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126 | Sofia Sjö www.jrfm.eu 2016, 2/2, 123–140
the theory’s perspective.10 These studies have, among other things, highlighted
the role of gender in mediatization of religion and the need to look at gender
when exploring religion in media. This study, too, aims to bring new insight to
mediatization theory by questioning a too simplistic understanding of media
logics, particularly when one focuses on gender.
Next I will analyze how religion and gender are “done” in two Scandinavian
films that have both inspired a great deal of discussion in their local contexts:
Så som i himmelen (As It Is in Heaven, Kay Pollak, SE/DK 2004) and Kautokeino-
opprøret (The Kautokeino Rebellion, Nils Gaup, NO/DK/SE 2008). I conclude
the article with a discussion of what the way in which religion and gender are
done in the films suggests about social attitudes to and understandings of the
relationship between gender and religion today, particularly in a Scandinavian
context, the possible challenges to the theory of the mediatization of religion
that the representations entail, and further questions worth exploring.
As It Is in Heaven –
A SAVIOR CHALLENGING THE GENDER MOLD?
Kay Pollak’s As It Is in Heaven (2004) represents the director’s return to the di-
rector’s chair after an absence of almost two decades. It has been discussed in a
number of articles, many of them focusing on gender and/or religion.11 Discuss-
ing the film in yet one more article can feel redundant. However, the enormous
commercial success of this film even now, more than ten years after its making,
makes it difficult to ignore, and a more thorough discussion of the different re-
ligious themes in the film and their different gender structures is still needed.
As It Is in Heaven (2004) tells the story of the famous conductor Daniel, who
after a breakdown returns to his home village, becomes the cantor of the lo-
cal church and inspires the transformation of many of the people in the village
through his work with the church choir. A study of how viewers perceive religion
in As It Is in Heaven (2004)12 has identified the following three main religious
themes of the film: religious hypocrisy, spirituality and a Christ figure. Each of
these themes can be related to gender and each is gendered very differently.
Starting with religious hypocrisy, this theme is tied to one of the central char-
acters in the film, the pastor Stig. As I have argued elsewhere,13 Stig is a good
example of how religion in Scandinavian films is often constructed as a problem
that is almost always tied to masculinity and masculine religiosity. Stig is the
pastor in the village where most of the story takes place. He welcomes Dan-
10 Lövheim 2013; Sjö 2015a.
11 See Hammer 2006; Wallengren 2006; Sjö 2013b; Sjö 2015a.
12 Sjö 2013b.
13 Sjö 2015a.
JRFM
Journal Religion Film Media, Band 02/02
- Titel
- JRFM
- Untertitel
- Journal Religion Film Media
- Band
- 02/02
- Autoren
- Christian Wessely
- Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati
- Herausgeber
- Uni-Graz
- Verlag
- Schüren Verlag GmbH
- Ort
- Graz
- Datum
- 2016
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC 4.0
- Abmessungen
- 14.8 x 21.0 cm
- Seiten
- 168
- Kategorien
- Zeitschriften JRFM