Midsommar in the Time of Corona
‘We’re the virus, corona is the cure’.
There has been a lot of this sentiment online recently with people celebrating the fact that swans may be returning to Venetian canals and pollution is residing. I don’t have much experience of living through global pandemics, but they’re pretty fucking scary. People are alone and afraid and look to find comfort in any way and for some people, that’s becoming eco-fascists, just like Dani (Florence Pugh) in Midsommar (Ari Aster, 2019). During these strange times, I turn to films that bring me warmth and comfort and yes Midsommar does that for me. However, having already seen it multiple times on the big screen I thought it was finally time to check out the director’s cut and boy those extra scenes bring the fascist nature of Hårga to light.
The homeland of the Hårga truly is an eco-fascists dream. There are lush green hills, the sky is constantly blue, and most important of all its inhabitants are all white. The blonde-haired, sallow-skinned Hårga frolic in the fields all day and murder immigrants by night. Runes are strewn throughout the commune with symbols strikingly similar to the fascist Othala rune or black-sun symbol. The reasoning for this is clear, fascists are obsessed with a fictionalised Nordic history. There is evidence of Nazi writings about ascending from white Nordic Gods and having an ancestral Aryan home in a Thule society, which I’m sure they imagine looking just like the Hårga. Apart from being incredibly racist, these fascist beliefs of the past are fictionalised much like the rituals of the Hårga. The most eco-fascist of all their rituals, ättestupa, an act of senicide that is linked to Nordic traditions is believed by researchers to have never existed. However, reality has never mattered to the beliefs of fascists, they’ll still have wet dreams over a historic white homeland and the Hårga will still kill their elders to give back to the land.
If there’s one thing fascists love more than fabricated pasts, it’s hating people of colour and the Hårga are no different. While one may not expect eco-fascists to invite outsiders into their commune it soon becomes clear that they are not welcome to stay for long. In fact, all the guests are swiftly murdered, except of course for the blonde woman who becomes their May queen. Eco-fascists look at the current state of the world with its mass deforestation and rising sea levels and think in their brains that are melting faster than the polar ice caps that these problems are caused by immigrants. And I mean the Deepwater Horizon oil spill did take place off the Gulf of Mexico not the gulf of the USA BABY, Hulk Hogan would never let that happen to the land of the free. You can’t blame deforestation in the rainforest on billion-dollar corporations, no it is obviously the wrongdoing of migrants, oh shit wait Europeans migrated there so it’s obviously because of the indigenous people in that case. This can be seen in modern Sweden as right-wing populists claim they are losing their Swedish heritage due to immigration, but if they looked at Sweden’s role during World War 2, they’d realise that their anti-immigration stance is the same as their ancestors. The Hårga follow suit and keep their culture of pure bloodlines alive too thanks to murdering outsiders.
May Queen Dani became the go-to Halloween costume for a legion of A24 fans last year and at first, it might seem strange to dress up as someone who joins a fascist commune but she also escaped an abusive relationship which led her on the path to being inculcated with those beliefs. The opening sequence of the film is a horrific experience, both for the viewers and specifically for Dani who tragically loses her family. She is cold and alone with no home in her urban world. Dani finds a twisted sense of community with the Hårga as while she mourned the death of her parents, they celebrate the act of senicide and see it as a noble act. Her eyes light up when she arrives as they embrace her in a way her partner doesn’t. She has been craving a sense of belonging and warmth and she eventually finds it. At first, Dani tries to remove herself from the commune, but her thoughts are poisoned, and she runs in circles until she is so disoriented that she finds warmth in their arms. The Hårga do not truly care for her either; they merely mimic her pain to indoctrinate her, but it is clear why she wants to remain. Aster understands that in times of crisis, when people are alone and afraid, as many are now, people turn to any sense of community and safety they can and for some that is unfortunately fascism. The actual homeplace of the Hårga is picturesque and videos of swans in Venice are beautiful too but people dying isn’t the way to achieve it. I think most people would agree that pollution is bad but saying someone’s granny was the reason a swan didn’t swim in a river is fucked because all fascist beliefs are.
Dani may not have known what she was in for and people sharing a video of swans may not know that they’re peddling eco-fascists beliefs, but ask yourself; if those swans were black how many people would have retweeted it?
