Girls kiss better than boys

Alexandra Dahlström became Elin with the whole Swedish nation when it was obvious that “Fucking Åmål” was the best teenage movie ever made in Sweden. Marie Birde met her an ordinary day after school.

•	We just had woodwork. Really I do well in school, but woodwork is maybe not my best subject. It’s fun anyway... I’m doing a kind of shelf that I don’t really know what to do with. Maybe I’ll paint it chock pink. I sniffed a bit on the silverpaint as well. 
•	What? Did you want to “do drugs”?
•	Oh, but I can recognise myself so much in that scene. Sometimes everything is so boring you just fell like doing stuff, even if it’s stupid.

You get a little surprised when you meet Alexandra because she’s so determined; it’s very important that everything is done just her way. It’s impressing that she’s so good at telling what she wants and thinks, as well as taking the time to question things she finds strange. But it’s hard to answer the questions. There are so much more to talk about: school, the party in the evening, the guy with the brown hair, and just about anything - except the questions. 

•	Really you should record me at the nature-classes, because you say so many funny things then. There are mass-psychosis there sometimes. Also you can get scared, like when someone says that everything you’ve got in your head is just memories. Maybe I should record myself when talking to my mother, instead of writing a diary. That would be cool; it’s easier to talk than it is to write.
•	Ok, but what is it like to be “Elin” with the whole Swedish population?
•	It’s alright, I guess. Elin is not entirely like me, and still I have to live up to her... Now I’m talking about her as if she was a real person, but she’s not - I’m taking her shape. The girl who plays Jessica (Erica Carlsson), my sister that is, was so damn good. She held the entire film together, and she has received far to little credit for that. Besides, I’m better than Elin, because I’m smarter.
•	And what is it like to have become all teenagers spokeswoman, as you actually have?
•	Am I really? In that case, I think it’s embarrassing, because I’m not like teenagers are. Besides, I can’t go saying what people like and do, since everybody wants different things. Then I hate when you in a generalising way shove together all young people in one strange homogenous group. Just because I’m 14, I can’t stand up and speak for all 14-year-old people. We don’t act in a certain way; everybody is different.
•	One thing that’s fascinating about you is that you’re so precocious...
•	It’s probably some damage in my brain... But I think a lot too. That can be combined with school a lot. School is so underestimated. 
•	And that you have the guts to stand up and say your opinions in such a good way. How do you do, and how do you dare?
•	I don’t. But I don’t want to care. Sometimes I succeed, and then I don’t really give a shit about what other people say about me. But how I dare? I am really not as strong as I may seem. Sometimes I am, but another day I get weak and don’t dare at all. I can’t say exactly why I dare do so much. But I hate that thing about being “in-between” and melting in, and having to do things just because others do and because society says you must.
•	Could it have something to do with the way you were brought up? Did you have extremely good parents?
•	My mother has always been extremely good, but it’s not easy. There are several times in my life when I have been really depressed, but then again I have of course felt really great as well. I hate being 14. Everybody thinks it’s going to be so fun, that it’s a wonderful age.
•	Yes, I suppose people glamorise that age quite a lot, especially the older people?
•	Yeah, but really they don’t. It’s more people in my age that do the glamorising part. “Now we have to go out all the time, we have to go parties and we have to do a lot of things.”
•	All the time you have to have as fun as possible, and you never learn that things can really be quite difficult as well?
•	Well, I think I have learned that quite a bit, because when I spend time with my 20-year-old friends, their lives seem so wonderful. Not that it’s perfect, but at least better than what I have right now.
•	So you think things will get better?
•	I hope so anyway. That people will start accepting each other, and that it’s okay to wear different clothes...
•	I see you have bought that “Lady Soul”-jacket that you have slandered so much!
•	No, it’s one of those long copy-jackets that’s grey. I hate it more than anything else, first because it’s grey and the fact that everything has to be grey makes me sick, and then because it makes me look like a clone-copy. But anyway, Lukas Moodysson for example: he’s 29 and that much more wonderful it will probably not get, because he also has aging agony. Do you have ageing agony?
•	No, but I had when I was about 20.
•	It’s really the society’s fault. We have this age segregation in Sweden that means you have to divide ages. You can be 14 and at the highest 15 if you spend time with each other. Even 14-year-olds and 16-year-olds can be taboo, just because there are some people who think it’s a too big age difference. You see the age before the person, and that makes me so extremely irritated. We go around with blinders and don’t see the individual. Everything I see of you is the surface: how old you are and what sex you are, and I judge you after that. No wonder you are prejudiced. But I think I’m quite double-minded there, because I can be at teenage parties and have fun as hell... Then I can kiss everything and everybody and kiss one of my girl friends just to provoke.
•	But then again, girls kiss better than boys.
•	Yes, they do sometimes. Guys have so large mouths. And also, it’s a good way of picking up boys. At one point, it almost because a cheap pick-up line I had: “But I kiss boys as well!”. But I don’t care about having a boy friend; that’s not the most important goal.
•	Why do you think all guys are repulsive?
•	But they’re not. Not everybody. Have I said that?
•	Yes.
•	I say so many strange things and then I regret it. But I do think guys at my age are totally uninteresting and you cant’ date older guys. 
•	So all my friends and all other older guys who think you are wonderful don’t stand a chance?
•	They can kiss me if they’re good looking, but maybe not really be together with me.
•	Why do you always fall for real pigs?
•	Because you’re so fucking manipulated. “You have to have a boy friend, otherwise you’re ugly and totally wrong!”. Since I like guys with self-confidence, I don’t like the wimp guys, despite the fact that they’re probably the best people in the world, and they will probably be real babes when they get older. The real pigs show something that at least seem to be strength. And it seems there is not a single guy in my age with good self-confidence. But now, this boy-friend agony has settled, and I have started to look through this “Goddamn I’m cruel”-surface to see the shit scared guys behind. So now, I don’t want to date anyone at all.
•	Love is really sick. Is it called “hångla” or “strula” anyway? (note: two swedish words meaning kissing that can’t be translated into English)
•	We discussed that before shooting Fucking Åmål. Before the shoot, I would have said “strula”, but during the film we said “hångla” and then I have continued with that. Do you know that I play bandy and broke my finger during the summer?
•	No, but I want to know if you’re fixated to the way people look?
•	I was before, but that has passed quite a lot. Now I don’t have to wear make-up everytime I go somewhere. I have always been much more mature than my friends. When they were eleven and read “Frida” (a Swedish youth magazine), I was an eleven-year-old reading “Veckorevyn” (also a Swedish youth magazine). “Veckorevyn” has destroyed my life.
•	In what way?
•	I believed what they said and tried diets and everything even though I was far too young. I also got fixated to the way people look and got a bad self-confidence. Do you know that actually, you don’t really exist?
•	What? Yes I do!
•	Really, you’re just a mix of your mother, father, culture, your friends, mass media and everything. And think about the fact that every atom in your body is replaced. And you’re so easily manipulated you have to have a religion. All human beings have to have a religion and believe in things. It doesn’t have to be a traditional religion - it can be consumption, appearance fixation, violence fixation, scince... Mazz media is a kind of religion people adapt to. 
•	Do they really?
•	Yeah, you just suck up everything without questioning it first. You believe in “Big Bang” and stuff even though it’s something you don’t know has really happened... Or I don’t know. I haven’t really finished the discussion in my own head yet, but everybody has to believe in something, otherwise you go crazy.
•	Okay. I have heard your mother is Russian. Have you ever been there?
•	Yes, I’ve been there quite a lot. I Moscow and by the Black Sea where we have relatives. Do you know what I’m afraid of? That no one will want me no more, and just think I’m an out dated Robinsson-Åsa (A Swedish mass media figure). One of those disgusting celebrities that I used to despise myself. That is everywhere and that just makes you sick.
•	And that your 15 minutes are up?
•	Yes, exactly. One thing that is funny is that when people ask “What is it like to be a celebrity?”, you respond with some cliché a là Jenny Ulving (also a swedish mass media figure): “No, I still have my two feet on the ground, and my friends are the same as before.” But there is also a nice type of celebrity and that is Robinsson-Herman (a third Swedish mass media figure).
•	But you mustn’t lie to me. I’ve read in the book “Fucking Åmål” that you have a hang-up on sour cream. What is that, exactly?
•	You mean sour cream on food? I have a real child's taste when it comes to spices, and during the shoot, I always ate an Aztec-pizza that was really strong. Then I always had to put sour cream on top. 
•	What childrens-book-figure would you like to execute?
•	“Karlsson på taket” because he’s so rude.
•	Is there something you regret?
•	I regret a bit that I’m not a punk rocker. I feel so boring, wimpy and main stream, and I’m almost ready to puke on myself, especially when I hang out with my punk rocker friends. I think punk rock is the nicest culture, because it’s kind. I was terrified by punk rockers at first and thought they were really aggressive. All rivets and leather jackets make you scared, but you shouldn’t be.

No, and you don’t have to worry about Alexandra becoming one of the many child stars either. Actually, there is a point in what she says: “If P.J. Harvey, Jennifer Aniston and Nina Persson mated, that would be me! Or more than everything my hair.” That’s star quality!

Marie Birde
English translation: Martin Söderlund