page_title: Pippi Longstocking
section_title: Cultural impact
hierarchical_section_title: Pippi Longstocking / Cultural impact
caption_attribution_description: Svenska: Pippi Långstrump på Astrid Lindgrens Värld i Vimmerby, 2014. English: Pippi Longstocking at Astrid Lindgrens Värld, Vimmerby 2014.
context_page_description: Pippi Longstocking is the fictional main character in an eponymous series of children's books by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren. Pippi was named by Lindgren's daughter Karin, who asked her mother for a get-well story when she was off school.
  Pippi is red-haired, freckled, unconventional and superhumanly strong – able to lift her horse one-handed. She is playful and unpredictable. She often makes fun of unreasonable adults, especially if they are pompous and condescending. Her anger comes out in extreme cases, such as when a man mistreats his horse. Pippi, like Peter Pan, does not want to grow up. She is the daughter of a buccaneer captain and has adventure stories to tell about that, too. Her four best friends are her horse and monkey, and the neighbours' children, Tommy and Annika.
  After being rejected by Bonnier Publishers in 1944, Lindgren's first manuscript was accepted by Rabén and Sjögren. The three Pippi chapter books were published from 1945 to 1948, followed by three short stories and a number of picture book adaptations. They have been translated into 76 languages as of 2018 and made into several films and television series.
context_section_description: Pippi Longstocking quickly became popular in Sweden upon publication, and by the end of the 1940s, 300,000 copies had been sold, saving Rabén and Sjögren from impending financial ruin. This was partially due to Olenius's marketing: she ensured that the book was frequently read to a radio audience, as well as helping to put on a popular adaptation of the book at her children's theatre at Medborgarhuset, Stockholm, in March 1946, for which only a library card was required for admission. This performance also toured other Swedish cities, including Norrköping, Göteborg, and Eskilstuna. Another factor in the book's success was two positive reviews by the influential Swedish critics of children's culture, Eva von Zweigbergk and Greta Bolin, writing for Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet, respectively; they  praised the main character as "a liberatory force." Zweigbergk wrote that Pippi could provide an outlet for regular children who do not have the considerable freedom she possesses, with which Bolin agreed, remarking that Pippi's humor and antics would also appeal to adults for the same reason.
  Subsequent reviews of Pippi Longstocking echoed the general opinions of von Zweigbergk and Bolin towards the book, until John Landquist's criticism in an August 1946 piece published in Aftonbladet, titled "BAD AND PRIZEWINNING." Landquist, who worked as a professor at Lund University, argued that the book was badly done, harmful to children, and that Pippi herself was mentally disturbed. Further criticism of Pippi's supposedly "unnatural" and harmful behavior followed in an article in the teachers' magazine Folkskollärarnas Tidning and in readers' letters to magazines. This debate over Pippi's performance of childhood colored the reviews of the sequel Pippi Goes On Board (October 1946), some of which responded to Landquist's argument within the review itself. Regardless, Pippi continued to maintain her popularity and was featured in a range of merchandising, adaptations, and advertising.
  In 1950, Pippi Longstocking was translated into American English by Viking Books, featuring Louis Glanzman's artwork. It did not become a bestseller, although sales did eventually improve after the initial release; more than five million copies had been sold by 2000. Pippi was positively received by American reviewers, who did not find her behavior "subversive" or problematic, but rather "harmless" and entertaining. Eva-Maria Metcalf has argued that Pippi was subject to a "double distancing" as both a foreign character and one believed to nonsensical, thus minimizing her potentially subversive actions that had stirred the minor controversy earlier in Sweden. As a result of Pippi and Lindgren's growing recognition in the United States, Pippi's behavior in later books became more critically scrutinized by literary critics, some of whom were less sure of the "hilarious nonsensical behavior, the goodness of her heart, and the freedom of her spirit" that had been lauded in earlier reviews. Reviewers of Pippi in the South Seas in Hornbook and The Saturday Review found Pippi to be less charming than in earlier books, with The Saturday Review describing her as "noisy and rude and unfunny."
  An influential television adaptation of Pippi Longstocking debuted on 8 February 1969 in Sweden, and was broadcast for thirteen weeks, during which it acquired a considerable following. It was directed by Olle Hellbom, who later directed other adaptations of Lindgren's works. Inger Nilsson starred as Pippi, and upon the broadcast of the television series, she became a celebrity along with her co-stars Pär Sundberg and Maria Persson, who played Tommy and Annika respectively. As a result of Lindgren's considerable unhappiness with the lesser-known Swedish film adaptation of Pippi Longstocking (1949), she wrote the screenplay for the television adaptation, which stuck more closely to the narrative of the books than the film had. Scholar Christine Anne Holmlund briefly discussed the difference she found between the two iterations of Pippi, namely that Viveca Serlachius's port
caption: An actor portrays Pippi in front of a scale model of Villa Villekulla at Astrid Lindgren's World.
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