Tag Archives: capitalism

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Animated Soviet Propaganda

I would like to turn back a little and continue on the topic of cold war and mass propaganda, this time examining it from the point of view of Russia. It’s pretty obvious that if America had propaganda, where communists seemed evil and manipulative, Soviets must have also used mass media to control their population. I found a great documentary called “Soviet Animated Propaganda” , which depicts a history of all the mind controlling cartoons made by Soyuzmultfilm Studios from 1924 to 1984. Thirteen parts of it are available on youtube.  Here is part one to start with.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/KV5sIGm70SE" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

I thought it would be interesting to know how Soviets portrayed Americans in the cold war period. During WWII, media was created to align people against fascism, and during cold war American capitalism took its place. It seems that Soviets stayed on top of their game and criticized every single aspect of American life – the money, racial divisions, war strategies and so on. As Igor Kokarev says in the film, people were persuaded to believe, which they did, that they live in the best country of the world, and that the rest of the world with their money and ideologies is absolutely evil: outsiders are the enemy. As Kokarev notes such strong propaganda was so successful, because Soviet people were artificially isolated from the rest of the world, and lived almost like a “cult”. Children from early years were taught how to view the other countries and how to react to certain situations. All children and adults were given the same mindset, the same resources of knowledge, therefore leaving all on the same page. The government created thousands of propaganda posters, which were hanged on every wall in every institution – from schools, busses, cafeterias to private homes. Those posters “told citizens what to do and how to think and who to blame”. All media was strongly supervised and corrected “very stubbornly” up to the last days of the Soviet Union.

I urge you to watch this documentary even though its long, if you are at all interested in media as a brainwashing device. I found it very interesting, since it goes through most of the propaganda cartoons ever created by USSR. After watching this, I got a strong sense that the Hollywood blacklisting was minor, compared to this large degree control in Soviet Union, where nothing could leak out.

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Fear of Ourselves

“Zombies r us” really struck me.  I found this bumper sticker on http://www.zazzle.com/zombies+bumperstickers , and even though there are other quotes such as “I love zombies”, “I hunt zombies” and “In case of zombies, follow me!” I found this one to be the most significant, while the others are more comical.

I feel we have all become zombies.  We live in New York City, a city that is constantly in motion and never sleeps.  Everything is a routine and just like zombies most people don’t think, they just act.  Zombies are constantly chasing the living for their flesh, and humans are constantly on the go to get where they need to be and carry out their day’s functions. We don’t see what is going on around us because we are so busy with our lives.  There are no questions asked.  We see this in Shaun of the Dead, in the opening scene where all the people are mechanized and seen in lines working, they all look alike too. In another scene, Shaun goes out to get a coke and an ice cream cone and he doesn’t notice the zombies on the street.  The streets are obviously wrecked and isolated, but this doesn’t alarm him. What is most shocking is that he doesn’t even notice the blood on the refrigerator door.  This movie is making fun of this state of blindness.  I am not saying we are like this because we choose too, but more because our way of life makes us like this, just like zombies behave the way they do because they have been bitten and can’t really do anything about it. Even though we don’t have a physical transformation, we are acting more or less like a zombie.  This idea is tied to Romero’s criticism of consumerism in Dawn of the Dead.  Dendle says capitalism is fuelled by the need of continual growth.  In the movie the characters decide to take over the mall because they enjoy the pleasures available to them.  They don’t settle for just the essential; they want more, just as zombies want more and more human flesh.

Part of why we are scared when watching a zombie movie is the fear of becoming this “corrupt” unmoral being.  We are scared of what we can potentially become influenced by our environment.  Before being zombies, they are human beings.  Once they become zombies, they act on instincts, primarily the instinct to eat.  Humans have instincts too, but unlike the zombies we have a conscience that prevents us from acting out our instincts (well most people anyway).  We have rules and live under an established system.  Capitalism is what drives the economy, and it is scary to know that under it’s influence we can become mindless and corrupt. Greed is what can make us act out our instincts, just as a bite makes zombies devour humans.  While watching a zombie movie we subconsciously hope we don’t get “bitten” by our society because deep down we don’t want to be this corrupt person, but once bitten “self is lost irrevocably” (Boon pg 35).