Tove Jansson’s gay legacy – queer content on Moomin.com

Tove Jansson was not a queer activist, but a rather private person who kept her personal life to herself. But through the courageous way she lived her life, and her uncompromising art, she left a profound gay legacy for those who care to see it.

Below are links to various articles and videos with queer themes inspired by Tove Jansson’s Moomin stories and the way she lived openly in same-sex relationships during times when it was illegal in her native Finland.

Tove Jansson’s gay legacy article series

This series of three articles dives into various queer themes in Tove Jansson’s life and art.

“I always fell in love with a person. Sometimes that person was a man, and sometimes it was a woman”

Part one of the series explores Tove’s queer legacy and her approach to love, shedding light on her first, life-changing relationship with a woman, theatre director Vivica Bandler.

Vivica was to become Tove’s lifelong friend and an important colleague in various creative projects, also inspiring the  much-loved duo Thingumby and Bob, debuting in the Moomin novel Finn Family Moomintroll (1948).

“And they began to wander down to the valley talking in the strange way that Thingumies and Bobs do talk”

Part 2 of the series takes a look at the diverse gender roles in Moominvalley and how they are connected to Tove Jansson’s life.

You’ll learn how Vivica Bandler’s and Tove’s private couple jargon inspired the way Thingumy and Bob talk in the Moomin stories, what the Swedish word for Mymble has to do with sex and various queer readings of the Moomin stories.

“I feel like a garden that’s finally been watered, so my flowers can bloom”

Part 3 introduces the love story of a century, that between Tove Jansson and her life partner Tuulikki Pietilä, a fellow artist and traveller, who was Tove’s safe harbour through thick and thin.

Tove Jansson wrote to Tuulikki Pietilä in the summer of 1956, a year after they’d met for the first time that Tuulikki had watered her garden, letting her flowers bloom – can there be a more beautiful love letter?

Queer-themed discussions from Tove festivals

Various Tove festivals have taken place in the last few years in various Nordic cities. The festival dedicates an entire day to talks and performances inspired by Tove Jansson’s life work. Several of the festivals have hosted panels focusing on Tove Jansson’s gay legacy.

Below you’ll find videos of the festival’s queer-themed discussions with English subtitles.

Tove festival Helsinki 2021:
“As a young, gay man, I understood exactly what she meant”

Tove festival in Helsinki in 2021 hosted a discussion about queer perspectives in Tove Jansson’s literature.

Some of the panellists came to see the stories through a queer lense only later in life, but journalist Mark Levengood felt an instant recognition already as a child: 

“When I as a very young and very gay young man fumbled around in Helsinki – I understood exactly what she meant. Even though we had no context, and there was nowhere to find this information, I understood her perfectly.” 

Levengood loved the Moomin comic strips, particularly a story featuring the maid Misabel and her little dog, Pimple (pictured in the cover image in this article), who has to wear a muzzle because he carries a big secret – that he likes cats. Moominmamma’s way of addressing the situation with the unhappy dog is very gentle and understanding – watch the video above or read this article to find out how!

You can also read this article on tovejansson.com, which focuses on other aspects of the discussion, including quotes like the following: “One day, if you are lucky, you meet a Vivica”.

Panelists: Author Kaj Korkea-aho,  journalist, moderator and Unicef ambassador Mark Levengood and Associate Professor in Comparative Literature Mia Österlund
Moderator: Kira Schroeder, producer at Moomin Characters

Tove Festival Reykjavik, 2022:
“Moominvalley is a safe space for marginalised groups”

The Icelandic Tove Festival panel discussed queerness in Moominvalley and other literary spaces created by Tove Jansson. Moderator Ásta Kristín Benediktsdóttir noted how Jansson treats many queer topics without addressing them directly: “She dances around censorship”. 

The panel concluded that Moominvalley is indeed a queer space: a space where people can live their lives according to various norms, without strictly defined rules about how to be a man or a woman. Hildur Ýr Ísberg notes “This valley is a safe space for marginalised groups”.

Panellists: translator and writer Þórdís Gísladóttir, teacher Hildur Ýr Ísberg, queer activist Hilmar Hildar Magnúsarson
Moderator: literary scholar Ásta Kristín Benediktsdóttir

Tove festival Tampere 2023:
Rebellion, courage & strangeness in Tove Jansson’s world

“Courage is to do things even when you’re afraid”

In the panel in Tampere, two millennials who grew up with the Moomins, activist and wordsmith Piki Rantanen, and journalist and host Sean Ricks, delved into Tove Jansson’s ability to write soft rebellion and bold ideas in an accessible form. The panellists highlighted characters from Jansson’s stories that are important to them and considered what can be learned from these distinctive characters and from the author herself.

Panelists: Piki Rantanen and Sean Ricks
Moderator: Nanette Forsström, Producer at Moomin Characters