Cold War Soviet stereotypes come flooding back at the Sochi Olympics

Remember the commercial above? How about this one? If you grew up in the U.S. between the 1950s and 1980s, chances are you were bombarded with negative stereotypes about the Soviet Union. It seems that Russia is delivering on some of those Cold War stereotypes this week, as the Sochi Winter Olympics take place.

Oppressive laws? Check. Shoddy construction? Check. Invasion of privacy? Check. Housing problems? Check. Disgusting water? Check. Killing of stray dogs? Check. Shared, less than functional toilets? Check. Russia seems to be living up to its negative Cold War stereotypes of incompetence and coldheartedness.

Twitter in particular has become a repository for Sochi issues. A new Twitter account, @SochiProblems, popped up just a couple of days ago, and already has over 170,000 followers. The posts by this account, and by others under the #SochiProblems hashtag, are a mix of comedic and tragic. Under this hashtag, for example, is where many people learned that Bob Costas, in his first television broadcast of the Olympics and after only about 24 hours in Sochi, had come down with a bad case of pinkeye, presumably from the local sanitary conditions.

Some Americans seem to be tuning out of the Sochi Olympics because of the harsh Russian policies. However, others might tune in, the way rubberneckers tune in to a car wreck.

2 Responses to Cold War Soviet stereotypes come flooding back at the Sochi Olympics
  1. Robert Pool
    February 6, 2014 | 8:27 pm

    I’m kinda surprised Fox isn’t on top of this like a fat kid on cake. Their viewer demographic is heavily slanted towards people old enough to remember when the Red Scare was an actual threat.

  2. Messaging Matters
    February 6, 2014 | 8:35 pm

    @Robert, that is curious. Maybe Fox has been so busy hating America for the past 5 years that it thinks the enemy of its enemy is its friend.

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