nineveh_uk (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nineveh_uk) wrote2010-05-01 11:20 pm
nineveh_uk) wrote2010-05-01 11:20 pm
Entry tags:
Wallander
The current (BBC4) series as Wallander is not as good as the first, primarily due to the absence of Linda, and to a lesser extent, Stefan. In real life, of course, Linda's absence is due to the decision not to recast the character after the original actress, Johanna Sällström, committed suicide in 2007. In the world of the series we don't yet know whether Linda' absence is due to a rift with her father (entirely plausible after the end of the last series, which made for a very downbeat new year's eve), a shift into a parallel universe in which the character doesn't exist, or if in fact everyone at the police station knows that she is dead and is carefully avoiding mentioning her, a theory perhaps lent plausibility by Kurt Wallander's penchant for black ties. Unless Swedish police officers habitually wear black ties.
But in the absence of Linda, we have Katarina Ahlsell. Superficially, she is obviously there to act as the main female character in the police station, which in common with most police dramas, most British police stations, and presumably most Swedish police stations, is male-dominated. But in observing Katarina in this role (competent professional woman - she may, though less than Kurt, have some run-of-the-mill domestic dramas, but there isn't a moment in which her professional skill is called into question), this series I have noticed something else, something that I now expect existed in the first series, but which I did not pick up on: the sheer number of women outside the police station. A substantial proportion of the minor roles that in an English-language programme would be held by men, in Wallander are held by women without remark. There's no snide comment from Morse, tacitly supported by the production, about there being a female judge, minister of state, hospital administrator or doctor, port officer, and so on. They are just there. And though I know that the position of women in employment in Sweden is not perfect, it is nonetheless pleasing to watch a mainstream* television programme that doesn't feel that one woman to five men is really quite enough, but reflects a society, or the ideal of a society, in which 1+1=2.
Now, can I persuade the BBC to buy 1990s Strisser på Samsø, which is basically a Danish "city cop moves to rural location, hilarity ensues", but in which the entire population of said rural location (an island) appears to have been cast to look every so slightly inbred.
*Because subtitled Scandinavian cop may not be mainstream here, but it is over there, sans subtitles.
But in the absence of Linda, we have Katarina Ahlsell. Superficially, she is obviously there to act as the main female character in the police station, which in common with most police dramas, most British police stations, and presumably most Swedish police stations, is male-dominated. But in observing Katarina in this role (competent professional woman - she may, though less than Kurt, have some run-of-the-mill domestic dramas, but there isn't a moment in which her professional skill is called into question), this series I have noticed something else, something that I now expect existed in the first series, but which I did not pick up on: the sheer number of women outside the police station. A substantial proportion of the minor roles that in an English-language programme would be held by men, in Wallander are held by women without remark. There's no snide comment from Morse, tacitly supported by the production, about there being a female judge, minister of state, hospital administrator or doctor, port officer, and so on. They are just there. And though I know that the position of women in employment in Sweden is not perfect, it is nonetheless pleasing to watch a mainstream* television programme that doesn't feel that one woman to five men is really quite enough, but reflects a society, or the ideal of a society, in which 1+1=2.
Now, can I persuade the BBC to buy 1990s Strisser på Samsø, which is basically a Danish "city cop moves to rural location, hilarity ensues", but in which the entire population of said rural location (an island) appears to have been cast to look every so slightly inbred.
*Because subtitled Scandinavian cop may not be mainstream here, but it is over there, sans subtitles.
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I gave up reading Cryptonomicon recently because, while it is in many respects exactly my sort of thing (Alan Turing! Spies! World War 2!), I couldn't get over my irritation that Stephenson apparently thinks women make up 0.01 per cent of the population. By the time we were two hundred pages in, out of a cast of thousands there had been only three named female characters, and two of those were there to be love interests.
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I've translated a couple of Swedish reports on gender equality recently and they are worried about not having fully achieved it, particularly in industry, but they're still way ahead of us. I was looking at this picture of the Swedish government (http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/577) the other day and my first thought was "what a lot of women". In fact it's 10 women and 12 men but I'm not used to seeing it.
I specifically looked to see who did the Wallander subtitles but it didn't say.
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Indeed. And whilst Wallander was clearly being ridiculous about the Pontus thesis thing, the show itself didn't say he was being ridiculous because why would a young man be interested in an old bat.
I think I've read the odd thing on the Scandinavian internet papers about private industry being behind the public sector in terms of equality, but you have to start somewhere.
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Luxembourg!
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Do either of you know whether Helen would have had a chauffeur/driver at/just after the end of the war? Because I'd rather she didn't but don't see her driving herself.
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Either, I assume probably not a dedicated chauffeur, and that you could have a member of staff available to drive her or not as you prefer. Presumably at Denver there's someone who can deal with the mechanic side of things, but that could be a boy, and in London they could buy that in somehow.
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"The A171 runs through the village upto the Falcon Inn, where actor Ian Carmichael stopped off during the war years as he was about to start his honeymoon with bride Pym.
Because of petrol rationing, taxis were not allowed to undertake a journey of more than 20 miles round trip.
So he took a taxi to the Falcon, and he was met by another taxi to take him to Scarborough, where the happy couple stayed at the Victoria Hotel."
As long a Broxford is only 9 miles away, no problem!
she can't really just materialise in the garden
I dunno - a friend is presently writing a fic in which she ends up in the Tardis...
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Well that would solve all my problems but really she's quite bad enough when confined to her own time and space.
And thank you.
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*blink*
Okay, how? because I really think I need to work that into a fic one day.
Luxembourg!
You really do know everything.
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I'm looking forward to Helen turning up at Talboy's unannounced. How long - as a rough estimate - do you think we'll have to wait for this fic?
MUNCLE fandom is just crying out for Arctic adventure!
Once you have established that your bear is definitely not breathing, lay it on its side. Seize the loose skin over the ribcage and heave upwards. Then let go. This allows you to work the lungs like a bellows. Continue until your arms drop off or the bear starts breathing again on its own. Run for the helicopter.
Re: MUNCLE fandom is just crying out for Arctic adventure!
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Re: MUNCLE fandom is just crying out for Arctic adventure!
I used to want to be a zoologist specialising in polar bears. I even intended to say "Ich wurde isbaren studieren" for my GCSE German oral (except that the German was correct, not half-remembered).
Re: MUNCLE fandom is just crying out for Arctic adventure!
This is a question that has long bedevilled MUNCLE fandom.
"Ich wurde isbaren studieren"
This sounds like something out of Monty Python ("Meine Beutelmaus hat Verstopfung!"). I think studying polar bears is best left to those who enjoy the cold.
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You should definitely buy taps more often.
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This week there is mostly lots of drilling going on.
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