Perspective into German culture

Browsing the web this morning, I strumbled accross a movie found on Der Schockwellenreiter’s blog. „Mom, dad, there’s something important I need to share with you […] I’m German!“, Günther said in the movie. The clear message „You’re not German, you’re an idiot!“ portrayed the common image for Germans in many other countries. I’m not going to justify the filmmakers or Germany, but instead I noticed another number of common mistakes made by non-German filmmakers as they wish to portray Germans in their movies.

First of all, Germans are not Bavarians! Bavaria is the former Kingdom of Bavaria which has been „annexed“ by Germany. A small glimpse of history passed and ratified the legal existence of this Kingdom, which became a „Freistaat“ (free state) in modern Germany. But unfortunately, this last remaining colony of Germany however is used as prime example for German culture – which is not German culture at all. Instead, Germans try to live with the obscure and strange behaviour found within Germany’s borders. For most Germans, the Bavarians are a horde of cultural animals. Sometimes we think about reincarnating the Iron Curtain to restrict the access from and to Bavaria…

Furthermore, the idea of having David Hasslehoff as the nation’s biggest hero is a major mistake. In the late 80s and early 90s, the actor became famous due to his appearance on the TV Show „Knight Rider“. Most people recognized Hasslehoff’s germanic heritage, but the TV Show became famous because of the speaking, self-acting and absolutely cool car named „KITT“. Hasslehoff is the anti-portrait of a hero for modern Germans.

The cuckoo clocks only exist in southern Germany to feed the tourists with economical subordination, a new form of recycling trash and making money out of it. The hint to Bavaria and their strange culture is obvious while the traditional Bavarian clothing is presented as a significant sign for Germany, especially the „Schuhplattler“ is a common make-out dance in Bavaria, but nowhere else! I would never wear such clothing or perform this idiotic dance. Besides this, blonde people are rather dying out due to the inferiority of the blonde genes. Only a few hundred years and any blonde person in the world is a make up doll or just fake.

Germans do not dig up the sand to build windbreaks on the beach or build castles. Instead, they prefer to use their towels in the early morning to claim any beach chair or couches at the pool. However, kids still ruin the beaches for the fun of it.

More or less correct are the following things seen in the movie: We love beer, but we can drink it much better than this guy. We love cars, but usually we drive BMW or Mercedes… please, who needs an old Volkswagen Beetle?

I wish people would be more intelligent, open-minded and not enclosed to intercultural miscommunication due to the lack of cultural awareness. There are other ways on how to portrait Germans without using Bavaria as major example. Now you know why Germans have no humor once Bavaria is mentioned. They could be a part of Austria, and we all know where the brown dung came from…