Philip Rentschler

"Regular Show: Portrayals of Russians in American Media"

The media is a great way to observe views of other countries and cultures. Sometimes creators make their opinions obvious, and other times, they hide them below the surface. Cartoonist James G. Quintel hid messaging about Russia in his cartoon, Regular Show. The two episodes "One Pull Up" (S4E8 - November 26, 2012) and "The Real Thomas" (S6E8 - November 20, 2014), represent American opinions and relations with Russia of the 2010s through demonstrations of corrupt, fraudulent, and evil activities.

The episode "One Pull Up" portrays Russia as a society that promotes fraud and corruption. In the episode, one of the main characters, Rigby, struggles to complete a pull-up needed for a government-mandated fitness test. His frustration leads him to cheat and buy a muscle-building device called "The Russian." This device, branded with the Soviet Union hammer and sickle, causes Rigby to be overly muscular, causing him to inflict pain on his friends and damage anything he touches. It even sends him to the hospital later in the episode. So, in sum, the episode shows someone cheating on a fitness test using Russian equipment. This episode was released shortly after a doping scandal involving Russian athletes in the 2012 Summer Olympics. After this competition, officials found that thirty-eight out of 121 doping cases came from Russia. This scandal angered many Americans, many wanting the athlete's medals revoked. Considering that the episode's overarching theme deals with cheating involving a Russian device, this episode easily represents the American mindset of Russia during the period around its release.

The episode "The Real Thomas" portrays Russian society as evil and corrupted. In this episode, the show's park employees discover that their intern was a Russian Spy. The intern and his companion kidnap the workers and work with Russia to try and blow up the park by transporting it to Russia. They justify this by claiming to have found a loophole in the "US Russian Nuclear Arms Treaty." In the end, the park fights the Russians and prevents getting blown up, showing America as the winner, an American mindset that has been popular for decades. A few months before the episode's release, debates over the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty took place. The United States claimed that Russia violated this treaty by testing a new missile. This violation occurred at a point of tense relations with Russia, and the US was not happy. A violation of this treaty was seen as evil, which easily reflects the themes presented in this episode. Plus, considering that the episode focused on a loophole in a Nuclear Arms Treaty, it very likely took inspiration from these events.

Ultimately, these two Regular Show episodes represent negative American opinions and relations with Russia. After all, only twenty-one percent of Americans have favorable views of Russia. The US and Russia misunderstand each other, and the media plays a large role in this. What the viewer takes away from the media is up to them, but, ultimately, content creators should be more careful in what they produce.