Vikings

Posted by Vicki on 15.12.05

As the void of a largely directionless future looms ever large people tend to look backwards for meaning to forcibly insert into their life; hence the glut of films concentrating on important historic events or individuals who can be portrayed in either a heroic or an honourably tragic light, for example Alexander, King Arthur and Beowulf or the events in Troy, or even loosely factual historically-set works such as Gladiator.

These provide escapism to an age where it was deemed a good thing to be a self-centred ego-maniacal wretch whose acts were largely self serving yet were somehow deemed to be noble. The forthcoming film version of Beowulf will no doubt take itself far too seriously and will never top the David Lambert version complete with 1980s hair styles, dubious He-Man style costumes and extremely dodgy CGI special effects.

The Roman period has it's several hours of celluloid fame over the last few summers and has slowly retreated to the small screen where large quantities of nudity, swearing and general misbehaviour can be excused as plot devices after Watershed without putting ratings at risk with restrictive age restrictions. In it's place sequels and cash-ins wander uninhibited as the search starts for the next theme.

One that hasn't yet been fully exploited is that of Vikings; having racked my brains, and that of random passers-by, the only film that springs to mind is surprisingly good 'The 13th Warrior' - admittedly their monsters weren't a patch on the foam rubber monsters of old and Antonia Banderas wander around in seemingly smug confusion with a dubious accent. The lack of films featuring Vikings could be explained by the prospect of Viking long ships having given those in charge of budgets an aneurism - despite the fact Jason and the Argonauts managed a similar cinematic feat and even had skeletal warriors.

There are a few books which loosely incorporate Vikings into otherwise hi-tech adventures, with Clive Cussler (link) being a key offender, however it seems that the appeal of long haired hugely muscled men has bypassed predominantly male authors despite such looks having done a young Arnold Schwarzenegger no harm. Fortunately there are a vast number of European Death Metal bands whose antics, looks and attitude could bear less resemblance to Vikings - admittedly there are few verified reports that Vikings wore corpse paint but none the less the attitude of pillaging and then igniting the ruins can be seen in bands such as Emperor, Zyklon, Dark Tranquillity and Grand Magas. To a lesser extent this is contained within more thrash orientated bands as Children of Bodom, Dimension Zero, Entombed, Bloodbath, At the Gates, Amon Amarth, Hypocrisy and Panzerchrist.

The established and in some cases growing popularity of these bands could point towards a mixing of of and new when it comes to fashion, for example black bondage pants combined with heavy axes and blood being used a hair styling product. Admittedly this could initially cause some panic amongst the older generation as well as a slight decline in the frequency of washing amongst adolescent boys, but it would almost certainly encourage good manners and a move towards eating organic home-grown food - most likely large slabs of red meat.