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What do you mean by the propaganda of heated rivalry?
im exaggerating and mostly joking but i recall its both funded by canada gov (so im predisposed to be wary of it) and it seems to adopt a homonationalist lens in regards to russia. bear in mind i did not watch it for myself idgaf but i have heard avout the plot from people ik (some who r fans) + osmosis basically. as with all things western on the topic of russia it is very russia critical, which is like, usually fine except it’s always unilateral and absolute about the topic when it comes from west which is steeped in russophobia already.
i mean ya, russia is like, famously bad on the topic of lgbtqia. im not saying thats good at all, though similarly to projects like burkina faso thats why i have critical support for them, but i also have seen some writeups for how it has this continuing pervasive anti-russia lens during the runtime, and it’s like, i’m never really going to trust very anti russia plot points from west which continually fails to prove it no longer believes russia is ethnic communist degenerates.
it kind of seems like homonationalism: it has a major focus on russia failures with queer people, i think theres a clip where hes talking to yankees and they insinuate gay sex illegal over in russia (it’s not, ‘lgbtqia propaganda’ isnt which is like, okay, still bad, but im not trusting anti-other-state homophobia position from a yankee) and like, okay. this would be okay at best if not a little clumsy, but then you add in how almost every other russian character apart from ilya and his gf is dickhead and things get weird.
ilya’s big arc with his identity ends with him rejecting his national identity, and the family of his that remains in russia are evil people. his dad at the least is irredeemable jackass and his mom is desd and his brother sucks. the only other pretty nice russian character is his gf who apparently speaks eng and may have dual citizenship. you can see why my skepticism doubles.
overall, it’s a pretty anti russia story, which like, okay, again that would be more acceptable from russian creator, but it’s not, i know it’s canadian product. and i respond to it same way i would respond to usa funding movie about queer chinese girl going to states and completely disavowing her cultural identity because of glorious freedoms. there is room to improve but im not taking the fucking canadians gov word on it bc i know their ulterior motives.
is it that serious? no. not really. its not as bad a piece of propaganda as like call of duty where killing arabs on screen is fantasy teens grow up to fulfill in us army.
but west continues to fund the far right militia in ukraine and uses them as vessel for NATO expansion, which canada has had a big role in, all while not examining homophobia locally in terrorist states of usa and canada, and my contempt for it is kind of enhanced becausw canada gets away w its soft power bullshit since people think its Nicer than USA, and it continues to be very russophobic so no i dont give heated rivalry benefit of doubt
ETA: rereading chinawatcherwatcher comment and actually finally taking in that ilyas dad is evil abusive man who was in high role in russian gov WHILE HAVING DEMENTIA completely convinces me. already people chomp for russia regime change but like, i have no doubts this show is sowing it further however subtly
i watched it and had pretty mixed feelings about it all around. as far as the russophobia is concerned though, i actually thought everything to do with ilya's (the russian main character) family had much worse implications than anything else. the issues for queer people in russia are at least believable, but the ancillary stuff was not: ilya's father was both an important figure in the government, and also suffering from dementia at the same time, for multiple years (i mean, really???). and ilya's brother was a coked up exploitative asshole trying to milk ilya for everything that he was worth. that stuff really stuck out to me as russophobic, because what kind of government except a totally inept and fake one would keep on a prominent figure with dementia? this despite all the issues in the past with western gov leaders having dementia (biden, reagan, possibly even bush, etc).
oh yeah. ive heard a lot about the family itself bc ilyas dad is jackass who we are meant to hate, mother dies cuz her relationship w him is bad and she khs, brother is mooch who then goes on to hate on him when he comes out or whatever or refuses to send money back. so it's like, kind of cartoonish evil but i didnt say cuz i didnt see the arcs, in general if that's what the russian rep is like, almost unilaterally dickish except for ilya who chooses to leave russia and then goes on to hate on it (i think he says he doesnt want the passport wtf doe she mean) that's pretty bad. aladdin levels of 'subtle' racism
didnt know he had dementia though so funny bruh. incompetent senile oriental despots!
the only other russian representation in the show is a woman who is his longstanding "deep friends with benefits," but she's played off as being more worldly and therefore less russian: she speaks english fluently, she travels to see him in various US/canadian cities, etc etc. otherwise yes, all of the other russians in the show are definitely cartoonishly evil lol
unrelated but her actress is unbelievably beautiful. also didnt know all that lmfao. just got told by a friend ilya apparently considers marrying her for citizenship or whatever??
yeah that's true he does, i guess she must have dual citizenship that i forgot about too, making her even less russian haha.
like at best ik western people are going to consume this and its going to feed their already very negative and lacking understanding of russia (slava ukraini is a phrase so many non ukrainian people seem to repeat uncritically) which, alone, wouldnt be the problem since someone seeing something thats criticizing something worthwhile (homophobia) and then interpreting that wrongly/extending it disproportionately and untruthfully is stupid silly and their problem but the most uncharitable writeups ive seen have basically reported on peculiar stereotyping in the show which if u understand russophobia as a permitted orientalism just makes it like. weird and possibly dehumanizing for group that people have come back around to being called asiatic hordes in recent years
again, idgaf, honestly, the show not important for all the words i spend on it, but like, tjats just my critical take. and any canayank jerkoff content already pisses me off to be honest
sorry im sleepy whenwriting this, it not very good and iwill edit for coherence