Calle Haglund – stereotyp, brand eller ikon?

Authors

• Sven-Erik Klinkmann

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30666/elore.79257

Abstract

An important point de départ for the essay “Calle Haglund: Stereotype, brand, or icon” was the question of what it means that the medialized habitus of a politician such as the former chairman of the Swedish People’s Party in Finland, Carl ‘Calle’ Haglund, has been understood as “typically Finland-Swedish”, and why this has been interpreted as something foreign to Finnish-speaking voters. To be able to take a closer look at this research question, I performed a close reading of two journalistic texts, both taken from Helsingin Sanomat. One is a report in the NYT, the weekly supplement of the newspaper, from 2009, titled ”A belly flop in the duck pond”, and the other a fashion report in the monthly supplement of the newspaper The Model Haglund from 2014. The method used can be described as cultural semiotic. It consists of a close reading of texts as well as pictures that are inserted in an interpretive framework. The chosen theoretical perspective – studying three different yet interrelated processes of symbolization (stereotyping, branding, and iconization, and theories thereof) – is instrumental in helping to examine how mediated subject matters create a meaning concerning everything from the public persona of a single person to the relationship between language groups, the Finnish and Swedish-speaking Finns. The fact that I have chosen ‘Calle‘ Haglund as a research object is related to my earlier research on stereotyping, humour, and irony in a Finland-Swedish context. By comparing the three symbolization strategies of stereotyping, cultural branding, and iconization, it is possible to point out important similarities and differences as to the three strategies, and to show that the registers used here comply to certain patterns which have been described as pre-eminently about cultural othering and exoticization, with a double-bind character. The symbolization processes analysed can take the form of exemplariness and demonstrate the ability to spark admiration, but they can also involve something more mundane, more problematic; they might arouse envy or bitterness in the language majority. The pictures and texts analysed show how different aspects of power are being put into play.