Silvía Night

File:Silvianott.jpg

Ágústa Eva Erlendsdóttir as Silvía Nótt

Silvía Nótt is a fictional character in Sjáumst með Silvíu Nótt, an extremely popular Icelandic semi-reality show on the TV channel Skjár 1. The character was invented by Gaukur Úlfarsson and Ágústa Eva Erlendsdóttir, but the latter plays Silvía Nótt. Silvía Nótt interviews real Icelandic people and before the show made its début on TV and when Silvía Nótt was still unknown she used to upset the people she interviewed drastically.

The Character

Ágústa Eva Erlendsdóttir, singer for band Ske and a young and unknown actress, and Gaukur Úlfarsson decided to invent a character that brought out all the worst things in human behaviour in modern society. Silvía's personality is highly affected by narcissism and she sees herself as the most famous and talented person walking on the planet Earth. Her name is Silvía Nótt Sæmundsdóttir (see Icelandic naming conventions) and she is 22 years old. Silvía means goddess of silver and Nótt simply means night. Over the last 25 years names with the former name two syllables and the latter name (middle name) one syllable have been extremely popular in Iceland, and Silvía Nótt's name is therefore considered quite typical, but still describing her character very well.

Silvía's favorite food is sushi and feta cheese and she aims for a career as a model, singer and a movie star.

Influence on audience

Silvía Nótt has influenced Icelandic youth quite a bit and youngsters immitate her unique style in their everyday demeanour. Her use of language includes heavy slang and she blends English into almost every single sentence. Many get irritated by her behaviour and find it offensive and vulgar, perhaps failing to see her nature as a satire on the greed on modern society rather than simply a comical character.

Trivia

It took a while for the Icelandic audience to realize that Silvía Nótt was a fictional character and not just a crazy girl in search for attention. One of the reasons might be that Ágústa Eva is never credited on the credit list as a cast member. The actress, Ágústa Eva, is more often referred to as Silvía Nótt than with her real name.

Silvía Nótt will be Iceland's participant in Eurovision Song Contest 2006 with the song "Til hamingju Ísland" ("Congratulations Iceland") after winning the Icelandic national finals. The lyrics (heavily filled with slang) talk about how lucky Icelanders are that she was born in Iceland and that she is going to win the contest, because she's better than all the other contestants (see 'The Character' above). The finals took place on the 18th of February 2006. The song was distributed on the Internet before the competition had taken place, but that was not allowed by the rules of the competition. Silvía Nótt was nonetheless not banned from the competition. This decision by the RÚV (the government run broadcasting organisation) has been criticised, and one participating song writer filed a complaint, the case was dismissed. It is expected by the majority of the Icelandic population that other european countries will not understand the joke in Athens, May, and Silvia will not exceed to the finals.

See Silvía performing her song during the first part of the Icelandic semi-finals here (Flash required). She has also made an English version [1].

Silvía Nótt received the Edda (Icelandic Film and TV Awards) in 2005 for the Best Comical Show of the Year and as the TV Person of the Year.