Lampoon Technique : Ads Exploit Anti-Soviet Sentiments

For the first time in a generation, American advertisers are exploiting anti-Soviet sentiment to make their points.

A spate of current commercials--including ones for a national hamburger chain, a soft drink company, two brands of beer, a regional appliance chain, an electronics manufacturer and a television show--lampoon either the Soviets or the Soviet way of life.

The humorous tone of these commercials is a sharp departure from the scary, “public service” messages used by some companies during the 1950s.

Then, in the heyday of the Cold War, a magazine campaign by the Advertising Council aimed at persuading Americans to build more and better weapons by showing a ribbon-bedecked Soviet soldier named Ivan, of whom it was said: “He’s sold to the hilt on Red ideas, which means he’s out to get you.”

Painted as Boobs

Today, Soviet military people are likely to be painted as boobs, and used as props to sell products, not points of view. But the image of the Soviets remains one-dimensional and reflects a cultural understanding gap that, despite Soviet censorship, may be wider for Americans.

The commercials appeal to an American sense of superiority by portraying Soviets as ineffectual, or culturally and economically deprived--strangers and enemies at whom it is safe to laugh.

“There’s an awful lot of self-satisfied smugness around,” said Jerry Hough, a Soviet expert at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank. The commercials, he said, reinforce comfortable notions of a primitive Soviet economy. “We want to believe that nothing’s changing, that all of the old comfortable stereotypes are still going to apply. And it’s wishful thinking.”

In a television commercial shown in the Midwest, the fat, rumpled captain of a Soviet submarine says, “We require beeg savings, please.”

Stock Up on Stereos

The captain is in an appliance store named Highland’s, which he has spied on through his vessel’s periscope. After stocking up on stereos, he and his crew return to their vessel and celebrate.

But suddenly, the captain puts down his vodka and demands, “Where is Plotchney?” Alas, the lure of American goods has proven too much for Plotchney, who has defected to Highland’s.

Images like these--conveyed in 30 to 60 seconds--are on the rise, apparently because they make Americans feel good.

“They bypass a feeling of anxiety and they play to a sense of superiority,” said Harry Gelman, a Soviet expert at the Rand Corp., a Santa Monica-based think tank.

Gelman said the commercials are part of a resurgence of American nationalism, which Madison Avenue is trying to exploit, just as Hollywood is with films such as Red Dawn, in which Communists invade Colorado; Rambo, in which the hero is tortured by Soviet troops, and Rocky IV, in which the hero meets--and of course, defeats--a Soviet automaton in the ring.

Gelman said he does not object to the commercials because he does not believe that they are incompatible with a reduction in tensions. “I don’t think these commercials inspire hatred,” he said. “They play upon an existing contempt.”

When Wendy’s, the hamburger chain, decided recently to emphasize its choice of toppings, it parodied a Soviet fashion show to illustrate what it would be like to have no choices.

In the Wendy’s commercial, a bulky woman in a housedress lumbers down a runway modeling day wear and, then, evening wear--which turns out to be the same outfit, with a flashlight.

Setting Like Red Square

When Royal Crown Cola decided to say that it was worth going out of the way for, it showed bored-looking Soviets assembled in a setting reminiscent of Red Square, where Royal Crown’s competitors--Coke and Pepsi--were said to be authorized drinks.

Then it showed peasants whooping it up in Siberia, where, it was said, they had to go to get an unauthorized RC. The peasants were having a grand time until two ominous-looking KGB-types knocked on the door.

And when Gold Star electronics decided to emphasize the “expensive electronics” that go into its “inexpensive” videocassette recorder, it chose to contrast the impeccable manners of its salesman with those of a particularly crude customer, one “Ambassador Grenetski.”

The ambassador makes great use of the suffix “-ski,” demanding answers to a series of questions, such as, “How much-ski bucks-ski?” and “Why-ski cheaper-ski?” while the salesman remains unflappable.

Had Been Out of Place

Such commercials, ridiculing Soviet style or substance, would have appeared out of line during the anti-Establishment 1960s and the years of detente that followed. Then, if Soviets were depicted at all, it was likely to be on friendlier terms, in the manner of the Dannon Yogurt ads, which featured peasants from the Republic of Georgia who reportedly ate a lot of yogurt and lived a lot of years--some more than 100.

Six years after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, however, mocking them has become socially acceptable.

“The notion of selling fast-food hamburgers by making fun of your greatest political enemy is really bizarre,” said John Wright, an author who is now writing a history of American advertising. “But if the President of the United States can get up and say that the Soviet Union is an evil empire, and nobody laughs, then we’ve had a profound change. . . . And one thing we are certain of is that advertising follows whatever the current official thinking may be.”

That is because advertisers try very hard not to offend anyone who might be a potential customer.

‘Not Running Any Risk’

“Advertisers are not running any risk at all with these commercials,” said Donald McQuade, a professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, who is teaching advertising and social history this semester at Queens College in New York City. “Who are they alienating? The Soviet ambassador and the 25 people who work with him?”

Even Soviet emigres, such as Alexander Polovets, publisher of the Los Angeles-based Russian-language newspaper Almanac Panorama, said they are not offended. “People just keep laughing,” Polovets said.

Of course, there is always the odd duck and, try as they might, advertisers can never please everyone.

“Any commercial we have done that has been creative has drawn criticisms,” said Denny Lynch, vice president of communications for Wendy’s. “Back in the ‘70s . . . we said Wendy’s hamburgers are ‘hot and juicy.’ It really put Wendy’s on the map. . . . (A few) people called up and criticized us for appealing to prurient interests.”

Relies on a Premise

The humor in the anti-Soviet commercials relies in part on a premise that the Soviets are a backward people.

It relies in part on a premise that they are uncouth.

And it relies in part on a premise that they are deprived by their government--not only of the opportunity to purchase quality consumer goods, but also of the opportunity to be individualistic in virtually any area of their lives.

“You get the jokes because they appeal to your stereotype,” said Emil Draitser, a Soviet emigre who teaches humor writing at UCLA. “Russians are a rough people. They drink vodka. They have big bellies. And they have no freedom.”

Draitser, who defines humor as “playful aggression,” said he has no problem with advertisers using these stereotypes, but regards it as unfortunate that Americans have “no other competing images of Russian life.”

‘Magnifying Glass’

“Usually,” he said, “satire exists to serve as a magnifying glass of a society’s foibles. But here we have something else: We have humor based on stereotypes about one culture, brought from another culture (which does not have) wider firsthand knowledge.”

The result, he said, is that, in the minds of some Americans, satires of Soviet life become confused with realities of Soviet life.

“Americans often ask me,” he said, “ ‘Is it possible to travel from city to city in the Soviet Union?’ That kind of question shows that it’s a very distorted view.”

Vladimir Sakharov, a career Soviet diplomat who worked as a KGB operative in the Middle East before defecting to the United States in 1971, said he too believes that many Americans are myopic when it comes to the world outside their borders.

“Americans are a great people,” he said, “but they don’t know or care to know very much about what’s going on outside--unless the press tells them, unless there is some hot issue.”

Multicultured Country

As a result, Sakharov said, he believes that many Americans do not understand that the Soviet Union is a country of many cultures, and have missed taking note of major trends there.

“The Soviet Union today is the U.S. 35 years ago, when a middle class emerged, kitchen appliances became popular, rock and roll and the youth style” began to take hold, said Sakharov, now a senior adviser to the Jamestown Foundation, a privately funded group that helps defectors resettle.

Hough of Brookings believes that, despite “a harder life” and “lines,” conformists in the Soviet Union may be just as satisfied with their lives as conformists in the United States. “For most Soviets,” he said, “the KGB is as popular as the FBI is in this country. They are out to smash the intellectuals, who (it is felt) need to be smashed.”

Consumer culture is expanding. And there is a fascination with things American--including books and films. Even news broadcasts of American happenings are watched with interest for their cultural sub-texts, emigres said.

Soviet View

State-controlled media generally portray the American people as peace-loving, and American society as plagued by massive unemployment and social injustice, visible in the gulf between rich and poor, emigres said. President Reagan and the American military-industrial complex are painted as out for world domination.

Americans enjoy no similar exposure and fascination with Soviet culture.

“It’s a Twilight Zone to them,” said Yakov Smirnoff, a stand-up comic, many of whose routines are built around answering his audience’s questions about Soviet life.

Eight years ago, Smirnoff said, he gave up a successful career as a comic on “the Love Barge”--his nickname for cruise ships on the Black Sea--to come to the United States.

Advertising’s new interest in the Soviet Union has been a boon for him.

“I’ve been doing comedy professionally, making money, for about five years now,” he said. “This is the first year that I’ve hit.”

Miller Beer Ad

This fall, Smirnoff was featured in a national commercial for Miller Lite Beer:

“When I came to America from Russia, I discovered many wonderful things, like blue jeans, unopened mail, and Lite Beer from Miller,” he says in the ad.

He was also featured in a number of KCBS-TV advertisements for the syndicated variety show “America:”

“American television is great,” he says in one. “Especially new afternoon show called America. This program has everything we never had in Russia. Like information.”

And he said he will soon appear on radio as the first “official spokesman” for the New York Stock Exchange.

‘You Bet I Would’

“When I lived in Soviet Union,” he recalled in an interview, “and they would want to show us America at its worst, they would show us New York Stock Exchange floor, and they would say, ‘That’s how Americans relax.’ They would say, ‘Sure, those people have luxuries--like cars and houses and food. But would you want to end up like that?’ And I would always say, ‘You bet I would.’ ”

Smirnoff said he exaggerates, but not to the point that Soviet culture is unrecognizable.

“I’m not saying that people are like tense and going . . . ‘we got to get out of here.’ . . . I was a happy guy there. I just met a lot of people on the cruise ships that I learned from there is more to life than being in a cage.”