Learning about Culture: Rita Season 1

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In the first season of the Danish drama Rita, there were quite a few cultural things mentioned and I was excited to research them, but after getting started, I discovered that there weren’t very many website that had actual information on the topics and so now I am left with the things I have written here. I hope you enjoy them none-the-less.

“Boing Boing”

In the Danish Drama, Rita, the students were learning about poetry. Rita allowed the student’s to choose their own poetry and one student had chosen a rap song. There’s not much that I can say about this except it was released in 2003. Here ya go:

 

Trolls

Rita’s troll collection

I probably wouldn’t decide to write about this if I didn’t already know that toy trolls were first created in Denmark. In the first episode, we discover that Rita has an intensive troll collection. The first troll doll was created by a baker/woodcutter named Thomas Dam. He created it when he bakery was struggling and he called it, “The Good Luck Troll.” The Dam trolls, also known as Gjøl trolls, are considered collector’s items.

 

Bard

Hjørdis wants to be Rita’s bard, but Rita declines. My question is…what is a bard?  A bard was a professional story teller and verse-maker to praise the patron’s own activities.


Other things that were difficult to find out:

  • Good Morning Denmark: Ricco’s mother-in-law bragged about how she was on the show. The only thing I found out was that it’s the only good morning show that is broadcasted nationally.
  • After the death of someone close to Rita, Hjørdis about Syrians being the first to have professional mourners because holding in grief will cause the demon Bhalak to come. I couldn’t find much information about professional mourners in Syria nor about Bhalak.
  • Daniah Charity song called, “Give a Well to Africa.” I could not find any information, but I did find this (the following is satire):

I have written in my notes many more cultural things, but it appears that I can’t validate any of the information that I find and so I will just end this post with links to how a Danish wedding is and now a Danish funeral is.

 

Thank you for reading! What information is most interesting to you?

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