The artistic images of cultural heroes play a special role in the preservation and transmission of the cultural code. Using statistical, comparative and hermeneutic methods, the article retrospectively reveals male images of Soviet cinema, perceived by the female audience as cultural heroes and «real men» (sex symbols). The research showed that the selected male images embodied the collective memory of the «masculine» and «spirit of the times», but the status of «cultural hero» and «real man» did not always coincide.
Keywords
artistic image; Soviet culture; cultural hero; cultural code; cinema.