Constructing the ‘other’: construction of Russian identity in the discourse of James Bond films

Abstract

The present article examines the representation of Russian culture in a corpus of James Bond films spanning 1962–2012. Through the discussion of the importance of film and language in modern culture the article tests the idea that ideology is promulgated via language in film and addresses the interactions between language, control, ideology, power, representation and stereotyping. Drawing on a diversity of interrelated discourse and cultural approaches, the article provides evidence that through linguicist discourse Bond films perpetuate both linguistic and cultural hegemony over the Soviet Union and Russia. The findings suggest that the prevailing ideological message of the Bond movies about Russians and their culture is predominantly negative. Bond discourse evokes already existing stereotypes of Russia and frames Russians as ‘others’ by subjecting them to negative labelling and generalisations. The representation of Russians featured in later films has hardly changed and seems to be firmly constrained in the stereotypical frame of the ‘classic’ movies. Through the analysis of the linguistic representation of Russia in the discourse of Bond films the study not only adds to the growing work on cinematic discourse, but also contributes to the studies of James Bond phenomenon while enriching the studies of the representation of Russians in Western cinema.

Keywords:

• Russian culture
• Russian identity
• language representation
• language stereotyping
• cinematic discourse
• James Bond

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dr. Máiréad Moriarty and Dr. Elaine Vaughan for their guidance and expertise.

Funding

This work was supported by the School of Languages, Literature, Culture and Communication, University of Limerick and by the Clare County Council, Ireland.

Notes on contributor

Katerina Lawless is a second year Ph.D. student at the University of Limerick, Republic of Ireland. She holds an Honours BA in Teaching English and German in Second and Third Level Education, from Gomel State University, Republic of Belarus; and a First Class Honours MA in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, from University of Limerick, Republic of Ireland. She is the secretary of the Centre for Applied Language Studies (CALS), University of Limerick. She has presented conference papers at the CALS research days (May 2011, May 2013), at the 2nd Annual Limerick Postgraduate Research Conference (LPRC) (June 2013, University of Limerick) and at The Cultures of Popular Culture Conference (December 2013, Queen's University, Belfast).

Notes

1. The term is borrowed from L. Bleicherbacher's Linguicism in Hollywood movies? Representations of, and audience reactions to multilingualism in mainstream movie dialogues (2012). It refers to discourses that display bias against specific language varieties and result in unfair stereotyping against and exclusion of people on the basis of their linguistic background (Bleichenbacher 2012) (my explanatory note).

2. Character Kara Milovy in The Living Daylights was sampled on the basis of Russian language which she uses throughout the film. Although she comes from Czechoslovakia, USSR, the use of Russian language could be misleading for some members of the film audience who could perceive her as Russian (my explanatory note).

3. This sentence and all other Russian words present throughout the rest of this article are translated by me.

4. Mother Russia is a term commonly used by Russians in relation to their country, especially before the 1917 October Revolution. This collocation and all other words in italic present throughout the rest of this article are taken directly from the dialogues in Bond films (my explanatory note).

5. The term is borrowed from C. Lindner's The James Bond Phenomenon: A Critical Reader (2009) (my explanatory note).

Additional information

Funding

Funding: This work was supported by the School of Languages, Literature, Culture and Communication, University of Limerick and by the Clare County Council, Ireland.