The Stalinist Soviet Union in the Disney Animated Cartoon Tale Spin

Abstract

Abstract The Disney animated cartoon television series TaleSpin was released in 1990, at the end of a decade that started with an escalation of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, and ended in the abolition of nuclear weapons, which foreshadowed the eventual downfall of the USSR in 1991. This “adventure-plus comedy” American series successfully combines sources not only from within the studio (the 1967 Disney animated version of The Jungle Book), but also from adventure films outside the studio (Casablanca, Indiana Jones movies), and most interestingly, it weaves in a harsh parody of Stalinist Soviet Union. TaleSpin effectively captures the complex political climate of the 1980s–1990s by presenting the conditions of high Stalinism (mass repressions, executions, and show trials) in the military state Thembria with her Thembrian inhabitants, the anthropomorphic warthogs. The essay explores the characteristic topoi of Stalin’s Soviet Union in the series with an overview of US–Soviet relationship and the general perception of the USSR in the United States in the 1980s. The essay argues that the American image of the USSR established in the 1930s–1950s was extrapolated to post-Stalinist periods of Soviet history and was still prevalent in the 1980s, thus shaping the conception of Thembria and the Thembrians. (ÁLK)