VIDEO: The Cold War Is Over But Hollywood Still Loves Its Russian Villains

From Indiana Jones to The Americans, We Can’t Resist A Soviet Foil

Good stories need a good villain, and for well over half a century, Russian commies and their surrogates have fared quite well at Hollywood casting calls. The diversity of Russian villains over time, as our short video makes clear, has been astonishing. Russian villains have been idealistic true believers, femme fatales, muscular soldiers, clever scientists, shady billionaires, and cartoon characters.

What’s more, as both Kati Marton and Jonathan Haslam write in this Inquiry, one of the more haunting aspects of the Russian menace was its ability to lure some …

September 26, 2016

More In: Viewings

Whatever Happened to the Little Red Caboose?

Manufacturing of the Iconic Train Car Stopped in 1981, But They Still Hold a Special Place in American Pop Culture

By H. Roger Grant | September 22, 2016

Americans have many icons. But those dealing with the exploration and expansion of the United States seem especially beloved: stagecoaches, steamboats, trains—and the railroad caboose. From the mid-19th century through …

On the Road to Tepeyac, Guadalupe’s Got Their Backs

Alinka Echeverría’s Photographs of Religious Pilgrims Question What an Image Really Is

By Laura E. Pérez | September 13, 2016

Alinka Echeverría’s The Road To Tepeyac, a series of photographs of pilgrims to Mexico’s famed Basilica de Guadalupe, is an invitation to think about altars, embodiment, and visibility.

Alinka and I …

Remembering 9/11, From a Scrawled Note to a Bit of Fuselage

How Objects Both Ordinary and Extraordinary Help Us Reflect on the Devastation

By Cedric Yeh | September 8, 2016

Three months after the attacks of September 11, 2001, Congress officially charged the Smithsonian and the National Museum of American History with collecting and preserving artifacts that would tell …

In the Segregated 20th Century, Schoolchildren Embodied Black Uplift

How a Leading Portraitist Captured Their Refinement and Restlessness

By Sara Catania | September 1, 2016

For much of the 20th century, the Scurlock family of portrait photographers—first Addison Scurlock and his wife Mamie and then their sons Robert and George—were the premiere chroniclers of the …

Ed Ruscha’s Wild West

For 50 Years and Counting, the Artist Has Reinterpreted What the West Means to America

By Angela Bilog | August 22, 2016

In 1956, at the age of 18, Edward Joseph Ruscha IV left his home in Oklahoma and drove a 1950 Ford sedan to Los Angeles, where he hoped to attend …

More In: Viewings

What’s So Wrong About Californians Colluding With This Russian?

A River Reveals the Historical, Mystical Ties That Bind Our State to the Land of Putin and Tolstoy

When Alaskan and Russian Native People Thawed the Cold War’s ‘Ice Curtain’

Citizen-Diplomats on Both Sides of the Bering Strait Eased U.S.-Soviet Relations—and Could Help Confront Climate Change

How Literature Became a Weapon in Russia’s Culture Wars

It’s a Battle of Tolstoys as Protestors Face off Against Putin’s Propaganda Machine

The Russian Empire, My Soviet Loyalist Grandfather, and Me

From Catherine the Great to Stalin, My Family Played a Part in Imperial Rule Over Ukraine—Until They Didn’t

Get More Zócalo