Black Voices, German Rebels: Acts of Masculinity in Postwar Popular Culture
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Black Voices, German Rebels: Acts of Masculinity in Postwar Popular Culture By Priscilla Dionne Layne A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in German and the Designated Emphasis in Film Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Deniz Göktürk, Chair Professor Anton Kaes Professor Jocelyne Guilbault Spring 2011 Abstract Black Voices, German Rebels: Acts of Masculinity in Postwar Popular Culture by Priscilla Dionne Layne Doctor of Philosophy in German and the Designated Emphasis in Film Studies University of California, Berkeley Professor Deniz Göktürk, Chair This dissertation examines practices of embodying Black popular culture in Germany. My analysis is based on close readings of texts from a variety of media including novels, films and musical theater from West and East Germany of the 1950s to the reunified Germany of the 1990s. Black popular culture, particularly popular music, has appealed to Germans since the 19th century, when the Fisk Jubilee singers toured Europe. In most of my analyses, music plays a prominent role as a gateway to Black popular culture. Stuart Hall defines Black popular culture as a product of the African Diaspora, therefore it is produced in a space populated by people who are linked to many different geographic locales. Nevertheless, in the texts I examine, the African American contribution to this culture is given precedent. This preference for African American culture is based on an articulation of factors, including the large presence of African American GIs in occupied postwar Germany and German stereotypes that designate African Americans as both primitive and modern, oppressed victims yet also producers of incredibly different, liberating styles. My study begins in the postwar era, because as opposed to the monologue about Black popular culture typical of high modernism, the generations of Germans coming of age or born after the war were more interested in a dialogue with African Americans. Particularly, after the war, Black men were favored as the bearers of Black popular culture. In each of the texts I examine, German males who have been made subordinate to hegemonic German masculinity find not only comfort in, but a means of resistance to their subordination through mimicking Black popular culture and Black masculinity. These rebellious German men often position themselves in opposition to their grandfathers and fathers who are viewed as representing a masculinity that depends on domination over minorities. Thus, mimicking Black popular culture is often an attempt to resolve postwar guilt over the Holocaust. 1 In each chapter, I carefully consider the unique historical context of the text, keeping in mind how the hegemonic culture against which the actors rebel changes over time. I use Gramscian hegemony as a theoretical framework informed by R.W. Connell’s notion of hegemonic masculinity. The first four chapters focus on fictional German rebels from Günter Grass’s novel Die Blechtrommel (1959) and Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s film Whity (1970) to Michael Schorr’s film Schultze Gets the Blues (2003). The fifth chapter reverses the gaze in an examination of how German expectations of an essential Black subject come into conflict with the experience of African Americans in Germany in Paul Beatty’s novel Slumberland (2008) and Stew’s musical Passing Strange (2009). The final chapter engages the works of Turkish German author Feridun Zaimoğlu to examine how in the 1990s, migrant youth sought a more powerful position in the German mainstream through the “cool” social capital they could gain from adopting Black cultural aesthetics. My dissertation demonstrates that while white Germans have long engaged in assuming the voice of the Black Other to express their feelings of alterity, those who are Othered by their skin color or their parents’ foreign citizenship are rarely allowed the right to have multiple identities or allowed the luxury of removing the mask of difference. My approach to German studies purposefully looks beyond the nation’s borders to consider foreign influence in Germany. Within German studies, my dissertation contributes to a better understanding of the construction of Black popular culture in German history, the construction of German identity, Vergangenheitsbewältigung and the study of German counterculture. Furthermore, my project resonates with scholars interested in trauma studies, gender studies, queer studies, diaspora studies and postmodernism. 2 Table of Contents Introduction ii Chapter One: Who’s Afraid of the Black Cook? 1 Chapter Two: Waiting for my Band 41 Chapter Three: Lessons in Liberation 72 Chapter Four: Of Blues and Blue Jeans: American Dreams in the East 107 Chapter Five: Two Black Boys Look at the White Boy 148 Chapter Six: Ali’s Got Attitude 192 Conclusion 237 Filmography 264 Bibliography 268 i Introduction In November 2010, the akademische Faschingsverein1 Ba Hu Elferrat of the HTWK University in Leipzig distributed a flyer advertising a carnival party that featured a white man in blackface, complete with an afro wig and black colored hands. This flyer evoked outrage among German anti-racist activists. AfricAvenir, a non-governmental, non-profit organization that disseminates political education in Europe and Africa, released a statement criticizing the flyer and stressing the racist implications of contemporary blackface. AfricAvenir argued that by using blackface, the flyer claimed “it would be a grand party, just as funky, wild and shameless as Blacks allegedly celebrate: to be Black just once in your life, fun, uninhibited, even as a white person – how cool!”2 This exotification of Blacks3 and desire to masquerade as Black fits perfectly with Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the carnivalesque.4 In the context of the carnival, white Germans can don blackface and party without inhibition, but this is a temporary act and not necessarily an act of solidarity. For instead of experiencing the hardships that often come with being Black in Germany, these carnival goers merely seek a good time and when they wipe off their makeup they will be none the wiser about the lived experience of Black people. This dissertation will look at a selective history of the German practice of embodying Black popular culture in order to step out of one’s (white) shell and behave in a manner which hegemonic society considers oppositional to German cultural practices. I use the term “Black popular culture” to refer to a sphere of acts, performances and identifications. I emphasize not only the diversity, but also the constructed nature of this culture. Although I primarily focus on African American practices and sensibilities, occasionally I discuss other politically Black subjects such as Africans and Afro-Germans who are also a part of the African Diaspora and contribute to the construction of Black popular culture. Furthermore, German stereotypes about African Americans sometimes contain notions about Africans. And in turn, German stereotypes about Africans and African Americans are often projected onto Afro-Germans. With the term “Black popular culture,” I can situate African Americans in conversation with other groups who 1 Loosely translated this means “academic carnival club” which likely refers to the fact that this is a carnival club consisting of university students. Fasching (carnival) is the equivalent to Mardi Gras in the United States. Fasching is celebrated feverishly by many Catholic Germans and others who simply enjoy the partying and dressing up. While it is most often associated with cities in the West, Leipzig is in the East. Another well-known carnival in Germany is the Karneval der Kulturen (Carnival of Cultures) which has taken place yearly since 1996 in Berlin. As opposed to Fasching which does not have any particular social agenda, the Karneval der Kulturen was founded in order to celebrate Berlin’s growing internationalism. Commonly, the carnival features ethnic minorities in the traditional garb of their home countries performing dances. It is not uncommon for Germans to take part in the performances as well. 2“es würde eine grandiose Party, nämlich genauso flippig, ausgelassen und schamlos gefeiert wie vermeintlich bei Schwarzen: Einmal im Leben Schwarz sein, lustig und ungehemmt, auch als Weißer – wie abgefahren!” http://engagiertewissenschaft.de/de/inhalt/Rassismus_ist_kein_Karnevalsspass_Stellungnahme_zum_Blackface_Werbeplakat_des_Ba_Hu_Elferr ats. Accessed 11 February 2011. All translations in this dissertation from German to English are my own, unless otherwise noted. 3 I subscribe to the social constructionist view that “there is no biological or genetic basis for dividing the world’s population into distinct racial groups.” My reference to Blacks and whites relates to the fact that although these terms are derived from culture, “the socially constructed nature of race doesn’t mean that our understanding of race and racial categories isn’t somehow real or that it doesn’t have real effects.” Beth E. Kolko and Lisa Nakamura and Gilbert B. Rodman, Race in Cyberspace (New York and London: Routledge, 2000), 2. I have chosen to capitalize the terms “Black(s)” in reference to political realities and identities. 4 For a more detailed consideration of Baktin’s theory of the carnivalesque see chapter three of Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, trans. Hélène Iswolsky (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984). ii describe