“Heated Rivalry,” a new television series centered on an intense romance between elite hockey players, is a case study in how entertainment can quietly participate in cultural imperialism, soft power and even propaganda. At the center of the issue is Ilya Rozanov, a fictional character whose Russian nationality is not an accidental detail but an aesthetic choice, one that carries political weight whether the show acknowledges it or not.
Ilya is stereotypically Russian, and the show makes it central to his persona. His accent is thick. He is abrasive and emotionally distant. He is often seen smoking, and other characters repeatedly call him an asshole, yet the narrative never truly challenges this behavior. Instead, the show frames it as part of his allure. Ilya is sexy because he is Russian. This portrayal romanticizes the Russian figure while stripping it of historical and political context, creating space for soft power to operate under the guise of character development.
Soft power works through attraction rather than coercion here. When viewers fall in love with a character, they often soften their feelings toward what that character represents. “Heated Rivalry” encourages deep empathy for a Russian protagonist while asking almost nothing of the audience in terms of political awareness. The show does not have any references to the geopolitics of the time it is set, nor does it acknowledge how Russian identity is contested or weaponized in the real world. The entire sequence of the 2014 Sochi Olympics has no mention of the fact that Russia invaded Ukraine during those Olympics.
As a result, Russia becomes familiar and tragic rather than violent and imperial.
This is where cultural imperialism becomes unavoidable. Russian imperialism has never been limited to territory alone. For centuries, Russian identity has been imposed as the default across Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet world, often at the expense of non-Russian cultures, languages and identities that were absorbed, erased or dismissed as regional variations on the Russian “original.” Language, literature and media have historically played a central role in that consolidation of power, normalizing the idea that Russian culture stands in for an entire region’s complexity, despite most Eastern European cultures predating the formation of the first Russian cities.
That legacy of Russian cultural imperialism persists in Western entertainment today. Russian characters continue to dominate representations of Eastern European, Baltic, Central Asian and other post-Soviet identities, a diverse array flattened by russifying tendencies. When “Heated Rivalry” once again centers a Russian character as the emotional core of an international story, it reinforces that systematic reduction of other Slavic and Slavic-adjacent cultures, even if unintentionally.
The problem is not that Ilya is Russian; the historic sporting rivalry between Canada and Russia is a fact and the core of this story. The issue is that his nationality is treated as the most narratively compelling shorthand for the intensity and depth of his character. This framing is particularly troubling given the rise of Russian propaganda and the current efforts to obscure or minimize Russian military crimes in Georgia, Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere.
None of this means Russian characters should disappear from the media, nor does it assign collective guilt to individuals. The issue is not Russian representation itself, but the thoughtless version of it that treats national identity as an aesthetic flavor while largely ignoring its political weight. When media portrayals lean on romanticized stereotypes without critical interrogation, they reproduce cultural dominance and political propaganda while standing over other complex and fascinating identities.
Cultural hegemony is most effective when it feels natural. When audiences no longer notice which identities are centered and which are missing, soft power has already done its work. In that sense, Ilya Rozanov being “thoughtlessly Russian” is not simply a creative decision; it is a political one. Stories shape perception. Perception shapes power. And when popular media continues to romanticize the Russian identity while sidelining those harmed by Russian imperialism, it unintentionally becomes an agent of propaganda.