Contributed by “TOPAZ1A”

American animation, the Red Scare has played a role in the portrayal of certain characters. The most well known of these are ‘Boris and Natasha’ from Rocky and Bullwinkle. This show aired in the 1960′s, during the height of the Cold War with Russia. Not surprisingly, the two evil characters were formed out of anti-Russian stereotypes. Another example of American skepticism toward Russia is in an episode of Beast Wars. There is a guest appearance in this episode by a transformer from the original 1980′s series named ‘Ravage’. At the beginning of the episode, he helps the Maximals to capture the leader of the evil Predicons named ‘Megatron’. When Megatron offers him more power in exchange for turning against the Maximals, though, Ravage does so. This may seem harmless, except for the fact that though all of the characters in Beast Wars speak with American accents, Ravage speaks with a Russian one. Though Russia fought along side of America against Germany in World War II, after the battles were over, Russia and America emerged as the two superpowers least devastated by the fighting. When that happened Russia seized its opportunity for more power and began to take over what was left of Europe. In an identical manner, Ravage, representing Russia, helped Optimus Primal, representing America, defeat Megatron, who represents Germany. Once Germany/Megatron was defeated, though, Russia/Ravage seized its/his opportunity for power and turned against America/Optimus. This was aired in 1994, well after the fall of Communism in Russia, proving that America still preaches anti-Russian attitudes to its youth in subtle ways.

There’s a new feature here at J. Cart. Overanal., and it’s called Mini-Analyzations! We’ll throw these up a few at a time. These below are all from the old archives.

Again, don’t hesitate to send in your own.

• I guess it’s worth mentioning that of the 101 dalmatians, the minority of them had blue collars. This has implications ranging from gender discrimination (the color of the collar is associated to the character’s gender) to socio-economic generalizations toward blue collar workers.
  - Contributed by Fawzi
• In Robotech, haven’t you noticed that the RDF is considered a defense force? Only Japan has a national defense force, and since the show was animated in Japan, it would be obvious that they would be a defense force. If the show was animated in the United States, they would be the Robotech Army.
  - Contributed by Seprihoth5
• If you will note at the beginning of The Simpsons, the “Simps” part is visible before the “ons” part. This is undoubtedly a reference to the word(s) “simpleton” or “simple-minded,” etc.
  - Contributed by Peter I.
• In Transformers, all the bad guys were some kind of flying object and the good guys were some type of vehicle.
  - Contributed by LUVMYHALEYBUG
• The native country of Boris Badunov and Natasha Fatale, Pottsylvania, is basically a combination of the extreme American stereotypes of World War II Germany and Cold War Russia.
  - Contributed by The Editor