How queer are the Moomins? 🌈

You’ve almost certainly seen the Moomins before (even if you didn’t know their name)- they’re the absolutely adorable creatures created by Finish author and illustrator, Tove Jansson. But, what do you know about Jansson’s love life?

How LGBTQ+ are the Moomins???🌈

#QueerHistory #Moomin #DidYouKnow #LesbianLove

[MDonuT-ofpx]

She truly is a bi icon!
My favorite fact about her is that she did the illustrations for the Swedish first copy of "The Hobbit", and drew Gollum as some giant beast. This Prompted JRR Tolkien to check, and realize that he had not directly specified Gollum's size and added his intended description for the second edition.

[Sentientmatter]

Tobe being bisexual was SO important to me. My mother accepted gayness but could not accept bisexuality and therefore could not accept me. Finding out her favorite author was bisexual really helped her accept bisexuality as a natural thing.

[Freshmarketflesh]

IM SO HAPPY!!!
I’ve seen so many videos of non Finnish people mentioning the Moomins and never say it’s originated from Finland. Always saying it’s Swedish or Japanese. You clearly have done research and I as a Finnish person who doesn’t see our made media represented a lot on non Finnish side of the internet.

I don’t even mind that the pronunciation wasn’t perfect because I know you definitely did your research🩷
This made my day💖

Also the first Moomin comics were made after the Second World War to cheer up the upset and traumatized soldiers and the people of Finland.

Also Tove was Finnish Swedish, which means she was Swedish descent and spoke both Swedish and Finnish. This is why many people mistake Moomins as a Swedish creation.

[mime]

Also, the most popular ship in the Moomin fandom is a gay one, between Snufkin and Moomintroll(with Snufkin being based on Tove’s ex fiancé, whom she loved dearly but they took different paths in life and Moomintroll being a self insert of Tove in her work). Pretty gay and pretty wholesome if you ask me ;)

[silja]

The characters Tofslan and Vifslan were also based on Tove and her former partner Vivica Bandler and the giant ruby they had hidden in their briefcase represented Tove and Vivica’s at the time forbidden love 💚 I just love Tove!

[TeacupToaster]

Ahhh! I'd love a deep dive on this topic! There are so many queer things in the moomin lore!
-Tofslan and Vifslan were based on Tove and her previous partner Vivica Bandler, and the big secret they hid in their bag was referencing their queerness. When the characters showed the moomins what was inside the bag it was a beautiful ruby that was celebrated.
-The character Mymlan got her name from her and vivica's made up word that basically meant making love lol.
-In the comics the moomins find a dog who only likes cats so they help him dress up as a cat so he can play with them, it's extremely queer coded and adorable, in the end the cats accept him as a dog.


Vem ska trösta knyttet and many other parts also had some hidden queer references, but this comment is getting too long hehe. Tove was the first openly gay woman to be invited to the president's ball, which she attended with her life partner Tuulikki. Her whole history is very interesting and would love to see it shared!

[martabartoszewska]

This reminded me that when abortion was banned in Poland a few years ago, one of the women who very publicly supported the ban (yep, a woman going out of her way to take away a woman's right to choose) wrote a post on Twitter in which she expressed her happiness at the ban. In that post she referenced the Moomins, and soon the official Moomin account reached out to her and told her to delete the post because the creator of Moomins never would have supported taking away women's rights

[Leena]

For anyone interested, a film called Tove (from 2020) is a biopic of Tove Jansson.

[abandoned__]

i cannot help but notice every time finnish culture or media is mentioned anywhere, they all flock to it ! good job finns

[tessalyyvuo]

I'm Finnish and it made so giddy to hear you tell about Tove!

[mime]

BABE WAKE UP, IT’S MOOMIN TIME! I seriously doubt it could get any gayer than this and I’m grateful for that 😭💞

[jennifers]

Wow! Their life together sounds like a fairytale! Love it.

[pattheplanter]

I hope there is a long-form video coming for Tove. There is a lot of life she lived.

[PhoebeFayRuthLouise]

“Now, how am I making your childhood queer today?”

You slay me, Jessica!

[philosusphie]

The moomins was one of the first stories my mum ever read to me as bedtime story when I was little. I basically grew up with them. Now I'm 21 and still read the stories and comics over and over again, and my mum makes a personal moomin and tove calendar, with pictures of the moomins, other paintings of tove and pictures of her and her partner. She isn't queer, but she was the first one to tell me about her having a female partner and being excited about it and I think that made it easier for me to think of my own queerness as something joyful! Also I just love the found family of the moomins.

[Ekami-chan]

Was not expecting you to do moomins video! Just love your vibe/clothing and good pronunciation of Pietilä (i know it's hard) :D

[prollymarkus]

back in grade four we used to watch a moomins episode to end the day on fridays. thank you mr. ahlberg for being amazing and letting us watch

[jenniferrose]

I knew there was a reason I’m obsessed!! My daughter’s whole nursery is Moomin!!

[Galaxy-cat]

I LOVED Moomins as a kid. I am Bulgarian so I read it in Bulgarian but i loved it so much. This is so interesting to hear about the author:)

[linkfan]

I love thr Moomins! Also as a Finnish person thank you for pronouncing the names correctly and doing your research!