The porn that sparked the Scandinavian sin
During the heydays of porn in the 70s, feature films made history. However, large numbers of short films were also produced during that time period, which have now been all but forgotten. In her new book The Swedish Porn Scene, Mariah Larsson investigates these short films.
These films were shown on 8 mm film and common from 1971–1976. Many of the films were produced in Denmark, making Copenhagen famous as "The Scandinavian capital of sin". From here, the films were spread to the rest of Scandinavia and the world. Mariah Larsson, senior lecturer in film studies at Linnaeus University, wanted to find out what types of film was produced and investigated the material that had been censored and, therefore, cut from some films. This work was carried out by Statens biografbyrå [The state movie theater agency] which was then a government authority controlling what films could be shown.
"The 70s was a very special time in history. On the one hand, there was this new liberal law in Scandinavia concerning pornography, but, on the other hand, there was a movie theater decree in place that made it possible to censor and make exceptions from the Fundamental Law of Freedom of Expression. It was a clash between the strict and formal and the wild and somewhat crazy", explains Mariah Larsson.
More information
Larsson, Mariah. The Swedish Porn Scene. Bristol, UK/Chicago, USA: Intellect Ltd., 2017., 182 p.
Contact information
Mariah Larsson, +46 470-70 84 92 / mariah.larsson@lnu.se
Tove Nordén, communications officer, +46 70-367 14 53