Iceland review - 2007, Síða 55

ICELAND REVIEW 61
consumer culture is born, the program Kötturinn í sekknum (Cat in the
Bag) is meant to instruct Icelanders in the modern arts of consumer
savvy – like comparison shopping, ordering from overseas, and reading
consumer advocacy reports.
Lastly, as the country barrels down the road of Western European
statehood, the pleasures and woes of immigration and cultural diversity
come into view. To tackle the issues surrounding this inf lux of
foreigners comes an interview program speaking directly with
immigrants. Its title, Óhrein börn Evu (The Unclean Children of Eve),
refers to the Icelandic myth of huldufólk (hidden people). The legend
tells of God’s unexpected visit to the Garden of Eden (which is,
naturally, Iceland). Eve doesn’t have time to make all her children
presentable for the Creator, so she hides them under rocks and in trees,
where they stay and eventually became the tribe of invisible but
inf luential elves who populate the island. The analogy made to the
swelling masses of Eastern European and Southeast Asian immigrants
in the country is not only fitting, but one that is specific to country.
Host Kolfinna Baldvinsdóttir, daughter of former ambassador to
America Jón Baldvín Hannibalsson and beauty queen eco­activist
Bryndís Schram – the closest Iceland gets to royalty, has been one of
the first media personalities to broach the topic of immigration by
actually culling the voices of immigrants themselves.
But not all the shows are such clear products of the nation’s mentality.
In all its effort to localize programming (and presumably fill the two
hour slot every night) ÍNN may have thrown the Icelandic baby out
with the broadcast bathwater. Two shows in particular smack of their
American counterparts. Firstly, Mér finnst (In My Opinion) finds a
panel of women slurping coffee and jawing away about social issues
like homosexual marriage. The show even features Iceland’s answer to
Barbara Walters: Ólína Thorvardardóttir, a pert anchorwoman and
media personality who has dropped out of the limelight as a television
journalist and is now returning to the small screen as a talk show host.
Sound familiar? It’s called The View in America. Secondly you have
Hvad Ertu ad Hugsa? (What Are You Thinking?) with outspoken self­
help guru, yoga master, and proud moustache­bearer Gudjón
Bergmann, who interviews local sages on pop­culture psychology
from positive thinking to the secrets of ideal marital relationships. Appar­
ently “Gudjón Bergmann” is Icelandic for “Dr. Phil.”
These latter attempts at programming, although still in their early stages,
come off as contrived when forced into the ready­made molds of Amer­
ican talk television instead of natural manifestations of what’s weighing
heavy on the nation’s soul. Harvesting American talk show formats for
Icelandic television deconstructs the logic behind localism to a certain
degree. That said, sentiments within ÍNN vary on what the station is
striving to do exactly. Ingvi Hrafn Jónsson is quite plainspoken that as
far as he is concerned the station is not seeking to create essentially
Icelandic material as a proponent of localism. “It is just a business
concept based on cost factors,” he says.
Regardless, the ball Jónsson started rolling has ricocheted out of his
court. A number of hosts with shows on the network agree that
shouldering up the localist cause is a part of ÍNN’s good work. “The
aspect of having only Icelandic television is what originally caught my
Studio.