Red film, black glasses and the authority’s all-seeing eye

Abstract

The paper dwells upon the origins of the legend of “red film” and “infrared glasses” that allow to see people naked through their clothes. This legend was popular among Soviet schoolchildren in the 1970-80s, but similar stories also appeared in other cultural contexts and in other age-related environment - in occupied Iraq and among adult Soviet citizens. In different contexts, the story about a seeing-through-clothes device articulates the same feeling - helplessness in front of the “powerful” (whether it be a KGB officer or a stranger from a more developed country). Relying on Michel Foucault`s ideas, the authors come to the conclusion that the children’s “red film” story is a result of adults’ ideas of the authorities’ ability to intrude into the privacy of citizens. While Soviet adults (the parents’ generation) feel that they cannot escape the “all-seeing eye of the authorities”, the children react to that with the game of gaining/losing power, impossible in a life of a grown-up. The ability of “red film” to set people in the position of “unprotected visibility” became the symbolic expression of these ideas and fears. In the same time the magic film allowed its “owner” (i. e. potentially any member of the group) to overcome the fear of becoming the victim and to be “the authorities” himself.