The symbol of the childhood and constructing the image of the “enemy number one” in the Soviet and US Cold War films
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33910/2687-0223-2021-3-1-69-81Keywords:
symbol of childhood, image of the enemy, Cold War, Soviet cinema, US cinemaAbstract
The paper analyses, based on the Soviet and US Cold War films, the role of the childhood symbol as a resource of forming the image of the enemy.
The scientific relevance of the problem stems from the need to study 1) the reasons for and the forms of politicizing the childhood images, 2) the ways of constructing the image of the enemy and the means of deconstructing it, and 3) the cinematic images of the Cold War enemy, since they remain a factor in the contemporary relations between Russia and the United States.
The author points out that the interest that symbolic politics actors show in the childhood symbol is explained by its ability to trigger strong emotional response. The Cold War cinematic representations of childhood served as an efficient tool for constructing the image of an enemy. Such an image had a number of functions: maintaining collective identity, mobilisation, justification of violence, legitimation of power, and predicting the victory.
Unlike adult characters, children’s characters — even the negative ones — were pictured by both Soviet and US filmmakers not as enemies, but rather as victims of the unnatural and unjust social system of the “enemy number one”. In general, the Soviet and US films feature similar roles of “their” (i. e., Soviet and American, respectively) children and similar treatment of children — whether “their” or not — by adult characters. The cinematic images of children convincingly show that, despite the fact that both superpowers presented each other as antipodes, the basic values of the USSR and the US were much closer than it may seem.
Finally, the paper demonstrates that the Cold War cinema employed the childhood symbol for the deconstruction of the image of the “enemy number one” and for rehumanisation of the opponent in the period of the détente.
References
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