How Chuck Norris and Black Market VHS Tapes Helped Take Down Communism

A new documentary, Chuck Norris vs. Communism, explores how American television and movies fueled revolutionary behavior and independent thought behind the Iron Curtain.

In Romania, like the rest of Soviet ruled territory, American media such as music, television, and movies were highly restricted. But that only created an underground demand for them which was met with black market goods.

Decider.com writes:

If you thought The Terminator was thrilling in 1984, imagine watching it clandestinely in a Romanian living room under threat of getting hauled off to jail. In the documentary Chuck Norris vs. Communism, which airs tonight on PBS and for the next few weeks on PBS’s streaming platforms, clips from classic films take on a whole new dimension…

…Chuck Norris vs. Communism glides from classic film clips to interviews with Romanians talking about their experiences watching those movies to cinematic and impressively filmed reenactments of their stories. The film filters images that are familiar to the point of iconic or even passe to most Americans — like Julia Roberts at the clothing store in Pretty Woman and Sylvester Stallone drinking a raw egg in Rocky — through the awkward, alien lens of Romanians who remember them as splashes of life in an otherwise dull cultural existence.

There is a genuine elation on the faces of the people who talk about these classic American films, and the effect is a bit odd — like watching a kid open presents on Christmas morning while you try to figure out how in the world that could actually be illegal. The story is set in the period just before Communism’s collapse in 1989, and there is a palpable sense both that the culture is changing and that the change is unstoppable.