Scandinavia in a single image

You may recall this recent post in which I saw a poster for a German film festival, and dissected why the single image chosen worked for what they were trying to convey.

When I saw that the equivalent Scandinavian film festival from the same distributors had arrived at Cinema Kino, which is downstairs from my office, I thought it would only be right to put it through the same analysis.

Unfortunately, this one does not accomplish its goals with as much success.

For one, this image does not really appear to be extracted from one of the films. It occurs to me now that the one for the German film festival probably wasn't either, but the fact that I did not immediately recognize that means they did a good enough job suggesting that it might have been. It had the specificity (blue hair, bejeweled forehead) to appear as though it came from one particular narrative, from one particular film appearing at that festival.

This image? Just a blonde white girl.

I mean, it does make reference to the elephant in the room, which is that the vast majority of native Scandinavians are blonde and white. But you might say the same for Germany, only Germany wanted to make a nod to its attempts at multiculturalism in its own festival advertising, and Scandinavia did not. (Pretending for a moment that the countries themselves are actually making these choices, and that Scandinavia is actually a single country.)

The white background further emphasizes the whiteness, though that's likely an attempt to allude to the frequent wintry conditions of Scandinavia, which are always the backdrop to the Scandi noirs that have taken the literary world by storm over the past two decades. However, its generic nature draws more attention to the fact that this cannot be confused as a still from one of the festival films.

Also, what are we to make of the defiant upturned chin, the slight look of righteous superiority on this woman's face? I think I'm stretching here a little bit, but if you want to find further indications of white supremacy in this image, you don't have to look too hard.

The interesting thing was that Germany was the country of white supremacy in World War II, while the Scandinavian countries fought on behalf of the Allies or were neutral. 

But in the end it's just a single image, and if you are going to advertise a film festival on a poster and don't want the messaging to be scattered and diffuse, you have to land on one.

I just think someone could have worked a little harder on this one.