Visual And Cultural Representation of Adversaries and Threats in Eurospy Cinema

Abstract Book of the 3rd World Conference on Security Studies

Year: 2026

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Visual And Cultural Representation of Adversaries and Threats in Eurospy Cinema

Prof. Dr. Mahmut Kubilay Akman

ABSTRACT:

Eurospy film was an interesting cultural layer of Europoean cinema history which has been mostly ignored and understudied at academia although it had provided a huge amount of material to be analyzed in several fields such as film studies, cinema history, global security, intelligence studies and Cold War studies. In 2000s there have been a slightly increasing academic and intellectual interest towards Eurospy. In this paper we will focus particularly to the adversaries and threats illustrated in Eurospy films. What is interesting is that despite their lower budgets and less opportunities compare to official James Bond series, as multinational and multicultural productions this genre (Eurospy) created very dynamic, diverse and colorful representations of Cold War era Europe and World. This artistic dimensions and creativity also witnessed in visual and cultural images of villains, narratives representing threats and adversaries of that age, including higly science-fictional ones too. As an interdisciplinary study in this paper villain profiles, adversary organizations, global security threats, Etc. constructed in the selected films will be analyzed from sociology, security and intelligence perspective. Taking academic and scholarly attention further in this genre would contribute both for completion of cinema history with this missing piece and a deeper understanding of Cold War mindset, psychology and politics.

Keywords: cultural studies; film studies; sociology of cinema; spy films; visual sociology