NEW SERIES! Since our eyes always flash and a smile spreads when a movie is referenced on a tv show we're watching, we've decided to make it a habit to share these cross-platform romances with you. Whenever we see one worth discussing, we'll share it. To kick things off, here's Andrew binge-watching The Americans...
The Americans follows the machinations of two KGB spies living in the US posing as Americans in the early 1980s during The Cold War. Like Mad Men (the genesis of The Film Experience’s TV at the Movies love affair), the show does some impressive things when playing with the period, while never going overboard. Key cultural references from television to film to music (a significant scene was set to Yazoo’s “Only You”. Remember Yazoo?)
This movie moment from “Stingers” (S3E10, a series best from the show) is too good to pass up...
Some context: Zinaida Preobrazhenskaya (Svetlana Efremova) is a defector from the Institute for US and Canadian Studies and spends much of her time on the show acclimating to American culture under the accompaniment of the FBI agents accompanying her. And what’s one American pastime anyone getting to know America would happen upon? Going to the movies, of course. So we end up with Zinaida, Agent Beeman (Noah Emmerich) and a cinema of patrons watching what would be one of the most popular movies in Winter of 1982-1983? Tootsie of course. The second highest earning 1982 film.
It’s not just a blink and you’ll miss it, presence. We get a good half a minute of Tootsie as Michael freaks out to Jeff trying to find the right clothes for Dorothy to wear to his “date” with Julie.
“This may seem silly to you, but this is our first date.”
Even through a TV screen showing a Movie screen Hoffman is selling this role (which is why we love this performance here at TFE.)
It’s the last clip we get as Zinaida leaves to go to the washroom. The agents follow her out as we leave the film. Then, this conversation ensues between Zinaida and Agent Beeman
- Do you like it?
- Very interesting. He dresses up like a woman. In Soviet Union, this would never happen.
- It would never happen here either.
The exchange is a necessary burst of levity in a tense episode, although, the levity buries harder truths. At face value the exchange might be a wink at both the perceived ludicrosity of the plot in Tootsie and a specific hit against cross-dressing; with Russia’s very tense history with LGBT issues it would not be surprising. But, beyond this easy read, the romance and the cross-dressing Tootsie is about the pretending to be someone you're not.
Agent Beeman is the next-door-neighbour and friend to the KGB spies of The Americans. He might think that "that would never happen here" but if he only knew.....
(And if you look close you’ll see another big awards player for 1982 poster, The Verdict... and The Dark Crystal showing on one of the other screens)