what stereotypes do U have about Russia?

Hello,

a week ago I returned from Europe.I was slightly shocked by such a fact: when people found out that my friends and me were from Russia,they started to speak about – vodka, matreschka, cold war… =) All these are just stereotypes. Not so many russians drink vodka,we don't play with matreschka, bears don't walk in the streets in Russia. 

So I wonder what else stereotypes do U have about Russia and how u know about it?

That’s the thing, among people there were no propaganda that America is evil.

I thought Hobbits were Welsh?

We can’t say that here. Here the Soviet was the stock evil character that the “good guys” fought against. There are a great many such movies from back then. Even on tv shows, it was very red and white.

There was actually “propaganda” against imperialism in the Soviet Union, but it was never taken seriously, because American’s lifestyle was always better and people wanted to live like that, so they just couldn’t hate that stereotype that they looked up to.

I don’t think we believed it either but they needed a stock bad guy for political intrigue movies and such. The anti-soviet kind of movie started back around 1950 and just became a thing. During WWII several movies were about what brave and staunch allies the Russians were. In only five years they went from that to movies like “Commie Hunter”. Hollywood.  Not the hotbed of originality one might expect.

 Just remembered one of the anti-american movies back in the Soviet Union, Rich Man, The Poor Man by Irwin Show, a tragic story about immigrant family in America trying to get rich and get successful but all ends up quite far from a happy end.

HAHAHA! Rich man, Poor man was anti-American? Here that was a hugely popular mini-series! Same story and all but here it was a bunch of attractive people struggling with the hardship of being so attractive. And worrying about getting rich.  But mostly a soap opera.

Ever notice that in hollywood the poor starving shivering tenement dwellers still have coin for a gym membership?

Well, that movie was a complete tragedy and a sad story trying to show some reality. But again the reality is negative and positive, there’s never one side. You can show only negative stuff concentrating on only failurs, porverty, ignoring the better sides. I think that was the aim of the director of that movie. It’s just speculations, it was 20 years ago or more. Don’t think I’m against of America, Russia and any other country. Just the glimpses of the history.

I tell you more, the first thing that struck me are the luxury cars of these dwellers. So life is not that bad, eh?

Yes, tragedy abounds in the book. Hollywood doesn’t worry about that too much. I actually didn’t watch the whole thing because it was such a soap opera, but what I caught and the description of many women and a couple of men have convinced me that when it made it to the screen here, it was more about the love interests. But movies that leave them crying are a tradition also so it may have ended like yours did.

Whole moves like “Gangs of New York” deal with failures. We don’t really care if we look good in a movie or not. As long as it’s a good story, well told and well acted.

Those cars are insanely cool. I like the Downton Abby cars too.  Like every period in history, most people work and some people live like that. But we all end up the same.

Yes, it reminded me Gangs of New York too. But, right, Hollywood doesn’t care, plus, I think there’re many thing that exaggerated in that movie.  The battles are shown like it was in medieval time…

Yeah, the same…