A Look at Lucia

by Diane Saarinen

Throughout the month of October, the International Museum of Women’s “Imaging Ourselves” online exhibition hosted a film festival featuring original films by women directors. As my heritage is Scandinavian, I was especially interested in Maja Borg’s Look at Lucia, a 52-minute film on the Swedish celebration of Santa Lucia, the festival held at dawn every December 13.

Perhaps instrumental in discovering how this tradition has become so strongly woven in the fabric of Swedish culture is the understanding that in the winter months, this northern country receives very little light. The image of a “Queen of Light” visiting each household — bearing a breakfast tray of Lucy cats and glogg (a hot spiced wine beverage), dressed in white and wearing a crown of candles upon her head — becomes a powerful beacon of hope in a country that is essentially plunged in darkness for many hours of the day. Of note, in the Julian calendar, the date December 13 was originally the winter solstice — the shortest day of the year.

Borg’s film focuses on the Swedish city of Norrköping as it readies for the holiday season. Children learning about Lucia sit spellbound as their teacher relates a story about a woman with beautiful eyes who attracted a suitor whom she did not want to marry. Lucia, the teacher says, wanted to give her dowry to the poor, and tore out her own eyes so that she would no longer be desirable. Concluding her story, the teacher offers a sharp reminder that Lucia was sent to a whorehouse, and ultimately killed by having a sword pierced through her throat.

How this tale of a Sicilian saint travels to Scandinavia to become a firmly-rooted tradition is unknown. Borg focuses on the disparity of the gruesome tale of the woman who did not want to marry and how, through time, this becomes distorted in what many believe is merely a beauty pageant where blonde teenage girls vie to be the city’s Lucia. Borg skillfully shifts focus between current adolescent Lucia candidates: an 86-year-old woman whose fondest memory is of when she was crowned the city’s first Lucia; and even a drag queen who manages to become Lucia, as well as testimony to the endurance of this festival in modern Swedish culture.

“It is a real happening for people here,” the organizer of the Lucia festival says. And sixty-seven years later, elderly folks still recognize the city’s first Lucia, Gun Alf. The Lucia candidates find they must participate in a walk-the-runway fashion event and maintain: “They are trying to convince everyone that this really isn’t a beauty competition…of course, it’s a beauty competition.” Still, even jaded grungy teenagers speak of celebrating December 13. In the end, Lucia, in her white-clad purity, appears to win out over seasonal commercialism and sexist stereotypes.

Diane Saarinen’s work has appeared in many publications, including Women’s eNews Daily, Quiet Mountain: New Feminist Essays, and several Finnish-American journals and newspapers.

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