Dreamgirls (+ bonus finlandssvensk rednecks)

[cimorene]

We finally saw Dreamgirls. It was as fun as I thought it would be, and the costumes were fabulous, which was its main attraction to me, I confess, but the music was really fun too (although I was kind of more impressed with the comeback song, "One Night", than that classic I'm Not Going or whatever ballad). We bought Attitude on the way over and I read an interview with Diana Ross and an article about the movie. Both were really interesting - and while I'm not exactly surprised that the movie pisses her off, I'm kind of bemused by the venom since, as the magazine pointed out, the portrait presented is pretty flattering to her (well, except to her vocal abilities, which are somewhat under-zaggerated).

It also had the effect of making me really homesick - it's very American-flavoured, and, well, it's full of black people. I haven't seen very many of them for a long time, which is... kind of creepy. I had that problem when I first went to college in Massachusetts too, but I didn't realise how comparatively mild the situation was until I came here. Here, I'm rather on the dark side - olive undertones! omg!

As I mentioned to wax, it's a lot easier to feel homesick when the place you're thinking about returning to would be physically more comfortable, and I can't lie - it's been in the -20s C (-4 to -12 F) here, while I hear it's been more like mid-50s F (13 C) in Alabama. And that the ground isn't covered in ice and dirty snow. And it would be great to eat my mom's cooking for a while instead of my own. Isn't it sad that when you have to prepare your own food, it's just when you're most exhausted and in need of comfort that you end up eating poorly, because you don't have it in you to cook elaborately?

Oh, and I almost forgot! We saw Swedish-speaking rednecks at the theatre! There were tattoos and everything! Wax says they might have been from Pargas.

Comments

[claire.livejournal.com]

Were the rednecks all called "Bubba" (what is Swedish/Finnish for Bubba, anyway?)

[cimness.livejournal.com]

I don't know what they were called because we didn't get to spend very long eavesdropping, but according to Wax a Swedish Finn Bubba might be called a basic Swedish male name shortened to a two-syllable nickname ending in a vowel such as Matti, Patte, Gutte, Lennu, Krissu, Kelle, etc. It's more the way of talking and the way of forming the nickname than the given name itself, apparently.

[claire.livejournal.com]

I'm still kind of amused at the idea of Swedish Finn rednecks. I guess I kind of had this idea of rednecks being a purely English-speaking species.

The Swedish nickname thing sounds very similar to the way Australians do the nickname thing - I don't know how many guys I've met called, Stevo, Davo, Bazza, Johnno, Simmo etc, etc.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Finland's a very rural country, so it lends itself extra much to rednecks! The larger part of the Swedish Finn population is concentrated in the slightly more urban areas, though. It's the Finns in central Finland who epitomise the Finnish redneck as a whole, I gather.