Looking back, as a kid growing up in the 80's at the tail end of the Cold War, some of my sharpest and more comedic memories were prompted by the tension between the USA and USSR. You see, despite the imminent threat of full scale nuclear war, as a society, we found a way to assuage our darkest fears through pop culture vices that produced levity and fictional triumph, and some cases fear of the unknown.
Let's start with the WWF (now known as the WWE due to a court resolution with the World Wildlife Fund). There was Nikolai Volkoff, who would belt out the Russian National Anthem before every match to the sheer contempt of sold out crowds. At a time when our pride in America and frustration with the Soviet's was at its peak, Vince McMahon (CEO of WWE) had the foresight to create a character to lash out on and demonstrate what was wrong with communism. Not through missiles, but through harmless fan profanity and beat downs by Sgt. Slaughter. For the record, Volkoff was from the former Yugoslavia. Lest we forget his formidable tag team partner, the Iron Sheik. Who could forgot, "Iran, #1, USA, ha puh." With the Iran Hostage Crisis weighing on our minds, the Sheik was Volkoff's evil brother in arms. It was the Sheik's signature camel clutch move that would end America's own Bob Backlund's reign as heavyweight champion (my family and I were at MSG to see it) and perhaps was a harbinger of future strained international relations. For the record, the Sheik was in fact from Tehran, Iran and the camel clutch does really work. My brother and I used to slap it on one another and each time we had to tap out. That said, it wasn't nearly as bad as the figure four leg lock which caused temporary limping.
Although with greater restraint due to backlash from watchdog groups and a more sensitive culture, credit the WWE for pushing the limits when it comes to inciting opinion and debate with the introduction of such bad guys in recent years as Muhammad Hasan, an Arab-American who played a victim of anti-Muslim post 9/11 sentiment. During his ring entrance he would raise his hands and praise to Allah. Eventually, his actions in character and real world terrorism would blur the lines between what was fiction and reality. He was no longer a laughing matter for the media or fans, and disappeared from the WWE. With Russia becoming cold again, it will be interesting to see what comes of the WWE's/ECW's Vladimir Kozlov, aka The Moscow Mauler, that is if anyone is still watching and if we can still laugh at our differences. Wrestling fans, WWE writers, and management have also seemed to find that right balance of parody. Truth be told, I stop watching the WWE at about the time The Rock retired from the ring.
For those of us not spending our Saturday mornings watching wrestling, there was no escaping Hollywood's penetration of mainstream America's obsession with nuclear proliferation, presently known as weapons of mass destruction. In the category of sport, we had Rocky IV, which let's face it, two things happened to us after that movie. We threw left hooks and body blows at our friends outside the theater, and wished our dad was a boxer. In comedy, we had Spies Like Us. Imagine if Emmitt Fitzhum and Millbarge were dropped in Pakistan today how much more dyer the consequences would have been. In the teen thriller/drama, we had War Games that would make NORAD a household name, eventually spawn an arcade game, and give us an inkling of how dangerous a computer paired with a hacker could be. Hollywood even went so far as to prepare us for the worst case scenario, that the cold war could come to American soil. The plot, a small town in the Colorado mountains and its most formidable high school students (including Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, C. Thomas Howell, Jennifer Grey), defend against Soviet and Cuban paratroopers. Despite, what seemed far fetched at the time, this film unlike others was downright scary in terms of plot, but at least it put the what if scenario on the table. One of our biggest fears as a society today is the unknown and unconventional tactics our enemies are capable of executing. Instead of viewing films as a threat to national security, filmmakers and studios should be empowered to revisit such threatening scenarios as a means to engage people and even government in dialogue about the unexpected. In today's world, confronting what we fear and maybe even having a few laughs in fictional triumph should be more encouraged than censored within reason. Perhaps this sentiment is becoming a reality. As I'm writing this, I discovered that a remake of Red Dawn that addresses the post 9/11 world is the works by MGM for 2010. I've read that Tony Gilroy, the great mastermind behind the Bourne series is doing re-writes of the script. Given what we've seen happen to our world since the Cold War and our current day vigilance, the challenges to surprise audiences and evoke credible scenarios will make or break this film. I'd read that the Chinese would lead the invasion this time with reinforcement from the Russians, but this hasn't been verified.
The role of Olympic sports (USA Hockey in particular) and video games as part of this conversation should not go unnoticed. After Al Michaels emphatically posed the question "do you believe in miracles," what kid didn't go to his neighborhood arcade on a daily basis to engage in battle on the USA vs. Russia hockey game, you know the one with 5 rods on each end, the bubble dome over the ice, automated puck drop and "boo" button that could cost you a game if you became too overzealous hitting it. That game took out so many aggressions in us and built more muscles in our arms than a Bowflex workout. Nowadays, any sort of game, sport or action, that pits one country against another, directly or indirectly, would be labeled as an incendiary propaganda tool, unless somehow the developers could make it into a workout on Wii. Then again, who is actually playing against one another face to face in arcades today, it's all random online opponents. Gone is the real head to head interaction. As for Olympic rivalries, they just don't ensue like they used to anymore, whether it be the Summer or Winter Games.
Clearly, today, foreign affairs couldn't be a more fragile and important issue. We're faced with more enemies than we know, some we're unsure of, and a few we probably haven't heard of yet. Nuclear weapons are just one of many things to worry about, and whereas before it was just us and the Soviet Union, we're now confronted with Iran, N. Korea, Afghanistan and who knows who else in this area. But in our color-coded terror threat level system world created by the Bush years, on a more mass commercial level, we've somehow lost our sense of humor and ability as a culture to use our differences as a means to laugh it out and feel triumphant, albeit fictionally. Bush 2 was known for his frat boy humor and love of sports, yet he led us into war with Iraq in large part on the grounds of the likelihood of weapons of mass destruction, a course of action which never took place with the Soviets amidst the threat, rivalry and pop culture frenzy that dominated those years. I don't know, maybe the reality is the bad guys have become that much more dangerous and unpredictable, and culturally, we just can't bear to amuse ourselves. Honestly, it's hard to find humor in any threat or enemy since the horrific events of 9/11 nearly eight years ago to date became so real happening on our own beloved soil. Maybe that is directly at the root of this conversation and why we're a different culture today than we were when Red Dawn in 1984 was merely speculating on things happening on America's turf. Kind of makes you wonder, was the rest of the developing world roasting us as we and the Soviet Union spent every waking moment spying on each other, to the point it somehow culturally and politically impacted our means of diplomacy as a government and a culture? One whose best alternative form of medicine at one time was laughter?