“There Will Never Be America in Here!” – Representation of Criminality and Law Enforcement in Fiction Movies of the Kádár Era

Abstract

The Hungarian TV films of the Kádár era depicted a world, where street robbery or theft were completely out of question, but if they happened, there was international conspiracy effecting high politics in the background. In the films of the Kádár era sin and crime were almost by definition political acts, or became such in the plot. Criminality, as a social dysfunction gains tendentious economic or political meaning in the movies according to our hypothesis. The ideological enemy construction can be traced in the actors of the TV films, characters such as the elusive former fascist, the imperialist agent or the dubious defector will receive important roles.