Politics of Nordsploitation

Pietari Kääpä is Associate Professor in Media and Communications at University of Warwick, UK. His work combines ecocritical analysis with media industry and policy studies. His books include Ecology and Contemporary Nordic Cinema (Bloomsbury 2014) and the anthology Transnational Ecocinema: Film Culture in an Age of Environmental Depravation (2013), co-edited with Tommy Gustafsson. He is an editor of Journal of Scandinavian Cinema.Tommy Gustafsson is Professor of Film Studies at Linnaeus University, Sweden. His work is mainly concentrated on film history, both international and Nordic. He has been published in Cinema Journal and Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, and his books include Masculinity in the Golden Age of Swedish Cinema: A Cultural Analysis of 1920s Films (2014), and the anthology Nordic Genre Film: Small Nation Film Cultures in the Global Marketplace (2015) co-edited with Pietari Kääpä.

This is an accessible book for a wide range of readers (including undergraduate students) interested in film and cultural studies, and its commentary on the intricacies of moral politics in Nordic countries is definitely a contribution beyond exploitation or Nordic film studies.

• Acknowledgements1. The Politics of Nordsploitation Periodization: Exploitation and Nordic Exploitation Defining NordsploitationTheories of Exploitation The complexity of NordsploitationThe structure of the bookReferences 2. A Pre-1970s History of Nordic Exploitation Exploitation as art/art as exploitationDocumentary images with exploitative elementsThe Absence of ExploitationConclusionReferences3. Exploitative Violence and Pornography in the 1970sConclusionReferences4. Moral Panic, VHS Censorship, and Counterforces Fan Cultures 1980-1999The Video Violence Moral Panic in SwedenMoral Panic within the HourA Twenty-Year Long AftermathVHS censorship in the bigger picture: extremes and counterforcesConclusionReferences5. The local and the transnational in Nordic exploitation cinema of the 1980s The Viking Trilogy: Exploiting cultural history through genre film Nordic emulations of blockbustersThe VisitorsVisa Mäkinen and exploitation cinema from the marginsExploitation cinema goes mainstream Global Exploitation: Artic Heat (aka Born American) ConclusionsReferences6. The Entertainment Violence Factory: Mats Helge Olsson’s Action Films of the 1980sThe Beginnings: Working within the Swedish Film Industry as an OutsiderThe Entertainment Violence Factory: The Ninja Mission and the Marketplace for Nordic ExploitationAt Work: Production and Exploitative Themes Genre aspirationsOlsson’s starsConclusionReferences7. The Rise of Transnational Exploitation in the 1990s-2000s Nordic exploitation in the 1990s: film genres in transitionGoing Excessive: Nazi Zombies from Norwegian mountainsThe 1990s to 2010s: film cultures in transition Artistic exploitationConclusionsReferences8. Fanchising and Crowdfunding: Nordic Nazisploitation in the digital media environment of the 2000sThe Nazi on filmNordic Nazisploitation: Dead Snow Comic Nazis: Iron SkyCarving space for neo-NazisploitationSocial media and Dead SnowBalancing ideologiesIdeology strikes backConclusion: the FanchiseReferences9. Kung Fu cops and killer bunnies: proximity and distance strategies in Nordic exploitation film, 2000-2019 Contemporary patternsPolicy incentives: the Nordic genre support programmesGoing lo-fiFlirting with the mainstreamKiller bunnies on the looseConclusionReferences10. Conclusion: beyond the art houseReferencesIndex