Lilla Hjärtats två ansikten
En diskursanalys av debatten om en barnboksfigur
In the autumn of 2012 the fictional character ?Lilla Hjärtat? created by the Swedish authorand illustrator Stina Wirsén, became a much-discussed topic in Swedish media. Thisfollowing the premiere of the children?s film ?Liten Skär och alla små brokiga?.Stina Wirsén is an established and well-acclaimed name in children?s literature. ?LillaHjärtat?, a jet-black doll, had become one of many popular characters in her books. However,two years later at the time of the film release, social media picked up on the idea that ?LillaHjärtat? resembled a racist stereotype, a so-called picaninny or a blackface.According to Wirsén, her intention was to deflate an outdated stereotype and refill it with anew and positive meaning. The purpose was to offer children of all skin colours and allbackgrounds an empowering role model to identify with. Those who were opposed arguedthat using a racist stereotype in a children?s book or film was inappropriate and harmful. Onthe other hand, those in favour did not view the character as racist and believed it wouldcontribute to openness and diversity.The purpose of the thesis is to make an analysis of the debate and the arguments that werepresented. As a result I could find two discourses, one that argued against ?Lilla Hjärtat?, andone that argued that ?Lilla Hjärtat? was a positive character. In the discourse against LillaHjärtat, debaters maintained that small children were unable to distinguish between thedifferent meanings of stereotypical pictures, and also that a privileged white person does nothave the interpretative prerogative to change a stereotypical image that has beendiscriminating black people for generations. In the other discourse, debaters meant that thecharacter could be an important and strong role model for young dark-skinned children. Theyalso discussed that the real problem was that there were so few characters of children of other nationalities in children?s literature.