mandag den 2. marts 2009

Femi in February - Macho in March

One month ago, on the first of February, I posted a long article about ´the ten commandments of the Scandinavian femikrimi´. I have promised some of my readers that I would take up the questions ´is there a genre which could be called macho-krimi?´

I am a woman, and I really don´t have any expert knowledge on the topic so let me first ask my intelligent and well-read blog visitors:

1) does the genre macho-krimi exist?
2) what could be the genre requirements? (please put your suggestions in a comment, and you do not have to come up with ten)

And let´s see what we can come up with together.


Femikrimi i februar - machokrimi i marts.
For en måned siden, første februar, skrev jeg et længere indlæg om den skandinaviske femikrimis ti bud. Jeg har lovet flere af mine læsere, at jeg ville tage følgende spørgsmål op: ´findes der en genre, som kunne kaldes machokrimi?´

Jeg er selv kvinde, og jeg har ikke nogen ekspert klar ved hånden til at hjælpe mig med dette emne, så lad mig først spørge mine intelligente og belæste blog-gæster:

1) findes genren machokrimi?
2) hvilke krav kunne der være til denne genre? (send dine forslag i en kommentar, også selv om du kun har et par stykker).

Og lad os så se, hvad vi kan nå frem til i fællesskab.

6 kommentarer:

Unknown sagde ...

Hi there,
I've given you an award. Come by my blog and pick it up.
Enjoy!

Dorte H sagde ...

Thank you very much Lilly!
I will be there this afternoon :)

betteskov sagde ...

I have been looking very much forward to this discussion. Of course, it is rather scary to be the first person to try to define the genre, but I have a couple of tentative suggestions:
a) the detective must be male
b) the detective considers his masculinity an important part of his identity
c) it might not be the main topic, but a macho-krimi should include some speculations about the role of men in society

I consider Haakan Nessers books macho-krimis!

Dorte H sagde ...

Good of you to open the discussion, Jane (and not that surprising either). I don´t know how many comments & rules I will get on the basis of this post, but I am going to copy yours and return to them soon.

Anonym sagde ...

"c) it might not be the main topic, but a macho-krimi should include some speculations about the role of men in society".

Usually "macho" is used in a derogatory way. Therefore to talk about "the male question" under the header "macho" would be either offensive or, as macho predicts a certain world view not sensible.

Obviously "I, The Jury" by Mickey Spillane would be a natural choice for "macho" crime fiction, John D. MacDonald would write from a quiet different point of view about maleness, with a truly male protagonist but his books have nothing to do with macho.

To be honest I don't think that there is anything like macho-krimi, that you or I would care about. There might be crime fiction that features macho protagonists and there might be crime fiction speculating about male questions (that is what you have in mind, I think) but there is no equivalent to that what is called Frauenkrimi, i.e. femikrimi.

[And, sorry to say, being the father of two boys (and living in a society that is dominated by "female communication": I don't know what masculinity is.]

Dorte H sagde ...

Bernd, I am so glad you wrote this thorough, thought-provoking comment!
You are certainly touching on some of the points I would like to discuss: why is feminism regarded in such a positive light while it is difficult to come up with a masculine equivalent which is not ridiculous or negative.
I am going to take this up later in March, of course, and refer to your and Jane´s comments.