Copsey, Dickon (2004) Race, Gender and Nation : the Cultural Construction of Identity Within 1990S German Cinema
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Copsey, Dickon (2004) Race, gender and nation : the cultural construction of identity within 1990s German cinema. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1927/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Raee, Gender and Nation: The Cultural Construction of Identity within 1990s German Cinema Dickon Copsey PhD Thesis Department of German, University of Glasilow (D Dickon Copsey, 26 Ih November 2004 April, 2004 ii Abstract (674words) The literary cultural paradigm, which has dominated German studies throughout its history, has been equally significant in the writing of German film history. Drawing upon an idealist philosophical tradition and basedupon apparently objective qualitative judgements which assess film in terms of its intellectual and artistic merits, this higb/low cultural paradigm has bad substantial impact on the study of popular German cinema within German film studies. Historically, when treated at all, such popular cinematic texts have tended to fall victim to the 'pessimistic prognostics of the Frankfurt School' (Bergfelder 1987,7). More recently, however, there have been attemptsto redressthis imbalanceand include popular cinematic genresin the critical appraisalof Germancinema. This transition is symptomaticof an increasing disciplinary awarenessof the contributions to be made by British, Frenchand American cultural and film studies' traditions. However, hitherto, much of this work has concerneditself with historical film reception. In line with thesedevelopments and in recognition of the redundancyof simplistic high/low cultural binaries, this study offers a cultural studiesreading of race, genderand nation as representedin three thematic sub-genresof contempormy German film production. The aim of this study is to demonstratethat each of thesethematic sub- genres offers a unique insight into the cultural construction of a distinct, yet problematic and porous umbrella identity enjoying a particular cultural currency in post-Wall Germany. It should be noted that, in this respect, this study represents a move away from those traditional diachronic analyses of German film, which attempt a snapshot of an entire history of filmic production, towards a more clearly delineated, synchronic analysis of a single contemporary moment - namely, the 1990s. The first of these thematic, spb-genres concerns the ambiguous romantic narratives of the sexually autonomous yet avowedly post-feminist New German iii Comedy women. As a significant sub-genreof the popular New German Comedy film of the early 1990s,these films embody a clear structural reliance on the narrative norms of a classic, mainstreamcinema. In contrast, the cinematic representationsof East(ern) Germany,past and present,incorporate a myriad of generic forms and registersin their explorations of the meaning of reunification for easternGen-nan populations, from up- beat comic road movies to psycho-allegoricaltales of intemal disquiet. The third areaof this study concerns itself with the representationof Turkish-German populations in 1990s German cinema. As eclectic as the cinematic representationsof the East, the Nvork of these Turkish-Gen-nan filmmakers appears to offer a troubling cinematic trajectory from abusedand exploited first generation Gastai-beitei-to self-assuredand recalcitrant street-toughKanaksla. Clearly, in the reunified Gen-nanyof the 1990s,these historically marginalised social voices of West German women, Turkish-Germanmen and East Germanmen and women would all appearto be enjoying a degreeof cultural currency. However, unable to fully escape the negative positioning of their stigmatising racial, national and genderedhistories, these representationalcommunities often find themselvesinhabiting ambiguous,contradictory and combative cultural spaces.This study will argue that such cultural representationsof marginal identity - be they at the heart of a cinematic fringes mainstream or on the of an alternative counter-cinema - are intensely politically significant. On the one hand, these representationscan contribute to recognition, empowerment and validation for the social groupings that they depict. By the same virtue, however, they can be equally easily co-opted into an exclusive, marginalising and stereotypicalcultural discourse. The central motivation for this politicised preoccupationwith the representation of marginalised social groupings across the heterogeneousspectrum of 1990s German film production is to move beyond the aestheticsof value traditionally prescribed to iv such film critical binaries as avant-gardeversus classical, entertainment versus political, and alternative versus mainstream.In the process,this thesis aims to exposethe power dynamics at play within the cinematic representationof these marginal (and often may-ginalised)identities and the contradictory positions of identification which they offer their audiences. In so doing, it is hoped to return a contemporaneousand sociologically engagedanalysis of German cinema to the heart of an interdisciplinary and inclusive Germanfilm studiestradition. V Contents Acknowledgments vi Part I Methodology and Context: Trouble at the Margins Introduction 2 Chapter I Marginal(ised) Identities within the Cinematic Mainstream II Chapter2 Mediated Identities in a PostmodernAge 37 Part 11 Sex and Gender: Women Amongst Women Inti-oduction 67 Chapter3 The Promise of Patriarchy 86 Chapter4A Farewell to Idylls 104 Chapter5 UnambiguousEndings? 122 Conclusion 133 Part III Nation and History: Vergangenheitbe; vdftigt Introduction 147 Chapter6 Gen-nanUnification- A Laugh a Minute? 162 Chapter7 Revisionary Histories: A ufarbeitung der DDR-Geschichte? 181 Chapter8 The Possibility of Critical EngagementPost-If7ende 203 Conclusion 229 Part IV Race and Ethnicity: Currywurst undDOner Introduction 238 Chapter9 New German Cinema and Das Kino det-Fi-eindheit 254 Chapter 10 80's GermanCinema and the Intinigrantenkino 263 Chapter II Cinjina A mitissage- A Match Made in Berlin-Kreuzberg 279 Chapter 12 Race Relations and the Kanaksta 304 Conclusion 336 Part V Conclusions: Identities and Identification within Contemporary German Cinema Inh-oduction 347 Chapter 13 Comedy, Clich6 and Cash:The Popular Economy of the Marginal 362 Conclusion 372 vi Acknowledgments To include all the people who have been instrumental and inspirational in the completion of this project would be almost impossible. However, I would like to first thank the Student Awards Agency for Scotland,the Eglinton Fellowship and the CUTG for funding this project and supporting my research abroad. In this context it is important to thank,the teaching and library staff of the Freie UniversiOt Berlin, and in particular StephenLowry. I would also like to thank staff and fellow researchersat the Sliflung Deutsche Kinemathek, staff and colleagues at the Hochschideffir Film und Fernsehen "Konrad TVoU"and the Deutsche Fihn- und Fernsehakadende,as well as Maria K6pf of X-Filme O-eative Pool GmbH. For their inspirational conversationand suggestionsI would like to thank the very talented Maren-Kea Freese,Andreas Dresen and, in particular, Alice Agneskirchner.I would also like to thank the library staff of the GoetheInstilitt, Glasgow. For their support and challenging contributions to my work I would I ike to thank Catriona Cunningham, Phillippe Pourhashemi,Katja Rick and Jane Wilkinson, without whom this PhD experiencewould have been much less enjoyable. For their unwavering support and belief in me I would also like to thank Maya, my daughter, Cori, and my ., family. Finally, I wish to thank Alison Phipps for her guidance, encouragementand inspirational example and without whom this project would never have taken place. ---Part I Methodology and Context Trouble at the'Margins 2 Introduction From Aesthetics to Commercialism? "Ende gut, alles gut. Das deutscheKino ist dahin. Tot, verabschiedet.` Throughout the 1990sboth media and academicfilm discoursesin Germany have been dominated by speculationas to the extent and meaning of a paradigmatic shift from art house Kunst to mainstreamKoninzeiz 2. Despite debate as to the actual finality of the decline of the Autorenfibn and the New German Cinema product (Elsaesser1999,7), 1982 has generally been accepted as a turning point in the fortunes of the post-68 gen.cration of filmmakers and the social and artistic imperativesthey broadly adheredto. While the continuing film production of various directors associatedwith the New German Cinema period' challengesany flippant location of a radical filmic caesura around the death of the counter-cinema'sflag-bearer Rainer Werner Fassbinderand the political repercussionsof Herbert Achternbusch's anti-establishmentfilm Das Gespenst (1982), a revision of the relationship between public and filmmaker has undoubtedly occurred. This revision is articulated most clearly by the new fraternity of young directors who would appearto reject as indulgent their forbears' 'langatmige Egotrips auf der Leinwand'