Satire and racism: The sharpest critics of the N-word

the film Comedy "Otto – The movie", the 1985 was a huge success at the box office and now from a streaming service to offer is flared up a dispute. Kick-off is taken at a scene, in the urdeutsche title character and an American soldier, played by Günther Kaufmann, the "N-word" to use, how to read an article about the controversy. The scene plays with the word, the two figures throw it on to the head. Matthias Wendlandt, Director of the production company, has rejected the racism accusation as a misunderstanding. The "mere mention of certain terms" is not sufficient to prove the allegation. Here are the ghosts. Tahir Della, spokesperson for the Association Initiative Black people in Germany, accuses Wendlandt is the denial of "obvious racist content" and called the defense of the allegation that "symptomatic of the lack of racism understanding" of the German society.

Patrick Bahners

feuilleton correspondent in Cologne and is responsible for "Humanities".

The laughter, which may cause the dialogue between Otto Waalkes and the 2012 late Günther Kaufmann presumably also in the case of today's viewers, in Dellas the ears a sign of mischief. "If discrimination is normalized Ender Humor, we need not be surprised if it gets worse." This sentence may refer to the afterlife of all the subtle forms of unfair treatment, which are dark-Skinned is exposed in the German everyday life, even to physical violence, because any use of the "N-word" is considered as an act of verbal violence. Language-critical activists, it is not enough that the use of the word "Negro" without mitgedachte quotes discredits the speaker today. It is also to be repaid from older books and when you Read through the place holder with the exposed first letter to be replaced.

a tradition of criticism without Philology

That Wendlandt for the construction of the incriminated scene that brings the humor of the critical terms "Grotesque" and "satirical" in attack, makes for Della, the thing will only get worse. In the sharp Humor of the voice guard wants to see an Instrument of brutalization and disinhibition: The Argument that the recent police-critical column in the "taz" to the case for the Prosecutor was declared, returns here on the emancipatory side of the political spectrum. But the extent to which normalized the N-word exchange in "Otto – The movie" the unequal treatment of people of darker skin color? Could raise a laugh, one in 1985 on the scene only under the condition that it was anything other than normal, a African-Americans as "Negroes".

"traditions that discriminate, hurt and ostracism, are not worth preserving." This requirement Dellas is not controversial. Just where are in the script, this is how the text books of Otto's stage shows a community work of Bernd Eilert, Robert gernhardt and Peter Knorr, the trace elements of the evil Tradition? Craft perspective, we actually do it with a traditional product, a unit value of labour, the trades in the Joke so many times in the art fair take over from here: a case of intellectual theft from the Treasury. Word-for-word, a picture history by Robert copies of the movie-dialogue Gernhardt, which is defined under the title of "Mr. Haubold on" was printed.

As you would at a teaching piece from the New Frankfurt school, to expect in Mr Haubolds project in the discursive practice, the dialectic of enlightenment to light. Mr Haubold, the his Name as a right hulking time showing, enjoyed, believe, therefore, pronounce as German citizens according to the conventions of Satire, something Obvious by calling his neighbors at an Inn table as a "Negro". Under this premise, the title would be superfluous, is the first funny train in the serene study of a communicative pathology.

On demand Mr Haubold not explained (just Haubold; he is ironically treated as a person of respect) with a primitive dictionary definition, the power of the "Negro" in the eyes due provision characteristic, respectively, of a redundant enumeration of repetitions of the characteristic. The third point of the scout from the sphere slips from a obvious perception of the facts into the semi-dark of a just-Developed – and he makes the turn in the story possible, the Pointe, the flash learning fast, and bright students in Mr. Haubold is the textbook example for the explicit ' term recognize.