All cultures are to be allowed to retain their distinct character, except Scandinavians. In the Netflix series ‘Blood Sacrifice’, it is difficult to recognise anything Swedish. Nothing is truly Scandinavian, and lyckliga gatan finns inte mer.
Last night we watched the Swedish crime series ‘Blood Sacrifice’, in which the Norwegian actor Jakob Oftebro plays the Swedish detective Thomas Berg.
Spoiler warning: This article contains spoilers from the series, including the identity of the killer.
The series is incredibly woke, and really ought to be in contention for the prize for the most politically correct series in the Scandinavian crime noir genre.
Do not be fooled by the poster. In the series, the typical Swede plays a supporting role or an extra.
Screenshot from Netflix.
One comment summed it up like this: – Predictable story, flat narrative and superficial characters, drenched in woke rubbish. In short: a mediocre Swedish crime drama with the usual DEI nagging in tow.
A New Face for France
It turns out that the series’ director, British George Kay, is known for emphasising diversity and political correctness in his work. It is therefore perhaps not so surprising that a series set in Sweden also reflects this.
George Kay is the creator of Netflix’s new crime series ‘Blood Sacrifice’. He has also created several international crime series that have attracted considerable attention. Photo: Jessica Gow / TT / NTB.
In the series ‘Lupin’, Kay deliberately took the classic white French gentleman thief Arsène Lupin and transformed him into Assane Diop, a black man of Senegalese background who grows up in the suburbs of Paris.
Actor Omar Sy at the Berlin Film Festival in 2020. Photo: Harald Krichel / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Kay and the team thus deliberately wanted to change the characters in order to explore contemporary French society, culture and racial issues.
Omar Sy himself said that the character ‘had to be a Frenchman of today, a new face for France’. The same agenda appears to have been applied in ‘Blood Sacrifice’.
There are, of course, Swedish actors in central roles. We have Oftebro in the leading role, while his father is played by Sweden’s Peter Andersson.
The police chief, an older Swedish man, is Swedish, and the same applies to several others, including investigator Max Abrahamsson.
Screenshot from ‘Blood Sacrifice’: Netflix.
A New Face for Sweden
But if one looks at the other roles, particularly the traditional married couples and families, the picture is different.
Here, the typical Swedish man and woman have in practice been replaced by characters with other backgrounds, nationalities or marital arrangements.
More on this scene further down in the article.
Screenshot from ‘Blood Sacrifice’: Netflix.
Not even the one child in the series is a typical Swede, but looks Asian. Even the street scenes are politically correct.
The wokeness and phasing-out of the typical Swede begin from the very first moment. Here is the opening of episode 1 from the police operations centre.
Screenshot from ‘Blood Sacrifice’: Netflix.
Now, I want to emphasise that I do not think all the characters have to look like supermodels, or have blond hair and blue eyes. That is not my point.
But it seems as though the blond, blue-eyed Swede has deliberately been removed from the very premise.
The only female character who fits that description is police officer Helene Bengtson, whom we meet right at the beginning.
She is, however, killed off quite early. Five minutes into episode 1. Lotta Aldgård is effectively beheaded by the serial killer.
Lotta Aldgård. Screenshot: IMDb.
Her police partner is played by David Tainton, a Swedish actor of South African/African background. They are both killed while responding to a report of a woman in distress.
Screenshot from ‘Blood Sacrifice’: Netflix.
And, unsurprisingly, the female police officer Helene Bengtson is in a relationship with a woman.
Screenshot from ‘Blood Sacrifice’: Netflix.
Thus, the Swedish man has been completely eliminated. Both as a police partner and as a cohabiting partner.
Not Lucky in His Choice of Wife
The typical Swedish woman has also been eliminated. Oftebro’s wife Charlotte Berg is played by Lisette Pia Hee Young Pagler, who is Swedish-Korean.
And of course their child is also clearly Asian, even though Oftebro is supposed to be her father.
Screenshot from ‘Blood Sacrifice’: Netflix.
And forgive me for saying so, but Mrs Berg is an incredibly irritating character. Bossy, perpetually sour and without any kind of charisma.
I will probably be accused of being a misogynist by the woke crowd, perhaps even of ageism.
Screenshot from ‘Blood Sacrifice’: Netflix.
In reality, Lisette Pia Hee Young Pagler is 45, and Oftebro is 40. In the series, she behaves and almost looks like his mother.
Lotta Aldgård would have suited this role well. But of course she is killed within the first five minutes of the series.
Screenshot from ‘Blood Sacrifice’: Netflix.
Looks Don’t Matter, But …
There are female characters in the series, but they have been carefully chosen so that they do not resemble what many would perceive as a typical Swede.
I must emphasise again that I do not really think appearance is the most important thing.
But when one looks at the cast as a whole, it is difficult to overlook the fact that the image of the typical Swede has all but disappeared, and it seems so deliberate.
Screenshot from ‘Blood Sacrifice’: Netflix.
Swedish actor Henrik Norlén plays investigator Max Abrahamsson, a typical Swede and Oftebro’s partner.
But it is Alexander Abdallah, a Lebanese-Swede, who gets to shine, also as an investigator, in the role of John-Jo Persson.
Screenshot from ‘Blood Sacrifice’: Netflix.
He is portrayed as the wise and considerate detective.
And here the woke factor is turned up another notch.
Alexander Abdallah plays a gay police officer who has not come out of the closet and who has a child with, believe it or not, a typical Swedish man.
Screenshot from ‘Blood Sacrifice’: Netflix.
The Swede, however, gets only around 50 seconds of screen time, during which, among other things, they kiss. His name is unknown, as he is not mentioned in the main cast list.
Even the street scenes are woke, with carefully selected extras to convey the image of multicultural Sweden.
Screenshot from ‘Blood Sacrifice’: Netflix.
The woke filmmakers have not missed a single opportunity to display diversity, as in this scene, where we see a clip from a television news broadcast.
Screenshot from ‘Blood Sacrifice’: Netflix.
The prime suspect is, of course, a typical Swede, played by Yngve Dahlberg. But it turns out that he is not the murderer.
Screenshot from ‘Blood Sacrifice’: Netflix.
The real murderer is also Swedish. Not Abdullah, not Mohammed, not a lesbian, not gay, but a Swedish man, played by Peter Johansson.
Screenshot from ‘Blood Sacrifice’: Netflix.
Nothing is Truly Scandinavian
This, then, was my impression after watching only two episodes of the series, which consists of five episodes. The series is still worth watching, especially with ‘our’ Jakob Oftebro in the leading role.
The best thing so far is the interplay between Oftebro and his alcoholic father, who was formerly an investigator and who helps him solve the case.
Other ethnicities in a series like this would never be a problem. But it is problematic when they become so dominant that the original culture and population almost disappear from the picture.
We are preferably not supposed to say it out loud, but I have stopped pretending that I do not notice it. Everyone else is allowed to retain their culture and distinct character. Why should we Scandinavians be the exception?
My husband and I usually watch more international series on Netflix than American ones.
One of the things we like is seeing the people, places, landscapes and culture of the country in which the series is made. Diversity is fine, but not political correctness on steroids, as in ‘Blood Sacrifice’.
I actually find it rather arrogant that a British director comes to Sweden and makes a series that, to such a great extent, attempts to tell Swedes what the new Sweden should look like.
While watching the series, I suddenly thought of the SAS advertisement that caused such an uproar a few years ago: ‘Nothing is Scandinavian’.
It is difficult not to get somewhat the same feeling from this series. It is quite clear that the creators, like Luke, want to show us the new Sweden.
Another thing that went through my mind while watching ‘Blood Sacrifice’ was the Swedish song ‘Lyckliga gatan’.
Lyckliga gatan du finns inte mer
Du har försvunnit med hela kvarter
Tystnat har leken, tystnat har sången …
