Arguments ensue. In the minute-long, 25-year-old Pizza Hut ad — which resurfaced Tuesday after Russian news agencies announced that Gorbachev had died at 91 — fellow diners are divided on his legacy.
“Because of him, we have economic confusion!” an older man says. “Because of him, we have opportunity!” a younger man responds.
The 1997 ad was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, Tom Darbyshire, who wrote the commercial for the advertising agency BBDO, told The Washington Post. By tapping into the debate about Gorbachev’s legacy — a man seen as a hero abroad and a villain in Russia — the commercial sought to show that “pizza is one of those foods that brings people together and bridges their differences,” Darbyshire said.
But the commercial that made Pizza Hut trend on Twitter on Tuesday almost didn’t happen — and it didn’t even air in Russia. It took a year of negotiations to get Gorbachev to agree to it. He refused to eat pizza on camera — enlisting his granddaughter to do that instead. That bitter-cold morning they were set to shoot, he arrived late, Darbyshire recalled.
“We weren’t sure he was going to show up,” he said. “He was about an hour late, negotiations had been a little tense, and I think he was only doing it because he needed the money.”
The value of Gorbachev’s pension plummeted after the fall of the Soviet Union, Foreign Policy reported. Eliot Borenstein, a Russian and Slavic studies professor at New York University, said it’s “sad and ironic” that the former leader was so strapped for cash that he had to make the commercial — and that the only way Gorbachev got praise from Russians was through paid actors.
Despite the initial challenges, Darbyshire said, filming day was filled with touching moments. They filmed on Thanksgiving, and as the crew ate pizza instead of turkey, Gorbachev stood up and insisted on serving the slices, he recalled.
“On a day that we give thanks for all that we have in America, our freedoms and our plenty, for him to be making that symbolic gesture realizing that he was keeping us away from our families … was something I’ll never forget,” he said.
The final product reflects Gorbachev’s complicated legacy, said Jenny Kaminer, a professor of Russian at the University of California at Davis. The ad “lines up with how the different generations experienced the collapse of the Soviet Union,” she told The Post in an email.
For some, Gorbachev’s dual policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) brought the promise of economic freedom. For others “who couldn’t adapt to the rapid transition to a market economy, it meant abject poverty, insecurity, and a humiliating loss of dignity,” Kaminer said. That division is similar to how Westerners view Gorbachev vs. Russians’ view of him, she added.
“More Russians, I would say, agree with the verdict of the older man [in the ad] who blames Gorbachev for creating chaos and instability, while Westerners cheer him for upholding our supposedly sacred liberal values of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy,’ ” Kaminer said.
University of Arizona professor Pat Willerton agrees.
“Russians saw somebody whose efforts led to the country’s collapse,” Willerton, a scholar of Russian politics, told The Post. “They saw somebody whose efforts accelerated an already deteriorating domestic, political, and socioeconomic situation. They saw a leader who was naive in the way he engaged the West. They feel that the West took full advantage of the efforts that he made and…
Read More: Death of Soviet Union’s last leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, unearths Pizza Hut ad
