Why was it that several movies and TV shows in the 1960s with spy themes were strangely reluctant, even during the depth of the Cold War, to say that it was the communists- specifically the Soviet Union and mainland China- that were the enemy? A skit on the Benny Hill show even made fun of this; Benny played a secret agent, and he was being briefed by his chief that “A hostile Eastern power-” and Benny interrupts: “RUSSIA!”
There were any number of “oriental” villians like Dr. No, but they were simply played as Fu Manchu villians without any hint that just maybe they were being backed by Bejing. James Bond had a run in or two with S.M.E.R.S.H. (sp?), but most of his foes were members of the nefarious S.P.E.C.T.R.E. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (boy, am I getting tired of typing these acronyms) even had the incredible plot device of western agents teaming up with their Soviet counterparts to foil some third party’s plans- a fantasy that actually became quite common in the genre. Can anyone explain this?
Mentioning real conflicts might have crossed the line by dragging real, important events into what’s supposed to be mindless entertainment.
24 did it just this past season, when “three middle eastern countries” planned to detonate a nuclear bomb in LA. Plenty of references to “the middle eastern countries,” “the three countries,” and “the president of one of the countries,” but no names were given. It lets the viewer get a sense of a common enemy for him/herself and the protagonist, without turning it into the evening news.
It’s also easier to write freely about the deeds of some indefinite nefarious supervillain than about some real national intelligence agency about which you may know jacksquat, but which you are pretty certain does most of its real espionage anywhere BUT Gstaad ski lodges or Rio discos. The “let’s keep it just so detached from the headlines” element helps you focus on putting on a jolly good show while you avoid unwittingly running up against reality and bringing up actual foreign-policy issues
Besides, in the case of the communists and the 60s-early 70s, you have the too-close-to-reality-for-comfort syndrome. When you already know we are at daggers’ points with the commies with extermination at stake for real, it makes for a poor escapist fantasy.
And while you’re on the topic of escapist fantasy, if you are going to propose an army of scantily-clad buxom blonde assasin-babes lounging around a pool full of sharks with lasers attached to their heads, you are not gonna credit some CPSU apparatchik withthe idea (or Soviet industry with the execution).
The join-together fantasy seems obviously an expression of a “can’t we all just get along” desire, in a very fervent hope that common ground would be found before we did blast one another into cinders. Heck, notice even that when the enemy IS a Russian or “Chi-Comm”, as often as not it’s a “renegade faction” and not the real official Reds.
JRD
Interestingly, in the Fleming books Bond was VERY busy with SMERSH. In the Connery movies, though some of the novel plots were even redone, to focus on SPECTRE (and Blofeld personally) as the nearly sole adversary.