German Joys

The Mouse Goes up the River

I was just watching Die Sendung mit der Maus (The Show with the Mouse) this morning while cleaning house a bit. This is the most famous German childrens' television shows, broadcast every Sunday morning since 1971 on one of the main public-television stations. The star of the show is a pudgy burnt-orange mouse whose eyes click when he blinks them. He plays in silent comic vignettes. Between the vignettes there are real-world reports aimed at children.

As befits a public television station with an educational mission, the reporting segments are pretty matter-of-fact and highlight unflashy subjects like streetcar repair, how to build an Airbus, forestry, construction, jogging, and the like. This time around, to my amusement, the reporter Ralph took the kiddies inside a prison (g). The reporter Ralph, a genial fellow in his 20s with square black glasses, was first led through several big metal doors and fences to get inside the prison. Once inside, he was given a tour of the inmates' cells, the visiting room, meetings with social workers, the telephone area, and a few other places. We observed the nightly ritual of 'Umschluss', in which inmates are allowed to visit their friends' rooms (with the doors locked behind them) for a game of cards or a chat.

We saw an interview with Johnny, a bald 21-year-old serving a three-year sentence, which is long by German standards. Johnny describes his life in prison, tells us that he misses his family most of all, and wishes he had listened to the advice of friends and family, who had told him to clean up his act. When it comes time for Johnny to sweep his cell, the reporter helps. At the end of the interview, Ralph shakes Johnny's hand, wishes him good luck, and expresses a hope that next time, they'll meet in a more pleasant place. They then show him being escorted out of the prison.

A month or so I was at an academic conference, trying to explain German attitudes on criminal punishment to American scholars. I pointed out that state television is still important here, and programming on public channels is controlled by a certain set of guidelines and presumptions. The Show with the Mouse fits right in. There was no ominous music, no 'dramatizations' of the crime, no references to 'predators'. The millions of kids who watched this program saw a prisoner being treated with respect and even warmth by the reporter. The prison was portrayed as a place with strict rules where your freedom is limited, but where you can also socialize, take classes, and greet visitors from the outside world. Above all, it was made clear that all the people in this prison are going to get out within a few years and rejoin society, and this was portrayed as a normal and even good thing.

Of course, this is certainly not the only picture of crime and punishment German children are exposed to as they grow up -- there are tabloid newspapers everywhere in Germany, after all. But the Maus show today at least can act as a counterweight to more exploitative portrayals of crime.

German Word of the Week: Glitzkrieg

I'm a couple months late linking to this clip, in which the Daily Show's Jason Jones interviews Scott Lively, president of an American lobbying group called Defend the Family. Lively is one of those countless American ideologues who rip isolated facts out of history (especially Germany's history) and use them to cover their prejudices with a spray-on sheen of truthiness.

After literally dozens of minutes of research, Lively returned from the library, panting and out of breath, waving a yellowing news clipping: "There were -- gasp -- gay Nazis!" He quickly attached a tube to this fact and pumped it full of Significance. He even published a book about the results of his research, The Pink Swastika.

In the interview below, Lively calmly explains that homosexuals are violent sadists, which is why Hitler liked them so much. Oh, and Hitler was also gay.

Jones lets Lively ramble on about his cockamamie theories, while the producers illustrate them with a documentary-style voice overs. During one of these "historical interludes", if I may, Jones invents the word Glitzkrieg. Badly needed inventing, if you ask me!

Have fun! (Warning: The image that appears at about 1:00 into this report may haunt your children's children).

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
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ZDF's Pathetic Lowbrow Cultural Vandalism

A while ago, I posted this ad for Mad Men that I saw at a local train station:

The tag line translates: "Behind Every Successful Woman Stands a Man Who's Staring at her Ass." It's the ad campaign for the American television series Mad Men, which has been bought by ZDF Neo (g), a branch of one of Germany's two main public-broadcasting channels.

Now, back when I saw this poster, I hadn't watched Mad Men, although it had been recommended to me by people whose taste I trusted. Cohu, in comments, pointed out that the entire premise of the ad campaign was wrong. Boy, was she right.

The two characters shown in the poster are Don Draper, the series' main figure and creative director of a Madison Avenue advertising firm, and Rachel Menken, the owner of a New York department store. They have a brief romance during the show's first season, while Don's firm is wooing her as a client.

Let me count the ways in which this ad is cultural vandalism:

1. It completely distorts the relation between the two characters. First of all, Don Draper although a womanizer of the highest order, doesn't "stare" at women's "asses". His manners are too refined for that. This is not to say that he's an enlightened, sensitive 90s man (Thank God) -- the series is set in the early 60s. But he generally treats women with respect. In fact, Draper punishes underlings for stupid sexist comments, perhaps more for the stupidity than the sexism, and recognizes talent in female subordinates. Menken, for that matter, is Don's equal in all things, and he treats her as such.
2. The pointless vulgarity. One of the intriguing things about Mad Men is the fact that its past is a different country. There are no cute, winking anachronisms. Although the characters' attitudes toward women and minorities are more cliched than they would be today, their manners are more polished. People dress formally, use the subjunctive, help the ladies with their coats, speak in complete sentences, and use appropriate greetings and goodbyes. This is what makes the alcohol-fueled lapses in decorum so pleasantly shocking: when one character says "fuck" (which happens a grand total of once in the series), the other characters react as if they'd just been slapped. So the whole snarky talk of staring at asses -- doubtless conceived by some insufferable young German ad-man who sprinkles his business-jargon with the English word "edgy" -- is completely out of place.
3. It sells the series as lowbrow for no reason. God knows, the German television landscape is full of lowbrow (g) shtick complete with ass-staring jokes. But Mad Men isn't lowbrow, it's high-middlebrow. (This is, by the way, the level of brow that Germany seems to be incapable of producing itself). People who tune in looking for crude humor are going to be quickly disappointed, and will tune out after 20 minutes. Why is attracting a blip of attention from fans of fart jokes worth vulgarizing and caricaturing the very artistic product you're promoting?
4. It's worse than a crime, it's a mistake. The ad shows the condescending amateurism that you so often see in the German media. As Cohu pointed out, nobody who had watched even one episode of the series would have approved this marketing approach. Unless, of course, they just didn't care. Which, obviously, they didn't. I mean, why bother actually coming up with a stylish, witty ad campaign for the series? It'll just go over the heads of the stupid couch potatoes we "serve"...

Now, don't get me wrong. Sponsoring this stupid ad for Mad Men is not taking a hammer to the Pieta. Mad Men is not a timeless masterpiece, it's more like a Trollope novel. But it is damn good television, and this ad completely disrespects that fact. Perhaps if Germans began actually taking well-made high-middlebrow television seriously, they'd finally be able to create some of their own...

German Word of the Week -- Plus!: Moralin and Gulaschkanone

This week's German Words of the Week is not only a twofer but also -- an example the kind of fabulous positive-plus synergy which makes this blog world-famous -- coupled with What I Learned from Tatort. Wow! I can hardly wait to type the post!

Last week, I dutifully switched on my television to watch Tatort. Every Tatort plays in a different German city, and this one was in Kiel, a port city way up north on the Baltic sea. Unfortunately, the detective who features in the Kiel Tatorts is Borowski, who has all the charisma of a sea cucumber. Yes, I know, his waxen flesh and papery monotone are supposed to convey the legendary taciturnity of Germans from the north, renowned as the dullest, stuffiest, and most reserved of all Germans. Which, believe me, is saying a lot. My pragmatic Anglo-Saxon mind entertains the heretical notion of whether these Ent-like humanoids should be the subject of televisions shows that purport to be "entertainment." The most brutal blow was the casting of gorgeous Turkish vixen Sibel Kekilli in a supporting role. She stole every scene she was in, and made the viewer desperately yearn for her to suddenly break into the other scenes, which mainly featured North Germans bitching and seething.

But I digress. I should have known I'd be in for something special this time, because the entire week, the main German public-television station had been highlighting proper nutrition with various specials and cooking shows. And that meant that this week's Tatort had to Teach us about Proper Nutrition. As Christina Sieben observed in her review, the "die Gulaschkanone" of high-minded educational public TV was set on "constant bombardment." Now, a Gulaschkanone is basically what it sounds like: a goulash cannon. The term originally referred to military field kitchens, for obvious reasons. But here, in context, the cannon is spouting edifying lessons like a Stalin's organ. In Sieben's summary:

Artificial colors have to be, because nobody will buy white energy drinks. Cows are always chained up in the dairy. "Research Institutes" are in the pocket of industry. Good food costs money, but people are too cheap to pay for it. The old organic farmer in the show knows all his cows by name. Everyone wants to earn money. And, at the end of the day, it's all our fault. Bon appetit! 

Sieben goes on to predict that with Public Television Nutrition Edification Week over, the next Tatort will contain slightly less Moralin. You know, Moraline (not to be confused with Betweenanene (Screwene)). Like Adenosine, Guanine, Cytosine, Adrenaline, or Methamphetamine. Moraline bonds with plot elements in public-television dramas, causing the narrative to coalesce in ways that offer edifying lessons to the benighted, easily corruptible audience.

Thanks to Moraline, we learned all those valuable things about food and nature from last week's Tatort (although strangely enough, the topic of lavish cow subsidies (g) was barely mentioned). Moraline additive also helps us understand, for example, that unemployed people want to work, alcoholics and drug addicts roll like they do because of childhood trauma, women can do everything men can, family-run firms are the only halfway-acceptable form of free enterprise, and that Scientology, nationalism, plastic toys, wars, lobbysists, and nuclear power are evil.

If you watch too much German public television, your moraline levels may reach toxicity: You may begin to use phrases like "our fellow-citizens of the Islamic faith" or "food-chain-renewability enhancing measures" in everyday speech. At this point, you'll need to spend a few hours in a secure, moraline-free environment. The most reliable place is Titanic Magazine (g), which, is 100% moraline-free and whose motto is "Ein klares Ja zum Nein!" (A clear Yes to No!).

Fünke: He Wears the Umlaut with Pride

People had been intermittently advising me to watch the American sitcom Arrested Development over the past few years, but I somehow never found the time. Until, that is, I found out that the show feature a character with an umlaut in his name, namely: Dr. Tobias Fünke.

Why was this not brought to my attention earlier?

Fünke, it turns out, is one of the greatest American comedic creations since Ignatius Reilly. Trained both as an analyst and therapist (Business card: "Analrapist"), Fünke has ditched psychotherapy and is trying break into the acting business.

His attempts to do so are hampered by many horrible problems. First, his last name, which, as he constantly has to remind people who call him "funky", is pronounced FYOON-kay. Second, his utter lack of charisma and hair. And finally, his complex, multi-faceted, poorly repressed LGBTsexuality, which drives him to generate endless streams of unintentional homosexualistical doubles-entendres (see above). It has also put a strain on his relationship with his wife, Lindsey, in whom he shows no erotic interest behind the scenes, despite bragging in public about how, while he's making "sweet love on her", the "clatter of her breasts" is positively deafening.

Fünke is also proud of his German heritage. We see this, first and foremost, in his near-constant wearing of socks-and-sandals combos, often sogar with white socks. He also proudly claims to share a psychological disorder with two members of the German Parliament. Finally, he repeatedly utters the German word for "shower gel," Duschgel, at various moments during the show:

Or is it douche chill?

How Germans See Mad Men

Here's how Mad Men, the hot new(ish) American TV series about depraved, shallow, materialistic Americans, is being hawked as it starts its broadcast run in Germany:

"Behind every successful woman stands a man who's staring at her ass."

All the 'Tatort' Cliches...

...in one handy list here (g), from secretaries with funny regional accents to fat men eating sausage in front of a river to boarding schools full of scheming scions of wealth neglected by their rich parents. As with so many aspects of German life, the appeal of Tatort lies not in the fact that it's entertaining and original, but precisely in that it's comforting and familiar.

This cultural trait also makes the writer's job much easier. Coming up with original ideas (especially in a decades-old series) is risky, and beyond the capacity of many people. But churning out familiar variations on well-worn themes is child's play. Come to think of it, I'm sure you could take this list and program a computer to write perfectly serviceable Tatort scripts. Hmm, that gives me an idea...

The End of 'Lost'

Ever since evil people got me hooked on Lost a few years ago, I've been patiently working my way through the series. Yesterday, I got around to watching the finale of Season 6, which was also the end of the entire series.

This two-and-a-half hour super-episode was an act of shameless exploitation. The directors and writers took the familiarity we've developed with the characters over some 120 hours of viewing and leveraged it harder than Lehmann Brothers. The plot device they used wasn't very creative (by their standards), but it didn't have to be. Watching it, even I felt like a hopelessly overwrought, oxytocin-addled yenta. (No, I'm not immune.) It's downright creepy to recognize that modern emotional-manipulation technology -- in the hands of masters and potentiated by the length of a TV miniseries -- can leave you caring as much about fictional characters as if they were close friends. And that even when the acting is little more than workmanlike.

The reunion between Sawyer/Ford and Juliet was especially affecting, since they were two of the most well-rounded and appealing characters, played by two of the better actors in the ensemble. The emotional high points were underscored by Michael Giacchino's score -- one long, lush, melting, mesmerizing andante  for small string orchestra (mainly variations on the theme "There's No Place like Home") so horrifyingly memorable that it seems to be playing over and over in my head even now, as I type.

Now objectively, I have a lot of problems with the finale. It didn't provide a convincing rationale for the island's existence, it left some loose ends untied which really should have been tied up (all the hieroglyphics and numerology went nowhere), it ignored some of the most interesting characters, and it featured one of those annoying nondemonination, new-agey, all-religions-are-groovy churches (or should we say 'sacred spaces'?). But I don't care. There are much more pressing problems in the world than whether some TV series made 'enough' sense. I wanted to become ensconsced in Lost's amusingly quirky world, and to have my heartstrings pulled. I did, and they were.

The official Lostpedia entry is here (yes, there's a Lost wiki), a mammoth discussion and question-and-answer session by two Washington Post TV critics is here. Screen Rant tries to explain it all here (favorite heading: "What Happened to All the Black People?"). My personal favorite piece of Lost analysis is the 5-minute long video of everything in the show that made no goddam sense. And yes, to squeeze that into only 5 minutes, you've got to talk really fast. It's below the jump, since it has spoilers.

A Turkish Tantrum

I'm no expert, but this sounds like a Turkish talk show, and I see something that looks like "Hitler" in one of the chyrons. Then a guest, err...well, just watch.

Any Turkish speakers out there that can tell us what's going on here?

Protocol #74: Ideas for the Taking

Herewith:

• The national anthems of many South American countries seem to have been composed by Gilbert & Sullivan.
• While visiting Berlin with a friend lately, she suggested that one way to reduce the amount of dog shit on the streets would be to offer a deposit on it, just like with used glass bottles (h/t JR).*
• Yesterday, I met a former member of a band called the Drellas. 'Drella' -- a combination of Dracula and Cinderella -- was the nickname Loud Reed gave to Andy Warhol. But wouldn't 'Cinderacula' have been even better?
• Idea for an edifying TV series, 1: 'Unplayable'. Each episode features a work of classical music that was originally deemed unplayable. Explains who thought it was unplayable and why, why it was actually beyond the capacities of the performers when it was written, and why it isn't now.
• Idea for an edifying TV series, 2: 'Bad Laws': An X-part series featuring the nastiest laws ever passed. The Nuremburg racial laws, England's Bloody Code, Jim Crow laws, etc. Who proposed them, what was the vote by which they were approved, what were the consequences, how were they got rid of.