Skip to content
1981
Volume 13, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 2046-9861
  • E-ISSN: 2046-987X

Abstract

Today, there are more than 100 distinct ethnic groups living in the Russian Federation. Officially, the Soviet Union was against racial inequality and pursued racial equity, at times genuinely and at other times cynically. Scholarship has addressed the function of race and racialization in the Russian empire and Soviet Union, though more work is to be done in the contemporary context. In this article, I analyse racialization at the intersection of gender and sexuality in the Russian children’s TV series (2009–present). Herein, I reveal narrative themes, topic associations, and visual cues that join to globally communicate messages from a Russian perspective of proper romantic coupling, parentage, and gender and sexual expression. Finally, I invite further studies into how racialized gender and sexuality in Russian media affects ethnically minoritized people in the contemporary Russian Federation.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/jptv_00137_1
2025-07-24
2026-04-22

Metrics

Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Agadjanian, V., Menjívar, C. and Zotova, N. (2017), ‘Legality, racialization, and immigrants’ experience of ethnoracial harassment in Russia’, Social Problems, 64:4, pp. 55876, https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spw042.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Avrutin, E. (2022), Racism in Modern Russia: From the Romanovs to Putin, London: Bloomsbury Academic.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Belousov, V. (2022), ‘Citizen of Tajikistan sentenced 15 years for abuse of children’, РИА Новости (RIA Novosti), 23 May, https://ria.ru/20220523/nasilie-1790247756.html. Accessed 12 August 2022.
  4. Ben-Ghiat, R. (2020), Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Butler, J. (2024), Who’s Afraid of Gender?, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Carroll, O. (2019), ‘Skinhead vigilantes attack hipsters on Moscow’s streets to “uphold Russia’s moral code”’, The Independent, 9 June, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/moscow-vigilante-gangs-pepper-spray-russia-morals-violence-clean-streets-a8944891.html. Accessed 12 August 2022.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Chaplin, C. (1931), City Lights, USA: United Artists.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Edelman, L. (2004), No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Edenborg, E. (2020a), ‘Russia’s spectacle of “traditional values”: Rethinking the politics of visibility’, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 22:1, pp. 10626.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Edenborg, E. (2020b), ‘Saving women and bordering Europe: Narratives of “migrants sexual violence” and geopolitical imaginaries in Russia and Sweden’, Geopolitics, 25:3, pp. 780801, https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2018.1465045.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Edenborg, E. (2023), ‘“Traditional values” and the narrative of gay rights as modernity: Sexual politics beyond polarization’, Sexualities, 26:1–2, pp. 3753.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Edgar, A. (2022), Intermarriage and the Friendship of Peoples: Ethnic Mixing in the Soviet Central Asia, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Edwards, B. (1961), Breakfast at Tiffany’s, USA: Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Gal’perin, A. (2022), ‘Visitors beat resident of Petersburg for asking them to be quiet’, Radio Sputnik, 8 July, https://radiosputnik.ria.ru/20220708/spb-1801234358.html. Accessed 7 August 2022.
  15. Goscilo, H. (2012), ‘Putin’s performance of masculinity: The action hero and macho sex-object’, in H. Goscilo (ed.), Putin as Celebrity and Cultural Icon, Oxford: Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 180207.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Grimes, D. S. and Cooney, L. (2023), Through the Lens of Whiteness: Challenging Racialized Imagery in Pop Culture, Boston, MA: Skinner House Books.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Hall, S. ([1973] 2018), ‘Encoding and decoding in the television discourse’, in D. Morely (ed.), Essential Essays, Volume 1: Foundations of Cultural Studies, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 25776.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Hall, S. (1997), ‘The spectacle of the “other”’, in S. Hall (ed.), Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, pp. 22390.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Hall, S. ([1997] 2021), ‘Race, the floating signifier: What more is there to say about “race?”’, in P. Gilroy and R. W. Gilmore (eds), Selected Writings on Race and Difference, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 35973.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Harding, L. (2008), ‘Russia: Skinhead gang accused of killing 20 in Moscow’, The Guardian, 30 June, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jul/01/raceissues.russia. Accessed 12 August 2022.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Hashamova, Y. (2007), Pride and Panic: Russian Imagination of the West in Post-Soviet Film, Bristol: Intellect.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Kayiatos, A. (2014), ‘Pantomimes of power and race: Can the socialist subaltern speak?’, Ulbandus Review, 16, pp. 2444.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Koshechnika, V. (2022), ‘Beaten by migrants in Ekaterinburg, Russian woman describes provocation’, Lenta.ru, 16 February, https://lenta.ru/news/2022/02/16/rasskazali/. Accessed 12 August 2022.
  24. Law, I. (2012), Red Racisms: Racism in Communist and Post-Communist Contexts, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Mel’nikov, V. (2022), ‘“Neighbors come to the rescue”: What they did with the migrants who beat a Muscovite woman’, РИА Новости (RIA Novosti), 13 July, https://ria.ru/20220713/izbienie-1802031580.html. Accessed 12 August 2022.
  26. O’Keefe, B. (2022), The Multiethnic Soviet Union and Its Demise, London: Bloomsbury Academic.
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Rabinovich, T. (2021), ‘Becoming “Black” and Muslim in today’s Russia’, Meridians, 20:2, pp. 396413, https://doi.org/10.1215/15366936-9547943.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Rainbow, D. (2019), ‘Racial “degeneration” and Siberian regionalism in the late imperial period’, in D. Rainbow (ed.), Ideologies of Race: Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union in Global Context, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, pp. 179207.
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Sleptcov, N. (2017), ‘Political homophobia as state strategy in Russia’, Journal of Global Initiatives, 12:1, pp. 14061.
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Starostin, A. (2022), ‘Resident of Udmurtia sentenced to 13 years for abuse of stepdaughter’, РИА Новости (RIA Novosti), 25 May, https://ria.ru/20220525/nasilie-1790601604.html. Accessed 12 August 2022.
  31. Todorova, M. (2018), ‘Race and women of color in socialist/postsocialist transnational feminisms in Central and Southeastern Europe’, Meridians, 16:1, pp. 11441.
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Yancy, G. (2016), Black Bodies, White Gazes: The Continuing Significance of Race in America, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Masha and the Bear (2009–present, Russia: Animaccord).
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Jam Day’ (Season 1, Episode 6; 9 March 2009).
  35. Springtime for Bear’ (Season 1, Episode 7; 3 April 2009).
  36. Little Cousin’ (Season 1, Episode 15; 9 April 2011).
  37. Terrible Power’ (Season 2, Episode 14; 6 October 2014).
  38. Homegrown Ninjas’ (Season 2, Episode 25; 28 June 2015).
  39. Monkey Business’ (Season 3, Episode 22; 19 October 2018).
  40. All Carnival, No work’ (Season 4, Episode 4; 29 August 2019).
  41. Honey Day’ (Season 5, Episode 5; 12 November 2020).
  42. Love is in the Bear’ (Season 5, Episode 15; 12 December 2021).
/content/journals/10.1386/jptv_00137_1
Loading
/content/journals/10.1386/jptv_00137_1
Loading

Data & Media loading...

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test