Like so many of today’s rising American novelists, Gary
Shteyngart was born in another country. He’s a product of a place that no
longer exactly exists: Leningrad has, since the collapse of the USSR, reverted
to its older and more gracious name, St. Petersburg. When Shteyngart
(originally called Igor) came into the world on July 5, 1972, his parents were
typical products of the Soviet Union. But they were also Jewish, which meant
they knew all about official anti-Semitism. So when little Igor was seven they
packed their belongings and made their way to New York City, where a whole new
world awaited them.
In a vivid 2014 memoir, Shteyngart details the making of an
American. Transforming himself from Igor into Gary wasn’t easy. He was a
particularly fearful child, partly because of his roots and his years of
displacement. It didn’t help that his father expressed his love for his only
son by harping on his weaknesses. Hence his around-the-house nickname,
“Snotty,” and the phrase that becomes
the memoir’s title, Little Failure. At
times in the face of his painful growing-up, Gary Shteyngart seems all too
worthy of this kind of curt dismissal. Yet he has a talent for language, and
the kind of cross-cultural curiosity that brings his words to life. That’s why
he’s the author of three acclaimed novels, and in 2010 was named one of The New Yorker’s “20 under 40” literary
lights.
So what does Shteyngart’s own story have to do with movies?
When he moved to the U.S., he knew little of American movies and television. But
as a pre-teen, on fishing trips with his father, he discovered the joy of
small-town cinemas, watching movies like 1985’s Cocoon. Here’s how he describes his new passion: “At this point in
my life, Hollywood can sell me anything—from Daryl Hannah as a mermaid to
Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl and Al Pacino as a rather violent Cuban émigré.
Watching movies in the air-conditioned chill I find myself wholly immersed and
in love with everything that passes the camera lens. . . At the movie theater my father and I are
essentially two immigrant men—one smaller than the other and yet to be swaddled
by a thick carpet of body hair—sitting before the canned spectacle of our new
homeland, silent, attentive, enthralled.”
This passage from Shteyngart points to the impact of
Hollywood movies on recent arrivals to the U.S. But an unlikely Russian
musical, made in 2008, chronicles the impact of Hollywood on those who once
lived under the Soviet system, “where sneezing too loud is enough to get you
arrested.” In the world of the film Hipsters,
it’s 1955, and restless Soviet youth are besotted by boogie-woogie, pompadour
hairstyles, and zoot suits in electric shades of green, raspberry, and mustard.
Opposing them are the drably-clothed Young Communists, armed with scissors to cut
off too-wide neckties. A hip young man can be sent to jail for buying Charlie
Parker albums, because “a saxophone is only one step away from a switchblade.”
Hipsters is full
of outrageous color and wild musical numbers. But one of the film’s most poignant
moments comes when a character who has dubbed himself “Fred” gets (through his
father’s connections) the opportunity to actually study in America. To do so,
with the hypothetical goal of joining the Soviet diplomatic corps, he must get
married, and have his hair shorn into an ideologically acceptable crewcut. When
he returns, he’s sadder but wiser. As he tells his friends, the “cool”
American-style clothing prized by the Russian hipsters just doesn’t exist in
the USA.
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