Ukraine is featuring ever more prominently in Western media shows. But not for the right reasons.
On Nov. 29 Ukraine made it into an
episode of the uber-popular satirical news
program The Daily Show, hosted by U.S. comedian Jon Stewart.
The 22-minute show presents the day’s
events with a brillant mixture of derision and insight, making it a
must-see for more than 3 million Americans on cable television, and
countless more internationally or online.
The recent episode is a skit
criticizing the workings of American political consultants who spread
US-style PR work to developing nations, sprucing up the images of
dictators for big bucks. Three examples picked are Bolivia, Honduras
and Ukraine.
In the skit, the show’s comedian
pretends these nations should be thankful for the consultants, who
are spreading American democracy. “I’m looking at your faces and
just seeing how grateful you all are,” he wryly tells three
frowning men, representing each nation.
But he is met with biting remarks about
the actual damage he has done.
Commenting on Ukraine’s situation,
Andrij Dobriansky says: “It’s not a good thing. The American
political consultants came in to do a full overhaul of Viktor
Yanukovych’s image after he should rightfull been put to jail. They
came up with him smiling on advertisements, and there were simple
slogans, like ‘I’m listening.’”
“That’s great,” the comedian
replies.
“No not really,” Dobriansky
counters. “He threw his opponents in jail.”
“That doesn’t mean he wasn’t
listening, he probably heard something he didn’t like,” comes the
answer.
Ukraine has featured in the program
just
seven times, four of which were during the 2004
Orange Revolution, when people overturned a rigged presidential
election. The jokes focused on the obscurity of the country, the
beets, Chornobyl and the Soviet past. The poisoning of then
presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko also featured heavily.
In one
skit a correspondent pretending to be in Kyiv
is asked by Stewart about the poisoning, and replies that the big
question was who was behind it.
“It was a complete mystery. All
anyone knew was that Yushchenko became horribly, inexplicably ill the
day after having dinner with the head of the Ukrainian secret police,
who was a former KGB agent, appointed by the incumbent government,
and in the pocket of the ruling oligarchy. It was a classic case of
‘you done it.’”
Ironically, the case has yet to be
solved.
But as Ukraine’s reputation as a
post-Soviet mafia state crystallizes, the country is winning ever
more appearances in Western entertainment programs. Last year, for
instance, Ukraine
appeared in the Simpsons where a gangster named
Viktor, looking not unlike the current president, became a main
protagonist in one of the episodes.
More recently, the Ukrainian mafia has
played a big role in the most recent season of hit
series Dexter, which recounts the trials and
tribulations of a serial killer working for Miami metropolitan
police.
In the season, the eponymous Dexter
runs afoul of the Ukrainian mafia group the Koshko Brotherhood after
killing one of their henchmen in revenge for his earlier murder of a
police officer. In a surprising break with cliche, one mafia boss
turns out to have been the gay lover of the man Dexter killed and
goes on a vendetta against him.
The two even bond later over their
shared need to hide their true selves – one as a serial killer
working as a police officer and the other as a gay man in a
homophobic organization.
So Ukraine is clearly rising on the
showbiz radar, but the question remains whether any publicity is good
publicity.
Kyiv Post editor Jakub Parusinski
can be reached at [email protected]
