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After a summer hiatus, John Morgan and Survive the Jive join Fróði Midjord on the latest Guide to Kulchur to discuss Midsommar, a recently-released movie about a group of American anthropology students and a deeply traumatized woman who visit a neo-pagan cult practicing a faith based on the ancient Nordic religion in present-day Hälsingland, Sweden, where they discover that the cult’s interest in them goes far beyond the merely academic. Similar to The Wicker Man, the film deals with issues of tradition versus modernity, community versus individualism, pagan values versus Christian values, and the nature of the Western soul, set amidst a folk horror story. Oh, and it’s also a breakup story. Survive the Jive offers insights into the basis and accuracy for the elements of Nordic paganism that are used in the film.
2 comments
Nice show. I have some thougts.
The text in the beginning was ”Hälsingland against mass immigration” (Hälsingland mot massinvandring). The film really is a degradation of swedish culture. As a swede I saw many details, from food to furniture to cultural concepts. It was interesting to hear the perspective of John and Tom, as they saw things different from me.
I did not see the sex scene as criticism against modern liberal sexual morals, compared to traditional and more modest scandinavian sexual life. I saw it as a attemt to put pre christian scandinavia in a phsycho light. The american visitors was the normal people, and the cult-people were freaks. Not the other way around. I think its also correct that sexuality was more liberal in Scandinavia before christianity. But not psycho like in the film.
I saw a anti european message troughout the film. The brits were oufcourse indian. These brits were also the first to react to the crazyness of the cult. The mature and intelligent american was the black one. And the old wholly northern european cult, or what it should be called, was a freakhouse.
Midsummer is the most beloved tradition in Sweden today. More then Christmas I would argue. Basically every single swede has a very positive feeling toward midsummer, and a huge majority celebrate it. It is called the informal, ”real”, national day. I think this film hurt he innocence of midsummer a tiny bit. Most swedes have never associated midsummer with something like this. This might be one reason for this films existence: to abuse the aryan hitler-helping palestina-recognizing swedish state.
The americans in the film, with whom one is supposed to identify, takes drugs as if it was a totally normal aspect of vacation. They are even there for study, but still drug themselves. I found that very ugly, but I recognize that thats the way of some people today. Mostly in cirkles of immoral leftists, but actually also among ordinary working people. I think this film helps to bring about the normalization of that drug habit. It is very ugly.
I agree with Frodi that there is some things with the cult that is missing in modern swedish society. Its the feeling of holiness I miss the most. In the film, one of the visitors take a leak at a tree. The tree happens to be a holy tree. The swedes get very upset, and some try to attack the visitor. That spirit of honesty and holiness is missing in Sweden today. Gang rapes occur every week, and nobody really cares. No symbol is not to touch. Someone spits at the floor inside the Metro in Stockholm, and nobody think its worth mention. We just dont care anymore, and its a very slippery slope. Its like we learned to laugh along in the mockering of our own culture, and now ironise it a lot – the same time as we keep these traditions. It gives it all a somewhat nihilistic feeling, deprivres it its proudness. It has become a bit weak. I actually felt good by the reaction of the first cult-guy that noticed that the holy tree was being accidently peed upon. It was very autentic and good acting. A swede desperatast with anger ready to defensiv something important for his community. I thought it was beautiful and raw. We need more of that spirit.
Thanks for your work
From the viewer comments on this video and elsewhere, I think a lot of people had the same reaction. The movie seems deliberately contrived to cut off any attempt by Whites to even think about forming their own communities and re-discovering their ancient religious traditions, by depicting such things as inherently grotesque. To make our natural and native condition seem palpably alien and Other to us is no small accomplishment for Ari Aster.
At the risk of self-promotion, by pure chance I recently published a book with an outwardly similar plot: a woman from a modern setting goes out to a rural community only to find an ethnically homogenous community where the old ways are alive and well. The similarities end there, since the book is set 100 years in America’s future, is avowedly pro-White, and comes from a heathen perspective. It’s called From Her Eyes a Doctrine You might say it is the “anti-Midsommar.”
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