Bikini girls, penis-pumps and Ikea – Sweden in the eyes of Hollywood

Sex, Ikea, silly accents and some extra sex on the side are what's on offer when Swedish film fanatic Robin Nupponen put together a collection of clips of Sweden-mentions from the best of American film and TV.

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“Being a bit of a film-buff I always jump when there is a mention of Sweden in a film or a TV-series. And it really happens quite often,” said Robin Nupponen to The Local.

However, Nupponen found that it was hard to remember all the occasions off the top of his head. He therefore decided to start gathering the clips together, which later resulted in the YouTube video featured below.

“In the beginning I just wanted to use every single one, but I realized after a while that it would be impossible as there are so many mentions of Sweden out there. Just in the Simpson’s Sweden is mentioned some thirty times," said Nupponen.

When putting together the video, he instead tried to make it as funny and interesting as he could, while at the same time using material from as broad a body of material as possible.

The video therefore features clips from the TV-series Family Guy, from 90s comedies like Wayne’s World and Austin Powers, from Woody Allen movies as well as TV series like Mad Men, Frasier and Friends. It comes as no surprise of course that it also includes the Swedish Chef on the Muppet Show.

Neither is it surprising perhaps, that the onus is on “Swedish sin”, a notion that Nupponen thinks could be a remnant of Sweden’s past reputation of being a very sexually liberated country, with early films often featuring some form of nudity.

“It is a stereotype that keeps going strong, the ‘myth’ of Sweden,” he told The Local.

Despite this image of Sweden only being "partly true" today and generally exaggerated rather wildly in comedy films, Nupponen thinks that it should be seen as compliment to Sweden rather than anything else.

“It is fun to see Sweden mentioned as much as it actually is,” he said.

It would be hard, Nupponen thinks, to find the same amount of mentions for another Scandinavian country.

“I just read somewhere that for example Norway is a country that Americans know hardly anything about. Swedes, however, stand out,” said Nupponen.

And the response he has had after posting the film on YouTube has been good. So far, it has had some 7,000 views and the comments have been generally positive.

“The only negative comments I have had is from people who think I have left something out. But there is just so much material out there. The idea is to perhaps make a second video, but we shall see how it goes,” Nupponen told The Local.





Rebecca Martin
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