Barn-tv i Skräpocen

Abstract

Children’s Television in the Wasteocene. Waste as Motif, Aesthetics, and Resistance in the Children’s TV-Show Ville, Valle och Viktor upptäcker Sverige (1970) 1970s Swedish children’s culture is filled with waste. Increased environmental awareness, combined with a changed perspective on both children’s cultural aesthetics and play, contributed to a greater focus on trash, pollution, and waste materials in children’s books, theater, film, and television. This article argues that the children’s program Ville, Valle och Viktor upptäcker Sverige (1970) can be interpreted as a critique of life in the Wasteocene, the socio-ecological era that began with the Great Acceleration after World War II. The purpose of the article is to explore the many functions of waste in the TV-show. It examines the questioning of modern society based on issues of motif, aesthetics, and resistance. The analysis is based on Marco Armiero’s thoughts on the epoch “Wasteocene” and the concept of waste aesthetics, as a description of the formal experiments that characterized the 1970s children’s culture. Both ideas are drawn from research conducted within Waste studies, a growing field of cultural analysis that expands traditional approaches of ecocriticism by focusing on decay, built environments, and toxic sites. The article concludes that Ville, Valle och Viktor upptäcker Sverige undermines the hegemonic narrative of the Wasteocene in several ways: by portraying waste as valuable and useful, by placing local environmental problems in a larger context, and by conveying a sense of hope for the future.