Hot Hate: Russians!

What a glorious time to be a Gen-X’er! Finally, and this is totally better than Kurt Cobain coming back from the dead, there’s a cultural meme we don’t have to learn from scratch: Hating the Rooskies! Georgia’s hardly the Rebel Alliance*, but whatever: Finally, I have someone to root against in the Olympics.

Let’s face it: Americans need an easily defined enemy. Terrorists don’t have a synchronized diving team, so they suck as an enemy. Or we can look at popular entertainment: The Cold War gave us movies like Red Dawn and Rocky IV. Bad guys in those: BAD! Terrorist movies either blow (Live Free or Die Hard) or tie themselves in knots making sure that all Muslims aren’t painted with broad strokes (The Siege). Or they’re plausibly terrifying (Flight 93), which is no fun at all.

So welcome back, you no-good vodka-snorting thugs, with your bad guys not even the liberalist liberal feels conflicted about hating. Tim Curry, brush up on your Slavic accent! Happy days are here again.

Photo by Flickr user jgarber

*Hat tip: Atom and His Package