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A friend who lives in Moscow emailed this to me. The billboard appears to be advertising a book series titled "Myths about Russia," and the myth highlighted by this billboard is the one "about Russian drunkenness, laziness and cruelty." I may have to trot this out the next time I hear someone lazily trying to bat away an argument with some line about "Russophobic stereotypes."
A friend who lives in Moscow emailed this to me. The billboard appears to be advertising a book series titled "Myths about Russia," and the myth highlighted by this billboard is the one "about Russian drunkenness, laziness and cruelty." I may have to trot this out the next time I hear someone lazily trying to bat away an argument with some line about "Russophobic stereotypes."
3 comments:
All that's missing is the superimposed "FAIL."
Though the picture is poignant and funny, a refutation it does not make.
@Buster - seems like there must be a Russian version of Failblog...
@Anatoly - you're right, those who truly believe in enduring "Russophobic stereotypes" are irrefutable in their own minds. Perhaps the proper approach when counterarguments based on imagined prejudices are presented is to just walk away.
By the way, the funniest example of an unexpected twist in US-Russia stereotyping that I've seen (recently, at least) would have to be this guy, arguing that America is the home of gigantomania, which every good Sovietologist knows was a defining characteristic of the USSR.
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