How will the promise of a second Cold War impact the portrayal of Russia in movies and television? To see a glimpse of what could be in the future it’s worth looking to the past.
There was no one kind of Cold War movie during that period, but a variety that tugged at different threads. The plots ranged from traditional spy fare and stock, go-to villains to Soviet invasions of the US to hopeful demonstrations of Russians and Americans finding common ground, even if their countries didn’t. Others focused on the threat of nuclear annihilation, a concern exemplified by earlier movies like “Failsafe” and “Dr. Strangelove” but brought to vivid life — and directly into living rooms — in the ’80s. That last bracket included “The Day After,” a 1983 TV movie considered so provocative that the Reagan administration appealed to ABC not to broadcast it. Shown with limited commercial interruption because of the content, the movie drew a massive audience — a cultural moment captured, fittingly, in the FX series “The Americans,” which dealt with Soviet spies operating within the US. “Testament,” released the same year, offered a lower-key but no less devastating view of nuclear war’s aftermath, while “War Games” provided a more Hollywood-friendly spin. That period also included “Red Dawn,” in which teenagers defend the US homeland from invading forces; and “Amerika,” an ABC miniseries that imagined a future America under Soviet-occupied control. Despite Cold War apprehensions, there were plenty of broadly entertaining films built against that backdrop.
