Surprisingly, Russian MTV is one of the Broadcast channels, offering the latest music videos by Kanye West and Russian metal bands, as well as Russian-dubbed Scrubs, South Park, Sex with Tequila, etc.
The selection includes Russian Soap Operas (which are just as dramatic as their Western counterparts), a couple pretty good comedies (the Russian MTV show about a German family and the daughter's live-in Turkish boyfriend is shockingly interesting), BECTI (Russian CNN), and local channels which peddle in local news, Kyrgyz feel-good scenery montages, and international (mostly American) cinema.
I've been compiling a full list of the movies I've seen (in Russian) since my arrival a month ago. I don't have the full list with me today, but rest assured I'll post it soon. The current best representation of the extremes it covers are Thelma & Louise and the Dark Knight. Runners up are Babylon AD (may you rot in hell Vin Diesel) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (I heart Jim Carrey).
They also air some classic American cartoons, like Tom & Jerry (the episode featured at right is "Texas Tom," with the hero in spurs & 10 gallon hat rolling an enormous cigarette to impress a barbi-figured feline), Bugs Bunny, and Roadrunner. This is especially interesting because for me, and I believe several generations before me, these characters ARE major cultural icons, whereas sometime in the past 20 years that ceased being the case. In America I can no longer talk to kids about their favorite cartoon characters, yet here, in Central Asia, 10 year olds still know who Tom & Jerry are.
It's also fascinating because here they don't retroactively apply the same PC filter that determines which classic 'toons I could watch as a kid. Jerry in Black face. Early Mickey Mouse. Some of the racier Speedy Gonzales shorts. All the racism and latent superiority that was an inherent part of American culture at the time of these cartoons' creation, and which we've subsequently tried to mask or bury, if not necessarily erase, is on full display on Kyrgyz broadcast TV.
This means I not only get to see familiar (cartoon) faces, I get to see some of the episodes that will never be on American TV.
Not getting too sentimental, but am I wrong that these classics are just that - American Classics? It saddens me that future generations won't have the minimal-dialogue, classical music, simple slapstick, always-cheer-for-the-underdog pop culture background. Can you even buy this stuff on DVD? Could you force your children to watch Tom & Jerry even after it's no longer available?
Would it make sense? Take "Texas Tom" - I get it, sort of, but I'm sure it would have been funnier for kids more familiar with the Lone Ranger/ Davey Crockett/ John Wayne phenomenon. Surely in the post-Bush era, "Texan" has a cultural baggage that is different than the spurs-and-six-shooter image.
I'm not attacking modern cartoons - in fact, I think a lot of them are great, both those targeted at kids and especially those that are not (can I get a Hazaah for the return of Futurama!).
But there is nothing quite like the classics - then again, if the classics are no longer relevant, are they worth propagating, or reducing to museum archival fare?
As always, I welcome your comments.
Weber (on the lamb)
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