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Americanizing the Scandinavian Super Underdog in Eighteen Film Remakes

2023; University of Illinois Press; Volume: 75; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5406/19346018.75.1.03

1934-6018

Mads Larsen,

Cultural Differences and Values

transcultural film remakes can offer insight into how distinct cultures have different ideals for the heroic. A protagonist who appears admirable in Scandinavia can have values, traits, or skills that are perceived as less appealing, on average, to audiences in other regions of the world. Screenwriters and directors who want to import a story from a different culture must therefore consider how their main character should be adapted in order to maximize a remake's chance of artistic and commercial success (Singh). Such character adjustment, when informed by the expectations of a new film market, is part of the process Linda Hutcheon refers to as transculturation (141–48).In this article, I examine eighteen American remakes of fifteen Scandinavian films, from the 1930s to the 2010s. These case studies include nearly all Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish films that have been remade in America, with the exception of a handful of films to which I was unable to acquire access with reasonable effort. Through an analysis of protagonists in these thirty-three films, I illustrate important cultural differences in respect to the heroic in Scandinavia versus the United States. By "heroic" I mean the range of values, traits, and skills that a culture promotes as worthy of emulation. While both Scandinavia and the US are Western cultures with a predominantly Protestant background, distinct environments and histories inform significant differences regarding what their current populations consider to be good and bad.Social psychologist Geert Hofstede's country comparison shows that the most extreme divergence is found along what he terms the "masculinity axis," which indicates to what extent a society will be driven by competition and let success be defined by its winners. Hofstede's comparison deems America to be a clearly "masculine" country: outcompeting others has been culturally promoted as more important than liking what you do. Sweden and Norway are the world's most "feminine" countries, a term Hofstede uses for cultures in which the dominant values are caring for others and quality of life. In such cultures, it is considered less heroic to stand out for individualistic achievements, and status is not meant to be flaunted. Feeling good is more important than performing well, and consensus, cooperation, and sameness go hand in hand with sympathy for the most disadvantaged of underdogs. The ideal is doing well together (Hofstede Insights).Other approaches to cultural differences between Protestant nations arrive at similar conclusions (Bendixsen et al.; Nelson; Witoszek and Midttun). These regional values not only are reflected in fiction but also manifest themselves as consequential policy differences. Whereas the US is often ranked as the developed world's most income-unequal country, the Scandinavian nations are mostly ranked among the most income-equal (World Bank). The Nordic egalitarian ethos informs how the region's gender equality is significantly ahead of what American women experience (Bovino and Gold). An emphasis on togetherness instead of individualism allows Scandinavian governments to tax their citizens to a greater extent than what the US has been able to do, in particular after neoliberalism came to dominate politics in the aftermath of the 1970s.These and other factors contribute to how in the twenty-first century, Scandinavian social democracies have arisen as a Shangri-La for the West's leftist imagination (Rentoul). While American and many other cultures are under threat from social disintegration, Scandinavia remains a relative oasis. Several United Nations rankings herald these countries as facilitating the pinnacle of human well-being in the modern world—in terms of both quality of life and happiness (Helliwell et al.; UNDP). What Scandinavians consider to be heroic undergirds this Nordic model of governance. For those activists and others who would like to emulate Scandinavian success, a greater understanding of the culture that underpins social democratic policies could be empowering (M. Larsen, "Lutheran"). When Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez advocate socialism, they emphasize that they mean something akin to social democracy (CBS News; Washington Post). I posit that the Nordic model would be unlikely to function well in a country with heroics such as the traditional American ones. A greater awareness of the political consequences of what we deem to be good and bad can therefore bring our attention to how new politics originate from new stories.Studying how Scandinavian filmmakers craft different heroes than Americans do can illustrate these cultural differences. I have chosen remakes since they lend themselves to such a comparison. In the following, I will make a case for what I term the Scandinavian super underdog. My remake analysis shows that these are heroes who tend to be less capable, less attractive, and less violent—thus, less individualistically superior and more in need of communal cooperation. To my initial surprise, I also discovered that these super underdogs are less moral than the main characters we are used to from Hollywood. Scandinavian protagonists' moral ambiguity is what most often has been straightened out in these American remakes, even more so than their other shortcomings. I will argue that these looser morals are a key component to the Scandinavians' egalitarian storytelling, one that informs their social inclusivity.The Scandinavian super underdog did not arise with cinema but has centuries-long roots. In the region's medieval world literature—the sagas—the superior individual is still portrayed as heroic, although in both a nostalgic and critical manner (M. Larsen, "Evolutionary"). Being capable, good-looking, and violent can be a boon to any saga protagonist. Yet already in these thirteenth-century stories, critics find a negation of Viking heroics in favor of a more communal ethos (M. Larsen, "Antipolygynous"). The narratives take place centuries earlier, during the Viking Age, when capable, violent individuals could be of great value to their communities and as members of marauding Viking bands. Even earlier, in the highly stratified Late Iron Age, competition was likely so strong that young men had to incur great risk to accumulate wealth and reputation in order to enter the polygynous marriage market (Raffield et al., "Male-Biased"; Raffield et al., "Polygyny"). We can therefore reasonably assume that in the earlier oral tradition on which the sagas are thought to build, these stories adhered more closely to what Hofstede would consider to be masculine values.Among thirteenth-century Icelandic farmers, new values were needed to promote prosocial collaboration on their cold, barren island in the North Atlantic, long after European powers had reorganized to deny plundering opportunities to Norsemen. The sagas are now commonly read to engage this moral transition (Andersson). The stories often warn against the communal disruption that the superior individual can cause, although such individuals are still portrayed as worthy of admiration (M. Larsen, "From Oral"). A dramatic evolution had occurred with respect to the heroic when the region's oral storytelling again was turned into written narrative on a large scale, through nineteenth-century folklore collection. The quintessential Norwegian fairy-tale protagonist, Espen Ashlad, could hardly give a more underwhelming first impression. He spends his days mutely poking ashes, discounted by everyone, even his closest family. When chAllenged by a king or a troll, this up-until-then entirely unimpressive young man reveals his unknown potential and wins the day. The moral is clear: anyone could have it in them to accomplish the greatest of feats—when push comes to shove. In fact, having previously displayed capabilities and talents—whether physical or social—is often punished in these narratives.The Ashlad character is found also in the folktales of other regions, but nowhere is he as warmly embraced as in the Norwegian tradition (Brunvand; Witoszek). Similar to the lesson we will be able to draw from this article's film remakes, folklore brings our attention to how when "a story or a story motif . . . moves from one cultural environment to another . . . one of the most common changes is that characters are altered to align with the tradition-dominant characters of the new cultural area" (Tangherlini 181). That Ashlad is still immensely popular suggests that today's Scandinavians also are drawn to less innately driven, aggressive, and competitive heroes. The ash-poking protagonist brings our attention to how Nordic hearts are especially open to characters who at first are perceived to be exceptionally incapable. Many Nordic films feature similar protagonists. In the Oscar-nominated and widely beloved Elling (2001), the eponymous protagonist suffers from mental disability, which at first renders him unable even to leave his apartment. With the help of government aid and a supportive community, Elling finds his heroic place in society as a stunt poet. The film was part of an early-2000s wave of nine Norwegian films that featured men with mental disabilities (Dancus).In the same decade, I en annan del av Köping (2007–17) became one of Sweden's most popular TV series by chronicling four people with intellectual disabilities. The concept was remade in Norway as Tangerudbakken Borettslag (2009–18). The Norwegian version was meant to last one season, but the series became a TV sensation with additional seasons and spin-offs. At the same time, other documentary or reality shows featured participants with disabilities. These series, which were widely embraced by critics and audiences, featured underdog protagonists who overcame chAllenges both at home and at work. ChAllenges escalated with dating and demanding sailing trips. When the participants proved capable of mastering even those endeavors—with good help—they were sent mountain climbing and, finally, skiing across Greenland and through the Northwest Passage. Such polar expeditions are as quintessentially Norwegian as heroic endeavors get; these narratives argued that there was nothing super underdogs could not accomplish with honest effort and communal support. Similar concepts were tried elsewhere but without the astounding success they achieved in Scandinavia (I. Larsen; Storm and Särnholm).The popularity of films and TV series with such Ashlad-like protagonists attests to the continuity of the region's egalitarian heroics. These values are partially a result of a geography that until the nineteenth century kept nearly everyone cold, poor, and banded together in small-scale societies. Even the most talented of individuals were mostly prevented from accumulating a lasting surplus by a range of chAllenges, such as a scarcity of arable land, often catastrophic winters, the Black Plague, and foreign merchants from the Hanseatic League (Myhre). In this environment of limited opportunity, viewing people as mostly equal and dependent on each other for cooperation and resource-pooling was the most adaptive ethos. By the time industrial revolutions fueled growth, Scandinavians were entrenched in a sense of shared destiny (M. Larsen, "Investigating").When Nordic economies took off after World War II, the political consensus was that the population would share prosperity as they had poverty. This solidarity runs as a thematic line through folklore, nineteenth-century peasant stories, and the social dramas of early cinema. Whether tricking trolls, stealing from the rich, or fighting Nazis, the Scandinavian super underdog thrived throughout this period. Across the Atlantic, underdogs were different (Hart 25). In the United States, the land of opportunity, diversity, and social-climbing individualism, people shared the Scandinavian view on equality as it relates to political institutions, rights, and economic opportunity, but Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians strive for equity also in social interaction. Such equality as sameness is commonly viewed as the foundational goal of their social democratic welfare states (Bruun). To facilitate this particular form of egalitarianism, an ethos of conformity is instrumental. In the fictional "Law of Jante," such egalitarianism dictates that to be deemed good by their community, Scandinavians must tone down extraordinariness, ambition, or anything else that elevates them above their community (Sandemose).Research has long confirmed that Norway, in particular, is among the world's most conformist nations. By holding back the most capable while lifting those in need, Scandinavians seek to congregate in the middle, where equity and sameness live (Gelfand et al.). Such social engineering may sound off-putting to people from more masculine cultures. The outcome of these and other Nordic values and policies is prosperous, well-functioning nations with some of the happiest people on earth (Oxfeldt et al.). This Nordic preference for meeting in the middle—and for helping the most disadvantaged toward sameness—informs the cultural function of the Scandinavian super underdog. The American dream is fulfilled when films let everyday protagonists play out an exceptional ability. The third-act climax delivers on a promise of extraordinariness. The Scandinavian ideal of togetherness is fulfilled when underdogs achieve sameness—or when they are able to defeat someone extraordinary with the help of community.If these cultural desires are strong enough, we would expect Nordic stories to be structured around more communal quests, often with protagonists who achieve at a lower level than their American counterparts. If a Scandinavian film is remade for the American market, cultural difference should in some instances drive changes to a remake's agonistic structure, a term for how stories convey theme through opposing the values of protagonists and antagonists. In terms of protagonists, their journeys and character arcs, in general, communicate what a culture promotes. Innovative film can negotiate these values, but there are limits that not even antiheroes can transcend. There exists a hard-to-define range of acceptable behavior that if transgressed will make general audiences turn against the main character and reject the narrative. Storytellers who want to reach and impact a wide audience therefore cannot go against their audiences' preference for certain heroics (Boyd et al.; Carroll; Singh).One benefit of remaking a film is that producers gain rights to a fully developed and often commercially proven story. We should therefore expect less cultural difference between an original and a remake than between Scandinavian and American film in general. Some of these films were chosen due to the Nordic feel of their stories, which could also pull American producers in a conservational direction. A third factor that could prevent more comprehensive transculturation is that good story springs from character. If the American filmmakers want to preserve the core story, there are limits to how much they can adjust the hero before the remake's narrative becomes illogical. Considering these factors, if we still find significant and predictable differences between the Scandinavian and American protagonists, this would support the notion that filmmakers must adapt heroic values to cultural specifics. My analysis focuses on how the following four elements relate to the films' protagonists: (1) capabilities; (2) attractiveness, as portrayed and also inferred from how other characters respond to the protagonist; (3) more violent behavior; and (4) morality, based on (a) the protagonist's own behavior, (b) the protagonist's behavior in relationship to the behavior of others, and (c) story judgment, inferred from the consequences of immoral protagonist behavior.We see changes in all four of the above elements when En kvinnas ansikte (1938) is remade into A Woman's Face (1941). Ingrid Bergman passes on to Joan Crawford the role of Anna Holm, a woman whose face was scarred by fire when she was young. This disfiguration has made Anna undesirable to men, leading to a life of bitterness and crime. When a cosmetic surgeon operates on Anna so that her beauty returns, she must choose whether to go ahead with murdering a child, an assassination that Anna's old self had promised to undertake. Her new self wants to do the right thing, but this would open her up to punishment for past sins.The remake changes Anna to make her more appealing and less morally condemnable. She gets to share a more sympathetic backstory to garner audience support. Not only is her scar less off-putting, but she presents herself as someone who—despite her disfigurement—has mastered piano, violin, painting, and poetry. American Anna also has read every love letter that has ever been published. Unlike her Swedish counterpart, when American Anna gets into a conflict, she threatens with a gun. She also punches her opponent. In the climax, she shoots the bad guy who in the Swedish original causes his own death by riding recklessly. Interestingly, American Anna is portrayed as more capable, as we would expect, but Swedish Anna is assigned greater agency. Ingrid Bergman's protagonist may be less moral, but she makes her own choices throughout the film. She chooses to kill, then changes her mind and opposes her former fellow criminals. In the end, Swedish Anna rejects her love interest for principled reasons, telling audiences that she not only acts boldly but also takes responsibility for her own actions.To make Joan Crawford's Anna more morally acceptable, the filmmakers deprived her of control of her own destiny. The remake's most consequential adaptation is transforming Anna into a mere victim of love. Her antagonist, instead of being an awkward Swede, is a devil-driven Svengali who charms sultry women two at a time. This antagonist is the first man to see Anna as a woman and the first to bring her flowers. She therefore suffers twelve operations to make herself prettier for him. Since American Anna has never been in love, she claims to be powerless against this man's touch and command—until she finally breaks the spell and murders him to save the child. The remake's construction of this blinded-by-love relationship has the greatest impact on our view of Anna's morals. Other characters are made more sinister to justify Anna's earlier choices. In both versions, the film ends with Anna entering the future with her cosmetic surgeon. In the American version, they leave as a traditional couple after the man has left his wicked wife behind. In the original, Anna accompanies the cosmetic surgeon, but as an independent woman seeking employment abroad.In A Woman's Face, the protagonist is more capable, more attractive, and more violent, but filmmakers felt the greatest need for significant transculturation with regard to morality. We see this pattern with several case studies, including when the protagonist is a man.In Intermezzo (1936), world-famous violinist Holger Brandt (Gösta Ekman) strives to feel young again by pursuing his much younger accompanist, Anita (Ingrid Bergman). With this remake, too, Intermezzo: A Love Story (1939), filmmakers seemed to fear that American audiences could be alienated by the Swedes' more morally complex exploration of sexuality and relationships. In both versions, Holger's extramarital affair is portrayed as clearly wrong. His redemption, however, is more conventional in the remake. In director Gustaf Molander's original, the lovers' separation is driven by Anita's pursuit of self-realization. In the remake, they split up primarily because they agree that cheating is wrong since it causes his wife to suffer. Such conventional morals are made explicit through dialogue and a letter. American Holger initiates the breakup, then returns home, more downtrodden, to earn his forgiveness.The American protagonist also is more relieved of culpability. Anita expresses that she has been obsessed with him since childhood, portraying the much older man as slightly less responsible for their transgression. His American wife is assigned more influence over his immoral choice. Holger offers to retire and travel the world with her—like when they were young—and he pursues Anita only after his wife has rejected his offer. These changes turn Ingrid Bergman's Hollywood debut (she plays Anita in both) into a more clear-cut condemnation of extramarital romance. The remade protagonist is a man who merely made a mistake instead of someone who in a culturally subversive manner is exploring alternatives to lifelong monogamy.This American interwar morality was updated four decades later. In Honeysuckle Rose (1980), Willie Nelson embodies a protagonist who plays country music instead of the violin. The story structure is retained but put in service of exploring infidelity as a necessary evil in which most people partake. Morality is assigned to cheaters who restrict harm to others and stop sleeping around before they get too old. In the film's first act, band members and their rural community live out drunken lust at a big party, before all is forgiven as they sing "Amazing Grace."As we saw with the previous remakes, if protagonist misbehavior threatens audience alignment, surrounding characters can be made more unsympathetic to lend morality by comparison. In this second remake, too, the love interest has been obsessed with the protagonist since childhood. Before they meet, the touring family man has been faithful for a long time. To make the protagonist more heroic by America's more violent standards, he also gets to punch a man who insults his woman. Evocative of the 1939 remake, Willie Nelson's protagonist is granted more agency and importance in several regards; his young love interest is all but removed from the film's final act.These examples of American re-moralization support the idea that Hollywood places great emphasis on crafting heroes with strong cultural appeal. Such adherence is perhaps particularly important in the feature film format. There is no lack of ambiguous antiheroes in today's serialized TV, a format that provides viewers with more time to understand and sympathize with main characters (McFarlane 34; Vaage). This is partially why remakes of Scandinavian TV are not my focus. The feature's limited length and its protagonist-centered structure push filmmakers to lean into cultural assumptions to elicit sympathy and mobilize antipathy. Honeysuckle Rose exemplifies how American heroics include more violence than what more peaceful Scandinavians prefer, a cultural particularity that is even clearer in the next remakes.Ingmar Bergman's Jungfrukällan (1960) features a protagonist who is familiar with violence. The medieval warrior Töre (Max von Sydow) tries to obey his Christian God's pacifist tenets but remains confounded by them. When his daughter is raped and killed, Töre cannot help but return to his old warrior ways. He stabs one of the guilty herdsmen to death and murders the other two with his bare hands. In the resolution, Töre begs God's forgiveness and promises to build a church in memory of his daughter. Water then springs from where her body lies, and everyone present seems redeemed by this miracle.You would think the rape-revenge plot could be remade with a similar level of violence in the US, and it probably could. But in horror legend Wes Craven's directorial feature debut, The Last House on the Left (1972), Bergman's story is turned into an exploitation horror with torture and gore throughout. Villains are made much more evil and heroes more transgressive. In the climax, the grieving husband and wife resort not only to knife and hand combat but also to penis biting and chainsaw massacring, dramatically increasing the film's body count. In Craven's immoral post-Vietnam world, there is no hope of redemption. Evil surrounds us. But within this dystopian universe, the actions of the protagonist(s) remain morally justifiable (Brashinsky).Such adaptations fit the pattern of more violence in US film and American society in general. Perhaps Craven's drastic changes to genre, plot, character, and theme make his remake less suitable for cultural comparison. It may not even be reasonable to view The Last House on the Left as a remake of Jungfrukällan. Taxonomies of varying complexity are available for remake studies. For my purposes, we need not complicate the conversation more than by labeling Craven's film "inspired by" as opposed to the previously discussed "based-on" remakes. There exist both academic and legal remake disputes, but none that are relevant to this article (Eberwein 28–30; Leitch).Bergman's classic also was turned into a second, much later remake. The Last House on the Left (2009) restores a more conventional universe with less cartoonishly evil antagonists. A happier ending is offered in which the daughter survives. Interestingly, from a moral perspective, in the 2009 resolution scene, the victim's father returns to torture a perpetrator to death. The father does so without attracting any condemnation from the narrative. Neither is he burdened by the doubt that Jungfrukällan explored in its violent protagonist. American film often and in different contexts crafts less morally dubious protagonists than Scandinavian film does. This 2009 remake is an example of how there are culturally informed exceptions, perhaps especially relating to violence and emotionally driven revenge.Nattevagten (1994) also had its morals and theme somewhat adjusted before it became Nightwatch (1997). Still, the protagonist Martin (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau/Ewan McGregor) remains roughly the same. This is one of the few transnational remakes to reuse the original director. Ole Bornedal's Americanization consists mostly of replacing the original's opening sequence, which was dominated by Danish hygge (communal coziness), with something more dramatic. The director also adds violence (Desser). In the manning-up montage in which the protagonist readies himself for action, only American Martin practices fighting. On American soil, Bornedal not only cuts the communal opening; he also omits the mischievous double-wedding ending in which all characters are happy and together. This opposition between individual and communal pursuit plays out to an even greater extent with the next remake.If you were to jokingly stereotype the American approach to action film, your pitch for a remake of Ofelaš (1987) might sound similar to Pathfinder (2007). The first feature ever made in the language of the region's Arctic indigenous peoples, the Sámi, offers a puny sixteen-year-old protagonist, Aigin (Mikkel Gaup), who is skilled with bow and arrow (Figure 1). The American remake initiates its cultural masculinization by inserting a bare-chested muscle hunk named Ghost (Karl Urban). He is a Viking killing machine with action skills of the Mission: Impossible type. Leaning further into American preferences, Aigin's puppy love is replaced by Ghost's hot cave sex. Sinister Chude antagonists—who kill and torture for furs and information—are replaced by Viking behemoths who burn people alive for the fun of it. The result is two protagonists who are both underdogs, but one relies on shamanistic wit while the other executes hyper-skilled carnage.These protagonists are different in terms of traits and skills, but also in their approach to collaboration. Aigin wants his tribe to help him fight the Chudes. Ghost insists on battling the enemies alone, while his people flee. Aigin has no choice but to cunningly defeat the Chudes on his own, but importantly, his community rewards him by embracing him as their new shaman. In the American version, this honor is bestowed upon Ghost's love interest. She becomes the tribe's shaman, while Ghost is hailed as the bravest of them all, before he continues his solitary vigilance against threats from the outside. When the American hero rides alone into the sunset, the Scandinavian hero reunites with his people through communal reinvigoration.In the remake, the antagonists have their moral universe refurbished as well. How this is done has consequences for how audiences perceive the protagonist. In the Norwegian original, the Chudes represent people who—according to Ofelaš's neo-shamanistic discourse—are bad because they have made the wrong moral choices (DuBois). Such narratives suggest that all of us can be bad if we make bad choices. In the remake, the Vikings' evil resides in their blood. By placing evil inherently inside of others, we craft a universe in which our side is inherently good. This can make acceptable any level of violence that we inflict upon our opposition. The 2007 remake mirrors the traditional superhero movie's moral reductionism into good versus bad, which we see in much of today's political discourse, in particular in the United States. In a conformist culture, everyone is pressured into compromising, at times perhaps excessively so—depending on your cultural viewpoint. An individualistic culture entails a greater risk for becoming so divided that those who disagree can no longer meet around the same table. Pathfinder is no nuanced exploration of American cultural politics, but the remake does suggest that Americans prefer their heroism served individualistically and against an all-bad opponent.Ofelaš depicts a heroic masculinity that Hofstede would refer to as feminine, one that is common in contemporary Scandinavian fiction. The Sámi-language film presents itself as being based on an indigenous legend from a thousand years ago. The opening titles of its inspired-by remake state that its story takes place a hundred years earlier, when a Native American tribe is attacked by Viking explorers. Compared to the Sámi feature, the American version's sexualized machismo is significantly greater: the ma