Journal of Scandinavian Cinema - The Politics of Gendered Work and Representation in the Nordic Screen Industries, Jun 2022

This article traces the Bechdel test in Swedish journalistic discourse, showing how the A-rating campaign – sometimes described as a movement – popularized the concept in Sweden in 2013. In addition, criticism of the Bechdel test and A-rating is linked to criticism of recent Swedish cultural policy on film through the common denominator of contrasting quantification with quality. Finally, the article shows how the Bechdel test has inspired computer-based analytical approaches to gender on-screen that would merit further explorations in feminist film scholarship.

The article examines the positions of professional women in negotiations for early development in Finnish film and television production. According to recent studies, closed evaluation practices exclude women professionals and narrow the diversity of women’s representations and narratives on screen. We argue that women in the Finnish screen industry encounter prolonged psychological and economic constraints during their active careers. We analyse the qualitative data of 40 active professional women using Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of social space and symbolic power. We find that gender-based economic harm is constructed and implemented in the discourses of the institutionalized undervaluation of professional women’s work. Three recurring discourses shape the practice of decision-making in early development and position women professionals on the margins of the social space of the Finnish screen industry. The analysis illustrates the construction of gendered symbolic power in the Finnish screen industry that can be developed and applied to other national contexts.

This article explores women directors’ conditional inclusivity within male-dominated filmmaking spaces, taking as an example Susanne Bier’s successful engagement with Dogme 95, an internationally renowned Danish film movement that has often been considered favourable to women. Focusing on Bier’s performance of authorship in interviews following the release of Open Hearts (2002), I analyse Bier’s resistance to the domineering discourses she encountered in the process of establishing her international auteur presence. Bier’s selective commitment to the movement’s ‘Vow of Chastity’ suggests a ‘creative promiscuity’ that challenges the generic and geographical borders that circumscribe women’s filmmaking. Such an analysis can provide the necessary qualitative data to illuminate reports commissioned by national film industries as they confront persisting inequalities. It can thus counter discourses that use individual women’s successes as ostensible proof that feminism is unnecessary and promote an understanding of the cultural changes needed to progress from conditional inclusivity to real equality.

Through a case study analysis, this article suggests that women’s screenwriting in Sweden in the 1940s elucidates important aspects of cinematic authorship in relation to cultural hierarchies and gender. The analysis consists of a contextualized reading of the 1942 film Fallet Ingegerd Bremssen (‘The Ingegerd Bremssen case’), based on Dagmar Edqvist’s psychological novel about a rape and its after-effects, with a screenplay written by the author herself. A textual adaptation analysis – focusing on the screenwriting style and how the woman’s perspective and experience in the novel is transformed in the adaptation – is contextualized against the historical backdrop of the changes in screenwriting practices during this period as well as of the critical reception of the film.

Violence against women (VAW) in Finnish audio-visual fiction had a significant peak in 2018. The article examines the financiers’ and filmmakers’ decision-making processes that resulted in scenes containing brutal VAW in Finnish TV series and films. Were the decisions rational or emotional, and were these different decision modes separable? The article draws from a study based on two sets of data: first, sequences from Finnish films and TV series that portray VAW, and second, interviews and questionnaire responses from the makers of these scenes covering various stages in the film and TV productions. The results provide insights into the themes of identification, empathy and the normalization of filmic violence, pose a question about the demand for brutalization in AV productions and give suggestions for future research in audio-visual decision-making.

The article is based on transcripts of interviews with twenty women directors in the Swedish film industry conducted in 2018 and 2019, focusing on narratives from women working under varying conditions and in several genres who have actively chosen various strategies to manage their work situation. We contextualize their actions and choices to unpack how their work and efforts fit into an industry still dominated by men and influenced by a culture of masculinity idealizing the male genius. In the first section, we discuss how the women experienced their first encounters with the industry and what strategies they developed at this stage. In the second section, we discuss women’s deliberations about how to make work on the set manageable and productive. In the final section, we investigate various strategies related to work opportunities and the possibilities for women to realize their visions and their passion for making films.