Seeing Far: Die Welt des Fernsehens in Deutschland

After a long day of procrastinating and getting half as much done as intended reading hundreds of pages for my doctoral studies, sometimes you just want to turn the brain off for a while. While we don't have a TV, I have occasionally enjoyed the wonders of German television elsewhere or online. Landing in Germany after leaving an American home with digital cable, hundreds of channels, and access to an almost endless variety of programming can be a bit of a rude awakening.

First, American television shows are shown fairly regularly on German TV (thanks, American cultural hegemony!). But, and this is a big but, they have been dubbed over into German, not subtitled. Granted, this makes sense - why would Germans want to have to read through their evening's TV time? Still, knowing what they originally sound like, it is hard to watch Sheldon and Penny bantering in German on the Big Bang Theory. The voices are just... wrong.

Of course, Germany makes its own TV programming, too. Lots of it. Well, ok, not that much. As in, most people in Germany still only get about 15 channels, unless they are paying extra (which not many do, compared with the US). In Germany, there are a mix of regional and federal TV channels (publicly funded, so no commercials!) with some for-profit stations alongside. The private ones tend more on the bad 80's movies and dubbed-over CSI: Miami marathon side of things. The "best" stuff comes on the public channels..

For example, over on Das Erste (a channel whose name is simply "The First") is the stalwart of German TV: Tatort. Tatort - or "scene of the crime" - is basically a cops seek murderer show. The German twist, bringing German federalism to the screen, is that the show cycles among many cities in different parts of the country. Some teams are serious, some more funny, and the show always seems to address a social theme (last week it was predatory lending and the big banks, a few weeks back it was the evil meat industry, etc). My favorite is Tatort Münster - the two detectives are an unlikely uptight nerd/slovenly slouch pair, there is a midget little person medical examiner, and the district attorney is a chain-smoking woman who sounds like a drag queen. (Watch til the end of the clip!) Great stuff.

Germany also seems to love reality shows almost as much as America does. The main difference from America on German reality television - and on German TV in general - is the presence of... wait for it...  ugly people. Or average looking people, whatever you want to call them. As it has been explained to me, the public would rather see people on TV they can relate to, rather than airbrushed super beauties. I have my doubts.

For example: Bauer Sucht Frau - "Farmer Seeks a Wife"

This one seems to be a bit of a phenomenon, or at least I've heard a lot of people mention it, and have sat through a couple episodes myself.

Farmers seeking wives.

The picture above shows a group of studly farmers, desperately trying to escape loneliness. Gorgeous, aren't they?

Schwuler Bauer sucht Mann.

American exceptionalism.

And should the gays feel left out, the recent season (yes, there have been several) included a gay farmer seeking his Mann. Gays are supposed to all be good looking, right? Well, maybe not. To the left you see homely farmer Philipp, in plaid, with his man Veit.








There was apparently a rather less successful American version of this show produced by the CW called "Farmer Wants a Wife".
For the American approach to casting "reality", please see the picture to the right.



And thus, with this case study, I think we see a stark cultural difference. For a country remarkably full of tall, good-looking people with perfect skin (eugenics?!), Germans readily tolerate imperfection on screen. Perhaps this explains why Americans have 500 channels and Germans have 15.

All in all, German TV is not bad, except when it is so bad it is funny. Either way, good language practice for me and an interesting spotlight shown on to the collective cultural psyche of a country far from Hollywood.