Slavin is operating in the fictional African nation of Nagonia, so there isn't as much in-built suspense. And everyone knows he's not really a journalist.

SMOS is also better written, and has one of the tightest-drawn plots I've come across. TASS tends to wander for the first 50 pages, and some parts are laughable: a witness describes someone who has handed him a note for half a page before mentioning that he was missing two fingers. "But that's very important!" cries the KGB officer, and us, too, perhaps a little more strongly. There's a lot of pretentious talk among the protagonists, about literature, food, psychology and the like. Personally, I liked this, as it's part of the inherent personality of Russian literature, but it could be said to hold things up in a spy thriller.

In SMOS, Müller, one of Stirlitz's superiors, acting on a hunch, decides to look into his agent's record, just to make sure he's the exemplary Nazi he seems. He listens to a tape that has been made of Stirlitz interrogating a priest, in which the two discuss morality and the state. Stirlitz tows the party line, but at the same time raises numerous questions that suggest a more profound analysis. When he's finished listening, Muller remarks to himself: "An interesting conversation, but with an odd ring to it."

One could say the same of TASS: while it might seem to be espousing the Kremlin line, it very slyly suggests how things could be made better. Take this scene, in which KGB chief Konstantinov is asked to comment on director Ukhov's documentary on the KGB. In a lovely gesture, the actor in question played Müller in the TV adaptation of SMOS:

"In the next sequence, the actor tried the role of a spy. Konstantinov immediately reacted against his hunted look: from the very first shot, he conveyed terror and hatred.

`It would be no fun chasing him," he observed. `You could see him a mile off!'

`So what? Do you want us to make the enemy heroic?' Ukhov exclaimed. `They'd have my head!'

`Who?' Lida asked, placing her hand on her husband's cold fingers. `Who would have your head?'

`I'm afraid it would be your husband, first and foremost.'

`Nonsense,' Konstantinov's face puckered. `If you remember, right through the film I've kept emphasizing that your enemies seem naïve and stupid. Whereas they have intelligence and talent – that's right, talent!'

`Can I quote you, when I speak to the Artistic Committee?'

`Don't bother, I can say it myself. I feel sorry, not so much for the audience as for a talented actor. It's humiliating to be forced to speak a lie, while making out it's the truth.'"

I love that last line. Is this propaganda? In one way, yes: it's making the KGB boss out to be a caring, intelligent, sensitive man. But he's probably much
more caring, intelligent and sensitive than most people in the system were in real life - Semyonov is using the propaganda to point out how far away the system is from it. In this and other scenes, Semyonov gives his characters watertight morals, and himself an excuse to continue to play these kind of games - by making his characters more complicated, his argument runs, he's
creating much more successful propaganda. In reality, he's just writing a better story. And you go round one more time.

Even the title of TASS points discreetly to the absurdity of the Cold War. In talking of his estranged wife, one character says: "I feel like TASS – putting out official statements in a vain attempt to rectify the slander directed against her." For a Russian novel written in 1979, that's an extraordinary metaphor. Martin Cruz Smith had an eight-year struggle to publish Gorky Park – one resulting compromise is that he made Arkady Renko much more sceptical of the regime than he had been originally. He deals with this quite well, because Renko suffers as a result. But it's tough to survive even that long if you don't toe the line to some extent. This is also a problem in Robert Harris' Fatherland. Semyonov's spies, on the other hand, are utterly loyal to Mother Russia - but they love their children, too. I highly recommend this writer, whose work can be found on used books sites like www.bookfinder.com and www.abebooks.com. If you want to get away from Commie-bashing thrillers, start with Seventeen Moments of Spring: it'll open your eyes. Jeremy

first off, welcome to sciforums macaloon. and secondly....eh?
you are comparing fictional spy novel written in Russia and a factual (or supposed to be) movie shot in the west and written by western directors, i dont get it. Are you advertising these two websites, is that your purpose in posting or have i missed your point entirely?

Thanks for the welcome, Cap'n. Perhaps I could have made myself clearer. ;) Tyler, the first poster in this thread, berated the lack of imagination that led Hollywood and other artists in the West to portray the Russians for everything, to see the Cold War in simplistic black or white terms, and he congratulated the Russians for putting up with this stuff (he also made some interesting points about how storytellers deal with politics vis-a-vis September 11). I thought he and others might be interested to know how Russian thriller writers looked at the West, and the subject of propaganda/political correctness/whathaveyou. I don't know what Operation Flashpoint is, but unless that's a "factual (or supposed to be) movie shot in the west and written by western directors", I'm not sure I follow you. Rambo III and Fahrenheit 451 are both fictional, as is The Sum of All Fears, which is primarily what Tyler was writing about, and what I was responding to. TSOAF is a western film, but it's not factual: it's based on a novel by Tom Clancy, the west's biggest writer of spy thrillers. Semyonov is Russia's Clancy. See how different the two are in approach - or how similar.

I wasn't advertising those two book sites - they're huge corporations linking thousands of booksellers all over the world, and they hardly need my endorsement. I wouldn't be displeased, however, if anyone joined my discussion group, the address of which is in my signature. :) Jeremy

like me to miss the point, but now i understand, cheers for clarifying things. :D