<
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/23/germany-donald-trump-joke-sebastian-hotz-elon-musk>
"“The point of comedy is to make fun of everyone,” a Berlin friend told me
recently. What matters, he argued, is that you make yourself look silly too.
But along the way, you’re allowed to disrespect everyone as long as you are
being creative enough. That, in his opinion, is what the genre is for.
I get what he means. Yet having followed enough of Germany’s tortured
discussions around comedy and satire over recent years, something about this
argument doesn’t feel right.
If German comedians make a joke at the expense of marginalised communities,
whether immigrants, black people, queer people or Jewish people, any pushback
tends to be simultaneously belittled as hurt feelings and blown up, usually in
the mainstream media, as a threat to our democracy.
Upholding freedom of expression is obviously one of the most defining
democratic values. I happen to agree with the German Jewish author Kurt
Tucholsky (1890-1935) who wrote: “What is satire allowed to do? Everything!” I
just wonder why this argument seems to be made with the most conviction when
the joke punches downwards at minorities who are already humiliated on a daily
basis. Is free speech degenerating into the establishment’s weapon against
“wokery”?
There does seem, however, to be a fine line in German bourgeois morality when
it comes to dark humour punching upwards. This line was overstepped last week
when the satirist Sebastian Hotz ridiculed the shooting of Donald Trump; the
aftermath turned into something of an affair of state.
Hotz, 28, known by the pseudonym “El Hotzo” on social media, developed a huge
following during the pandemic with cynical, left-leaning jokes about everything
from nationalism to corporate culture and masculinity. This content has gained
him a couple of jobs over the years, including a radio show at public
broadcaster RBB, from which he was dropped after asking on X (formerly Twitter)
what the last bus and Trump have in common. His answer: “Unfortunately, just
missed.”
What Hotz’s 700,000 followers on X and 1.5 million followers on Instagram would
probably think of as a rather unsurprising and mediocre El Hotzo pun caused
controversy in the German press. Many commentators found it tasteless, even
inhuman and harmful to our “democratic values” (again) to joke about somebody’s
potential assassination, even if that person had attempted to overthrow
democracy. Hotz followed up his post with: “I find it absolutely fantastic when
fascists die”, for which he was accused by conservative journalists and
politicians of inciting violence. When Elon Musk jumped in, appealing to the
German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, to take action against Hotz, things started to
get absurd."
Via Christoph S.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
