The Russian children’s series Masha and the Bear has become the focus of a political debate in the United Kingdom. While lawmakers are calling for the series to be reviewed on digital platforms, its producer, Animaccord, has said that the show is intended solely for entertainment and carries no political message.
Lawmakers argue that Masha and the Bear is one of Russia’s soft-power tools and presents children with a positive image of the country. They point to the main character’s wearing of Soviet-style military caps and costumes in some episodes, as well as the show’s reach among large audiences worldwide.
Have cartoons ever been innocent?
According to experts, animation has long been viewed as more than children’s entertainment; it is also considered a soft-power instrument that shapes countries’ images and conveys values and culture. As sensitivity toward Russian cultural products has increased in the West, particularly after the Russia-Ukraine war, even productions without direct political messages have come under scrutiny.
The propaganda front in the Second World War
The relationship between cartoons and politics is not new. During the Second World War, governments realized that animation could reach mass audiences more effectively than official messaging. In the United States, Disney produced films such as Der Fuehrer’s Face, which mocked Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime, and Education for Death, which criticized the Nazi education system. Japan, meanwhile, used the animation Momotaro: Sacred Sailors to encourage children to support the army and the emperor.
The Cold War and the cartoon front
After the war, cartoons became part of the ideological rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. CIA documents declassified in the 1990s show that the 1954 animation Animal Farm, adapted from George Orwell’s famous novel, was secretly financed by the CIA, and that the novel’s bleak ending was replaced with a more optimistic finale. The film ends with the animals rising up again, and the change was intended to encourage resistance to communist regimes.
The Soviet Union, for its part, produced dozens of films through its largest animation studio, Soyuzmultfilm, glorifying collective work, loyalty to the state and cooperation over individualism. Although these productions were often not directly anti-Western, they aimed to instill socialist values by portraying an ideal Soviet citizen.
From battlefields to battles of ideas
Today, cartoons can become the subject of political interpretations even when their creators had no ideological purpose in mind. Disney’s Zootopia has been interpreted by many viewers as a metaphor for institutional racism and discrimination, while the cult 1990s production Captain Planet and the Planeteers was accused by some conservative groups of promoting anti-capitalist environmental propaganda.
The debate over Masha and the Bear in the United Kingdom is also seen as the latest stage of this transformation. Experts note that cartoons, once used directly by states as propaganda tools, can now acquire meanings their creators never anticipated when viewed through the lens of geopolitical and cultural conflicts.
