Just as the Christmas hygge season was about to begin, some of Denmark’s Christmas traditions began to be looked at critically – in other words, they wanted to be updated to fit the 2020s.
The questions were, what kind of imagery and vocabulary about cultures and people is appropriate to use, and who can portray a person belonging to the indigenous people.
In the end of November the public television channel TV2 announced (you go to another service) that it will not show the 1997 Christmas calendar called Pyrus, Alletiders Julemand. Temporary head of the channel’s fiction production Mette Nelund announced that the Christmas calendar gives an outdated picture of people and cultures. According to the director, children don’t necessarily know how to put episodes in a historical context, and the channel doesn’t want any child to feel like an outsider when watching the series.
The Christmas calendar includes, for example, a song performance in which Danish children are dressed as flødeboller treats resembling Finnish chocolate kisses, with their faces painted brown. In the second episode, three boys are reprimanded after bullying a dark-skinned person, who is called that racist term. As punishment, the boys are baptized in an ink bottle. The scenes also received criticism six years ago, when the Christmas calendar was shown the last time.
TV2 decided to show the Christmas calendar series completed in 2000 instead of the previous one. Even that includes, among other things, a show (you move to another service) where children bow with rice hats and the elf sings how “the Chinese say pingeling whenever they get rice”. According to the channel, it is a different matter, because the scene does not refer to anyone’s skin color. However, TV2 would no longer make such a scene.
Christmas calendar-gate progressed on TV2’s talk show (you go to another service), which invited media researchers and the actor of another Christmas calendar, the Nissebanden series published in 1989. In a live broadcast, a student of Arctic subjects with a Greenlandic background lectured the Danish actor on cultural appropriation and asked why the Danes play Inuit children. Confused by the criticism that came as a surprise, the actor (you go to another service) wrote afterwards on his Facebook page how sad he had become because of the inappropriate accusations.
Similarly, the presenter of the Pyrus gnome, who got into the middle of the commotion, has said that he is disappointed (you switch to another service) with TV2’s decision. According to the main actor, the controversial scenes could have been cut out.
Some can seeing the whole debate as splitting hairs in the midst of other crises. However, many feel that it belongs in Denmark, which has its own history with colonies, Greenland and indigenous peoples.
And we also know that the Danes also know how to make high-quality fiction series.
Glædelig jul,
Carolina
Next, my colleague Alina Mäkynen selections from European topics during the week. ⬇️
GRAPH OF THE WEEK:
EUROPEAN UNION last expanded in 2013 when Croatia joined the Union. Currently, the official candidate countries are Ukraine, Moldova, Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey. The Commission has recommended (move to another service) candidate country status for Bosnia-Herzegovina as well, which the member states may decide on (move to another service) next week.
Expansion is unlikely to be seen even in the next few years, as many candidate countries are far from meeting the conditions for membership of the Union. However, the situation in the Western Balkans, for example, is not easy, as China and Russia are also interested in the countries’ partnership. (More on this in Jani Parkkar and Antti Haanpää’s reportage (you will switch to another service).)
ONGOING AND COMING:
TODAY at 9 o’clock you can follow the stream (you will switch to another service) of the discussion session of the European Parliament’s office in Finland, where the topic is, among other things, EU support for Ukraine. At least MEPs and Ukraine’s ambassador to Finland, Olga Dibrova, will be heard at the event.
ON MONDAY the finance ministers meet in an extraordinary meeting and continue to argue about the Ukrainian loan package and Hungary’s aid billions. On the same day, the foreign ministers meet, whose agenda includes the situation in Iran in addition to the Russian war of aggression. European ministers will meet in Brussels on Tuesday.
WEDNESDAY is a meeting of energy ministers. The gas price ceiling is on display again, about which the member countries are divided (you switch to another service). The Czech Presidency has made a new proposal based on the Commission’s proposal (switching to another service), in which the ceiling would be lowered to 220 euros from the original 275 euros.
IN THE KNOT existing decisions on, for example, Hungary’s aid money can be tried to be opened at the EU summit (you will switch to another service), which starts on Thursday.
EUROPEAN the central bank will decide on interest rate hikes at its last monetary policy meeting of the year on Thursday. An ECB representative commented this week (you go to another service) that interest rates are rising, but are now “very close to the neutral level”.
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