Pippi Longstocking

Content Warning: This section contains references to racial stereotypes contained within the novel.

Pippi Longstocking was originally published in 1945 in Sweden and in 1950 in the United States. At the time, racist jokes and stereotypical images existed in newsprint and in children’s media, particularly cartoons, because nonwhite or non-European peoples were believed to be exotic at best and animalistic at worst. Stereotyped images resulting from these beliefs perpetuated harmful, offensive, and inaccurate ideas about people of color. For example, Dr. Seuss remains one of the most celebrated children’s authors of all time, but many of his drawings from this time contain racist imagery, both in his stories and in his political cartoons (“6 Dr. Seuss Books Will Stop Being Published Because of Racist Imagery.” PBS, 2 Mar. 2021).

Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstocking contains similar instances of racist stereotyping; Pippi makes up racist stories and isn’t reprimanded for them, but she is reprimanded for lying. The first instance is her belief that her father has become a “cannibal king” (58). This particular story of Pippi’s was apparently inspired by the real-life story of a Swedish sailor named Carl Emil Pettersson, who regularly traveled between Sweden and his home in Papua New Guinea where his family lived in the early 1900s.