The Return of Commies as Motion Picture Villians

Have Commies become acceptable villains in Hollywood films, about fifteen years after the end of the Cold War. At least two films, Charlie Wilson's War, which was recently released, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull suggest that it is so.

Charlie Wilson's War, starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, is an account of how a conservative Democratic Congressman named Charlie Wilson helped to arm the Afghan mujahidin during the 1980s. The Soviets are depicted as evil and uncaring of the innocent civilians they are slaughtering in droves. There is one delicious scene in which a pair of Red Army helicopter pilots are discussing women on their way to destroying an Afghan village. Little do they know that in the next minute or so they are about to be blown out of the sky by mujahidin Stinger missiles.

In Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, due to be out in May, 2008, the Man with the Whip is menaced by Soviet troops in the 1950s. The Soviets are led by the menacing and lovely Agent Inna Spalko, played by Cate Blanchett. Spalko looks like a living, breath version of Natasha Fatale from the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. It looks like Spielberg, having given up on cartoon Nazis who used to make Indy's life interesting, have hit upon cartoon Commies.

Hollywood's approach to the Red Menace has been somewhat ambivalent over the years. In the 1930s and, especially, the 1940s when the Soviet Union was an ally, the Soviets were actually depicted somewhat favorably. There was a brief time, during the early 1950s when Senator McCarthy was spreading terror and Hollywood was blacklisting writers, actors, and directors considered too Red, that communists were screen villains. All that ended when McCarthy did.

During the 1960s and 1970s it was very hard to find any film with Red heavies. Even James Bond found himself in battle not with the KGB but with SPECTRE, a private terror for profit organization. Indeed, in the late 1960s, there was a film called The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! that poked fun at "Cold War hysteria."