A Round Table Discussion...

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

This is a little off the beaten path, so to speak, but perhaps worth discussing as it pertains to our MFU-niverse.
In fan fiction, there's a lot of space given to how Illya is treated, the suspicions about his loyalty to UNCLE, the possibility that he's really still just a Soviet spy.  And when I say a lot, I mean a plethora of stories that suggest Illya is victimized for his nationality on a pretty regular basis.
And yet...
When you look at the show, the only one who ever (to my recollection), is ever the recipient of what could be considered a prejudiced or, at the very least, condescending attitude, is Napoleon.  And it's Illya who does the deed.
Napoleon is marked as being 'obviously American', (the inference a little vague; is it an insult? ), and his French accent is 'awful', to quote the Russian.
In The Love Affair, Illya, while sitting with Napoleon in the driveway of a posh estate, complains that there is no difference between him and the  social climbers within.  It is an important scene in the series, perhaps one of the only ones in which he is openly resentful of the Western culture into which he has been inserted.  I wrote a short fic called No Difference that uses the scene as a backdrop.
I sometimes wish the series could have had the continuity we now see in episodic television.  The backgrounds are so vague, something that has been discussed at great length on numerous posts.  But imagine if we had been given more to base our stories on than Illya's tart response to the magician in The Foxes and Hounds Affair, that command to stop invading his thoughts of a youth in Kiev.  How much has been written around that one exclamation of 'That's enough!'?
Napoleon makes a reference in, I think, The Green Opal Affair, in which he speaks of a Grandfather who was an Admiral.  I think that's correct, feel free to correct me if it's not.  Entire histories have been created based on a few words or a sentence.
The lack of character backgrounds makes those small hints of attitude, the declarations made that deride or commiserate, so important to those who construct stories built on such slim bits of information.
Napoleon's accent is awful according to Illya, the accepted theory being that it reflects a French Canadian influence.  He is also too obviously American.  Too naive, too absorbed in his origins that he cannot be the chameleon that Kuryakin is?
What is definitely not in the series is a prejudice towards Illya, he seems to be fairly popular and gets along with other agents. I suppose it would have been a bit inflammatory to have actualy conflict around his nationality, but I do find it interesting that the  only criticisms based on nationality were directed at the American.  Not seriously critical, but there nonetheless. Perhaps the question is, does that reflect on the American or the Soviet agent? I honestly don't know, it's a mystery for another story.
Perhaps there are other instances that I don't remember, I'd love to hear from you about those.

Comments

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

It was wise to not try to portray real countries or leaders of countries. In the first year of the series we, America, were still recovering from the assassination of President Kennedy. The speculations about Oswald and the Soviets made for a strange background for a show about a Russian and an American working together. It remains brave and groundbreaking.