better run nazi scum

September 22, 2021 10:44 AM

The Moomins are the ideal image for @ett_klibbkonto’s protest stickers because they highlight the fact that even the most gentle of people should not stand for fascism. from How the Moomins became an anti-fascist symbol

Moomins and Tove Jansson previously

posted by chavenet (10 comments total)

I approve of this message
posted by mumimor at 11:54 AM on September 22, 2021 [17 favorites]

okay but needs more Little My.
posted by away for regrooving at 12:56 PM on September 22, 2021 [11 favorites]

This is such a fantastic antidote to basically everything else I’ve read today.
posted by bjrubble at 1:04 PM on September 22, 2021 [6 favorites]

I love it. Tove Jansson is amazing.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 1:56 PM on September 22, 2021 [3 favorites]

My favourite t-shirt one of the Moomintroll anti-fa ones that Tom Morello has. Unfortunately https://www.punx.uk/ who produced it were hit with a copywrite cease and desist so now it's only for very special occasions so I don't wear it out :D
posted by Buntix at 1:58 PM on September 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

I am glad this acknowledged that the Moomins were always basically anti-fascist because Jansson absolutely was. While I can't imagine fascists would be Moomins fans, if any are, they are tremendously missing the point of the Moomins and Jansson's work.

(I have a Little My tattoo so I'm not at all biased or anything.)
posted by edencosmic at 5:46 PM on September 22, 2021 [8 favorites]

More Tove Jansson images: Before Creating the Moomins, Tove Jansson Drew Satirical Art Mocking Hitler & Stalin
and the astonishingly-Moominlike:
The Sublime Alice in Wonderland Illustrations of Tove Jansson
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:06 PM on September 22, 2021 [4 favorites]

Metafilter: okay but needs more Little My.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 9:04 PM on September 22, 2021 [4 favorites]

Tove Jansson was an anti-fascist, but she was also a pacifist. Tuula Karjalainen, in her biography Tove Jansson: Work and Love, calls her an 'absolute and dedicated pacifist', and points out that her wartime drawings got her into trouble because she refused to compromise her pacifism, even in the cause of anti-fascism:

Tove's drawings for Garm condemned the war and wars in general. They reveal her deep hatred of it, and her pacifism. In a country at war, the idealization of war, or at least the people's unbroken will to defend their country, was official policy. The military censor gave priority to victorious battles, the bravery of Finland's soldiers, their will to fight, and the monstrous nature of the enemy. The misery at home, the major defeats in battle and the large numbers of dead and wounded were subjects the authorities were anxious to hush up. As such, Tove's pictures were not to the liking of all Finns.

To repurpose her work in this way, by depicting the Moomins with weapons in their hands -- and, still worse, to suggest that Jansson's anti-fascism would have made her a supporter of Nazi-punching -- is deeply distasteful. It needs to be called out for what it is: a betrayal of her deeply-held pacifist convictions.
posted by verstegan at 2:41 PM on September 23, 2021 [3 favorites]

I wasn’t aware of that, Verstegan. On the other hand, I suggest that the stickers are effective specifically because of the incongruity. It isn’t what the artist would have supported, but if we read it as satire that’s kind of the point.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:24 PM on September 23, 2021 [2 favorites]