The aim of this article is to discuss two contemporary Icelandic novels, Kata by Steinar Bragi and Gott fólk by Valur Grettisson, in connection to interpretations of revenge literature and films in the field of Law and literature. Both novels deal with shortcomings in the legal system and judiciary in dealing with and proving crimes involving rape and sexual abuse. This analysis focuses on how the two novels are connected to the advocacy for change, both for the legislator and the judicial system in Iceland. The novel Kata is named after the protagonist, whose daughter is kidnapped, raped and murdered. Kata decides to revenge her daughter and murder the perpetrators, one by one. Throughout the story the reader is made aware of the necessity of avenge, but still the question of righteousness remains. In Gott fólk the narrator, Sölvi, is put through the accountability process by Sara and her friends, after she accuses him of both mental and sexual misconduct during the time of their relationship. Sölvi experiences the process as revenge, but to the reader it is clear that he is guilty and cannot cope with that realization. The two novels offer a basis for discussion on sexual offence, the legal system, revenge and justice.
The aim of this article is to discuss the book Dísusaga by Vigdís Grímsdóttir. In the story, which has been categorized as a fictional autobiography, Vigdís writes about a rape she experienced as a child, focusing on the crime ́s effect. She talks about her decision to keep silent about the crime, which leads to – as described in Dísusaga– her being split into two personas, Dísa and Gríms. This article focuses on the communication between the two characters, in particular their power struggle. The analysis that is put forth is based on methods from theories about trauma, dialogical self and conceptual metaphors. In this article different attitudes toward sexual violence in different times is also addressed by looking at the reception of other works by Vigdís, which have been connected to her persona.
In the past months and years women have been raising awareness against rape and other sexual violence. The aim of the research discussed in this article is to shed a light on rape culture in Iceland, especially what ideas are prevailing among young people about rape, survivors and perpetrators. Moreover, the aim is to shed a light on the impact of these ideas on rape survivors. The study draws on focus group interviews with university students and semi-structured interviews with a university student, rape survivors and an expert who works closely with survivors. The findings highlight rape culture in Iceland and how rape and other sexual violence is normal-ized. Predominant discourses and myths tend to question the rape, portray survivors as responsible for the rape and find ways to extenuate perpetrators.
Explanations of sexual violence are an important topic because they reveal the societal context of violence. Perpetrators of violence commonly reject blame, explaining their actions with survivor behavior or the situation. In this study, 397 Icelandic social media posts from Facebook and Twitter were analyzed for explanations of violence. Societal explanations included general negative attitudes towards women, biological essentialism (that men cannot control their sex drive), the entitlement of men to sex and objectification. Survivor explanations included that the survivor had been drinking alcohol at the time of the violence, and that the survivor was expected to fight back to justify the event being classified as violence. The monster stereotype of perpetrators was salient in the accounts, either as fact, or to specifically challenge that idea. The results reveal powerful societal stereotypes when it comes to sexual violence, which need to be counteracted in the future.
This article deals with the authorship of Elísabet Kristín Jökulsdóttir, with special emphasis on the autofictional novel Heilræði lásasmiðsins (The locksmith's advice), as well as other works that are based on autobiographical material. Elísabet writes a lot about the female body, its desires and erotic longings, as well as how helpless and weak it can be in particular situations. Her writing on the self, body and sexuality centres on the opposition between love and rejection. The desire for love is the driving force behind her writing and a deep and ruthless self-examination is at work in her fictional world. This desire is closely connected to the female body and sexual drive and Elísabet scrutinizes the nature of 'femininity' and asks what it means to be ,a woman'. Elísabet describes the female body in all its nakedness and vulnerability and shows how the body is the battleground where the main conflicts between self and others take place. Elísabet frequently describes two oppositional worlds in her works. There are conflicts between the magical world and reality, the father and the mother, the child and the grown-up, psychological difficulties and 'sanity'. a divided self is a persistent theme in her writings, as well as the struggle to remain on the right side of the "borders", which are frequently mentioned. Elísabet's writings reveal a struggle for marking a place for oneself in the world, to be heard and seen, to be able to createand recreate the self and through her writing, she copes with existence and difficulties that are rooted in childhood. Through writing, she finds a way out and the writing process serves as self-analysis and therapy. In her works Elísabet also creates her own personal mythology, which she connects with women's struggle for self-realization, freedom and social space. The analysis of Elísabet's works is inspired by the writings of feminist scholars, such as Simone de Beauvoir, Kate millett and Hélène Cixous.
The paper analyzes the rulings of the Supreme Court of iceland in rape cases after changes in the penal code in 1992 and 2007. The study employs discourse analysis in which legitimizing principles are identified. The aim of the paper is to explore whether victim blaming, misogyny or other such attitudes are reflected in the rulings. The paper concludes that the rulings' focus is mainly on physical abuse and violence although less emphasis is put on that after the changes in the penal code. Mental harm caused by rape is often given little attention or even completely ignored. One main conclusion is that rape myths are reflected in the rulings and victim blaming is common although it is decreasing. it is also apparent that the emphasis on victim blaming diminishes if the perpetrator is of foreign origin.
A haunted house can either be a monster or the habitat of monsters, or even both. These houses have a unique attraction and a variety of methods to catch their prey. The scariest haunted house in the film Rökkur by Erlingur Óttar Thoroddsen (2017) does not provide shelter from wind and weather as it is not made of wood, concrete or stone. The ghosts in Rökkur are lurking online instead. By using the premises of the horror genre, Erlingur focuses specifically on the dangers that young homosexual men can be facing today. Chat rooms and social media are like hunting grounds for the monsters stalking the main characters. The film also focuses on the staggering silence of survivors of sexual violence, as studies have indicated that male victims are less likely to report the crimes they have suffered.
In the Icelandic traditional ballads from medieval and post-medieval times, wo-men and their voices are very prominent, while stories of male heroes were rather portrayed in rímur. The language is very unusual and shows signs of translation, formulas are frequently used, and the mode of narration is objective and clear. Love is a common subject, and so is violence, often gender-based and sexual. In the article the background of these ballads is discussed shortly and their emergence in Icelandic oral culture and later its literature, as they were recorded by educated men, from nameless sources, most probably women. Seven ballads are then used to show different aspects of violence within the genre. All are highly dramatic, and their subject is harsh: hardship, rape, birth and loss of children, and sometimes the victims take things into their own hands and avenge in a graphic way. How ballads that tell such terrible tales, can have been sung and danced to at joyous gatherings, is an interesting food for thought. It will be reasoned that these ballads have primarily been sung by women, and they can even have been a consolation and a tool to deal with gender-based violence in their own lives.
The regulation of film exhibition in Iceland has closely shadowed the history of cinema exhibition itself. Although regulation practices have undergone various shifts and realignments throughout the twentieth century, they retained certain core concerns and a basic ideological imperative having to do with child protection and child welfare. Movies were thought to have a disproportionate impact on children, with "impressionable minds" often being invoked. Their interior lives and successful journey towards maturity were put at risk each and every time they encountered unsuitable filmic materials. Thus, while assuming that adults could fend for them-selves among the limited number of theaters in Reykjavík, children were a whole another matter and required protection. Civic bodies were consequently formed and empowered to evaluate and regulate films. But even in the context of fairly rigorous surveillance and codification, the turn taken by regulatory authorities in the 1980s strikes one as exceptional and unprecedented. The Film Certification Board (TFCB) was, for the first time, authorized to prohibit and suppress from distribution films deemed especially malignant and harmful. Motivating this vast expansion of the powers of the regulatory body were concerns about a variety of exploitation and horror films that were being distributed on video, films that were thought to transgress so erroneously in terms of on-screen violence that their mere existence posed a grave threat to children. Two years after finding its role so radical-ly enlarged, TFCB put together a list of 67 "video-nasties", to borrow a term from the very similar but later moral panic that occurred in Britain. Police raids were conducted and every video store in the country was visited in a nation-wide effort to remove the now illegal films from rental stores. This article posits that the icelandic nasties list can be viewed as something of a unique testament to the extent to which the meaning, aesthetic coherence and the affect of cultural objects is constructed in the process of reception, while also main-taining that the process of reception is thoroughly shaped by historical discourses, social class, embedded moral codes and a social system of values, as well as techno-logical progress. in what amounts to a perfect storm of moralizing, political games-manship and the sheer panic of a certain segment of the population, the governing institutions in iceland managed in the span of months to overturn constitutionally protected rights to free speech and privacy, as well as undermine central principles of the republic. Two decades would pass before these setbacks were recuperated, and then only on a legal and institutional level. While analyzing the history of the icelandic video nasties, the article also attempts to grapple with and articulate the symbolic register of the ban, how it speaks to the status of cinema in Iceland at the close of the twentieth century, and what ideological strains, morals and/or values were being put into play and funneled into this particular debate. Then, to close, the role of the most notorious of the nasties, Cannibal Holocaust (Ruggero Deodato, 1980), is examined in the context of media coverage and parliamentary debates at the time.
