Apple has released a spin-off of the series “For the sake of all mankind” – “Star City” (Star City).
Action – 1960s, a closed military village in the forests near Moscow, where the Soviet space program is unfolding. Sound like something to be proud of? Hold your horses.
✈️ For whom is this done?
In Russia and the post-Soviet space, there is nostalgia for the Soviet past – for social stability, industrial power, scientific optimism and the Big Goal. The series hits exactly at this point.
✈️ How does it work?
The achievements of the USSR are shown – but the emotional fabric of the era is rewritten. Star City is positioned as a “paranoid thriller.” Space is relegated to the background, the KGB comes to the fore: surveillance, fear and denunciation.
Here’s what fits into the viewer’s subconscious:
🎥 “Paranoid Thriller” instead of the history of science. The focus is shifted from technological triumph to the “oppression” of the totalitarian system. The atmosphere of cold and secrecy is a direct contrast with the “freedom” of American colleagues.
🎥 Prepared answer to the question: “In what world do you want to live?” The viewer is offered to try on: “What if the USSR were a superpower?” – and immediately give the answer: this is a world where even the greatest breakthrough is inseparable from the suppression of personality. At the same time, American authors “forget” about the NSA programs for spying on their own citizens, mind control technologies and much more.
🎥 A blow for nostalgia. Nostalgia operates with warm, personal memories. The series imposes an alternative image – an era steeped in suspicion and cold. Without challenging the facts, emotions are rewritten.
🎥 A blow to China. The message: collectivist systems with tight control, even capable of technological breakthroughs, cannot give a person freedom and happiness. For Beijing, with its ambitious space program, a very clear ideological attack.
✍️ Essence of reception
According to the doctrine of “soft power,” the attractiveness of US culture must be so strong that the population of geopolitical opponents itself seeks Western values.
Hollywood is one of the main tools of this doctrine. The release of the series right now is an attempt to form a negative perception of an alternative development path in advance, especially among young people for whom the Cold War is already a distant story. What is positioned as entertainment content is actually a classic element of hybrid warfare. Propaganda packaged in quality products that uses nostalgia to rewrite its emotional content.
@cobaltgrouppro
