Swede Emotion

Date: 2011.12.26 | Category: Sweden, TV | Tags:

Every time I watch a finale of “The Amazing Race,” one of my favorite TV shows, I can’t help but fantasize about how great it would be to win the reality competition’s first prize: one million dollars. Even after taxes, that’s a substantial, life-changing amount of dough. Of course, I would never actually apply to go on “The Amazing Race,” as I find regular travel stressful enough, even without having to run around foreign cities looking for clue boxes and bungee jumping off skyscrapers.

Last night, during the conclusion of “Allt för Sverige” (“Everything for Sweden”), a Swedish reality competition show, I realized that if I had been a contestant, I would have gone out of my way to avoid winning first place. That’s because the grand prize is a family reunion with dozens of distant relatives you’ve never met before. After watching the show, I found an interview with the program’s Swedish host, where he commented that most Swedes “would rather cut off their own arm” than win such a prize. I felt happy when I read that. I really am a typical Swede.

The 10 Americans of Swedish descent who competed on “Allt för Sverige” could not have been more pumped up about the chance to meet their long-lost relations. None of them had ever been in Sweden before. All of them had grandparents or great-grandparents who had emigrated many years before. The program gave them the opportunity to learn more about their heritage, and in the end, one lucky (?) winner got to attend a family reunion. Don’t feel too sorry for the nine “losers,” though; each of them received a packet of information, compiled by a professional genealogist, with a family tree and contact information for their Swedish relatives. They may not have been able to meet them in person, but at least they can meet on Facebook.

Like “The Amazing Race,” “Survivor” and their ilk, ”Allt för Sverige” is a competition in which each week, one contestant is kicked off. The winners were determined through a series of challenges, all with a Swedish focus. One week, they had to hit tennis balls against Björn Borg’s actual garage door (the young Borg couldn’t always find other people to play with, so he practiced his swing by hitting balls against the door). They toured a museum devoted to Swedish singer Lill-Babs and then had to answer questions about her career, posed by the star herself. (Hilariously, the Americans initially figured Lill-Babs had to be a gangsta rapper, since her named reminded them of Lil’ Wayne.) In Stockholm, they had to follow clues that took them to popular tourist spots like the Gröna Lund amusement park and City Hall.

The Americans also got to visit specific locales where their forefathers had lived, which made them very emotional. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a reality show with so much crying, and I say that as someone who’s watched several seasons of “The Bachelor.” One of the contestants posted on his Facebook page that his family had given him a T-shirt for Christmas with the slogan, “There’s no crying in Sweden,” to poke fun at the show’s never-ending waterworks.

The thing I liked best about “Allt för Sverige” was its gentle nature, which was as far as you can get from the cutthroat, back-stabbing tactics rewarded on shows like “Survivor.” The 10 contestants genuinely seemed to like and support each other. Because Swedish state TV doesn’t have commercial interruptions during shows, the program runs a full hour, giving you more time to get to know the personalities involved. The runner-up wound up helping the winner complete the final task in the last challenge — raising a Swedish flag — and rejoiced in the competitor’s victory. (The person who came in second place has since returned to Sweden and was able to meet the relatives.) And, as I mentioned above, there were no losers, since no one went home empty handed.

Best of all, the contestants truly fell in love with Sweden. Watching the show, which was shot during June of this year, you can see why — the TV cameras were always sweeping across some gorgeous scenery, from Stockholm’s picturesque archipelago to the sandy beaches of Skåne to the expansive wilderness above the Arctic Circle. One cheeky talk show host, after interviewing contestant Guy Clark, presented him with a book featuring photos of some of the country’s grittier urban locales, presumably so he would know that Sweden is more than little red cottages and fields of wildflowers.

“Allt för Sverige” became a gigantic hit in Sweden (although it didn’t manage to unseat the country’s most popular show, “På Spåret” ["On Track"], in which celebrities “are shown filmed journeys, usually from the front of a train, and the object is for each team to identify the destination of the train,” according to Wikipedia). Because all of the “Allt för Sverige” contestants are Americans, approximately 95% of the show is in English; if you’d like to watch it, it’s available on YouTube (here’s a link to the first installment). And if you’re an American of Swedish descent, keep an eye on the program’s Facebook page to find out if they’ll be casting a new season. I’d suggest that next year’s contestants pack lots of Kleenex.