American pop culture has always had a “ready-made” villain in the form of Russians (“those dirty Russians,” “fucking Russians,” etc.). Even as freshly as 2018’s The Red Sparrow, the country’s denizens were portrayed as knavish, wily bastards without any qualms on the part of the American studio. And yes, they’re always the ones smoking onscreen, too—a sure sign of someone devious in modern pop culture. For it is as “super-agent” Jeff Megall (Rob Lowe) in Thank You For Smoking said, “Mr. Naylor is here to find a way to get cigarettes into the hands of someone other than the usual RAVs.” “RAVs?” Nick (Aaron Eckhart) asks, bewildered. Jeff clarifies, “Russians Arabs and villains.” All one and the same as far as the West is concerned in terms of villainy.
Recently, of course, demonizing Arabs has taken a backseat to doing so solely for Russians. Something that hasn’t been at such a peak since the 1980s (that is, unless one takes the 2016 election tampering into consideration), as the Cold War was coming to a close (whether the USSR and the Eastern bloc that the former felt it controlled were aware of it or not). Thus, the prevalence of free-wheeling stereotypes, including the one in the original Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling a.k.a. GLOW that aired on TV from 1986 to 1990 (incidentally, the show—complete with its mocking Russian villain—ended after the Berlin Wall came down). Which is why Alison Brie’s character, Ruth Wilder, re-creates Lori Palmer’s ultra-caricaturized version of a Russki named Colonel Ninotchka. Ruth opts instead for the wrestling alter ego of Zoya the Destroya. A take-no-prisoners Bolshevik outfitted with a red leotard and an ushanka—and who says things like, “You capitalist pig!” and “I’ll fill all your pools with borscht!”
Naturally, the 80s had other stereotypes for the show to fulfill, which is why a fellow gorgeous lady of wrestling, Arthie (Sunita Mani), is also there to say, “I’m Beirut. The Mad Bomber.” Whose character empathy is not helped when the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 occurs in June of 1985, several months before GLOW is set to premiere. Even so, Beirut the Mad Bomber also has diabolical catch phrases like, “I will destroy your American way of living.” But not if the Russians can achieve that mission first. Luckily, GLOW has Liberty Belle, the all-American blonde strutting around in an American flag leotard, in its arsenal. And the character that Debbie Eagan (Betty Gilpin) decides she wants to portray after seeing Reggie (Marianna Palka) try it on for the camera. This instantly sets the stage for Ruth to go from The Homewrecker (based on her actually wrecking Debbie’s home) to Zoya the Destroya at the end of season one’s fifth episode, when Debbie demands of the show’s director, Sam Sylvia (Marc Maron), “I need a great heel.” It’s then that things click with Ruth’s still germinal character as she shows up to the gym to test some lines out on Liberty Belle—like, “I am Zoya the Destroya. You are weak capitalist dog. I am noble Soviet bear.” To really ham up her supervillain, she even calls her opening moves “the hammer and sickle.” But Debbie is still too angered by what Ruth did to her to be anything like impressed, let alone ready to work with her.
Regardless, Ruth tries to go “method” with the character, glomming onto the front desk agent at the motel where the GLOW crew is staying for their version of boot camp. Gregory (Ravil Isyanov) is none too thrilled to be asked by Ruth if she can accompany him to what turns out to be a bris for an adult male. A chess champion (yet another Russian cliché that The Queen’s Gambit capitalizes on as well), hence the ice sculpture of a horse head-shaped knight. He’s also a chess champion who is now “allowed” to be Jewish rather than a “faggot,” for, as Gregory honestly notes, “Russia likes Jews only slightly more than faggots.” The same could be said of America, too.
But before he lets her into the “Promised Land” of Real Russian Life, she has to beg for it, assuring, “I really wanna be an authentic representation. Not some cartoon Russian villain. Out of respect for your culture. I think you deserve better than Boris and Natasha.” You know, from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Of course, she doesn’t do much to improve representation when she spouts dialogue like, “In Soviet Union, we eat stars and stripes for breakfast” and “This Cold War is only starting to heat up.”
And then, of course, there is her final coup de grâce for logically reasoning with Debbie about why they have to be each other’s yin and yang sparring partners in the ring: “If Russia can’t go to war with America, then what’s the point, right?” Russia seems to still feel the same way au présent, via the blanket term of “the West” being symbolized by anyone who doesn’t support the “Empire” in their mission to overtake Ukraine. In short, the U.S. is cramping Russia’s style yet again with their hypocritical moralizing.
With Putin also opting to kick it “old school twentieth century-style” by way of threatening “deterrence forces” a.k.a. nuclear arms as the U.S., among others, gets involved, Liberty Belle’s seemingly hooey line of dialogue, “You think your nukes are so big? Wait till you get a load of our warheads!” rings out with resounding trueness at this particular moment in new-fangled Cold War history.
Zoya, too, is filled with plenty of other aphoristic gems as the first season goes on and she works out the archetype of her malevolent Russian character. For instance, there’s another match wherein Zoya warns, “Prepare yourself for mutually assured destruction” as though embodying Putin’s sentiments with regard to invading Ukraine. Because no matter what happens next, both nations are fucked in different ways. And the Russian supervillain as a stereotype and caricature has reared its ugly head yet again as something Americans can see validity in. By the same token, a brain-dead American ex-“president” just called Putin a “genius,” so maybe said nation’s own supervillainy is not to be ignored just because it isn’t presently as on blast (no nuclear pun intended).
