German Television and Social Media - Quality a foreign word

Redundant workers, anti-social and uncooperative behavior, poverty and social exclusion, never-ending conflicts within relationships.

Less common sense. Hate compensates love, rage and contentiousness instead of reconciliation, abysmal stupidity – all this seems to be the prevailing image of German society, presented by German Television itself. The so called "Assi-TV" or "Hartz IV-TV" got very popular in our modern culture and reinforces existing negative images of Germany. Pseudo-documentaries in their scripted Reality-Formats show everyday situations in the most horrible way: nearly everything revolves around violence, controversies, money and foolish talks. Humans that are exposed to a whole country. No chance for intellectual value, and always enough material to shake our heads. There has been a medial overkill always trying to meet the needs of the audience. The golden rule seems to be: quantity instead of quality.

Even so called “science magazines”, such as Galileo, sunk to a low level by accompanying among others “Big Jumbo” on journeys to put XXL-dishes to the proof, by showing the 10 world’s best waterslides , or by clearing up the “mysteries of the world” without ever arriving at a result. And “Taff”, the boulevard magazine, teaches us how to celebrate the best parties on Mallorca.

However, these programs seem to be very successful when it comes to rating figures because they have a high entertaining value – for a terrible price. In manys cases, the media brazenly abuses their actors and forces them to do things that are more than humiliating. There are various examples on the German website www.fernsehkritik.tv, a critical online TV-Magazine which puts its focus on the destruction of German Television. Often, the moderator, Holger Kreymeyer, invites lay actors who have been part of such “Hartz IV” programs and fell victim to the immoral acts of the respective television station.

Example "Schwer verliebt" 

I would like to name one representative example, which I conceived for myself as very shocking when I first heard about it. The following TV show is called “Schwer verliebt” (transl.: “Deeply in love”) which is a program on SAT 1 where singles search for a potential future partner. The candidates playing in that show get labels imposed on them, for example “Mister A, the nature loving nudist”, “Mister B, the lonely churchgoer”, “Mister C, the impulsive Spaniard” and “Mister D, the lucky flute player”. Those labels should make it easier for the audience to pigeonhole the actors. Consequently, each actor embodies a personality which is full of ascribed stereotypes; and those seem to call: "Hello world, look at me, I’m a total freak!” Furthermore, it is to mention that most times this docusoap chooses in their eyes “unattractive” people, often with weight problems to raise the curiosity of the audience.

The protagonist of the special episode I would like to dwell on is named Fabian who had applied for the said program. He has a motoric handicap (NOT a mental one) and asked SAT 1 to mention his weakness because he wanted to be open and honest with his disability. Above all, women should knew about it before deciding to arrange a date with him. First, the television crew made a promise to fulfill his appeal, but in the end his issue received not a word of mention in publicity. What might have been possible reasons? When thinking about it, it is on dice that the audience would have felt pity for him if the program had mentioned his handicap. They would not be able to make fun of him because it would have gone against their moral sense, and even more worse: they would have reproached SAT1 to be an indecent telestation. So they decided upon the easy way: to break their promise and to conceal the protagonist’s handicap, just for exposing him to ridicule. For these programs, there is nothing more important than a high entertaining value and rating figures.

And as if this was not enough, they even exploited Fabian’s slight overweight by forcing him into the worstest clichés about obeses. Hence, the script’s center of attention focussed on the presentation of his bodyweight. According to the directions, it was the protagonist’s obligation to eat as much as possible during the film shooting. For example, he was forced to drink Coca Cola, although he clarified after the shooting that he does not even like sugary beverages. Here are some quotations of the script that I translated into English:

“It is the duty of our actors to capture the topic food every day. Trifles like nibbling now and then, or going secretly to the refrigerator.” 

“It is important to play optical with the pounds of our protagonists and to content the voyeurismus of the audience.”

These quotations show that programs like “Schwer verliebt” only have the aim to make fun of the overweight of their actors. Usual human who are exploited in the worst and have to bear public humiliation.

According to the script, Fabian should tidy up his apartment before the date, which he certainly did, since he is a clean person. Though, all the trouble was for nothing. The camera team surreptitiously polluted some of his towels and other items of him. To make him look dirty. Since guys like him are not meant to be clean persons. And this should by all means reach the public. Yes.

And this was not after all: according to the program, Fabian got three letters of three different women in the end. That means three dates. But he felt certain that they must have deprived him of other letters because he received Facebook messages, in which other women asked him why he had not responded to their messages. Yeah, and by the way: one date of the three chosen women was handicapped, too. Again, concealment of the program.

In the end Fabian made clear that he was not interested in even one of these women. However, SAT1 cut all the scenes into shape, so finally it appeared as if he ended up happily with one of his dates. And to top off, they published scenes of which Fabian begged them not to publish. But why doing him a favour when he is nothing more like a puppet?

What happened to Fabian after the production?

After the shooting, he tried to get into public with his story. He wanted to make clear that it was not his real personality that was shown on television. That he was NOT a dirty person. That he did NOT fall in love with one of his dates. And the most important, that he is NOT such a fool who fits into social-created stereotypes of "bigger people". He made some posts on Facebook in which he tried to explain that the scenes that were shown are not odds with the truth. But what SAT 1 did, is that they threatened him to pay a penalty of 250,000€ in case he would continue muckraking the true nature of their program. Also, his fellow actors were obliged to ensure his silence. 

Too bad that Fabian did not let himself be oppressed and had the courage to appeal to www.fernsehkritik.de who supported him, interviewed him, and published the case on the internet.

The show "Schwer verliebt" and similar programs have mostly less to do with reality. Such programs are ruthless, clean of any pudency to misuse their actors in such a despicable way. 

Those actors are neither puppets nor freaks. I mean, such humans have often anyway problems to be integrated into society. And in appreciation for being part of their dumb show, they get pranked and devaluated even more so that there is not a scrap of dignity left. All this for a handful of Euros.

Thank you, German Television. For the devaluation of culture, society and compassion. For reinforcing discrimination against certain groups. And of course for your great methods of collective mental enfeeblement mechanisms. And I am definitely not only talking about Sat 1.

Media as main carrier of social responsibility 

Television, newspapers, radio stations; they all carry as the most influential mediums huge social responsibility. However, they mostly aim at making the highest profits as possible through high ratings, unmindful for human rights. But moneymaking cannot always be an excuse for immoral behavior, it cannot absolve responsibility. Moral boundaries should always stand at first place.

Actually, it should be self-evident that morality is to placed above money, popularity and everything else. But seemingly, it is a foreign word for companies and many people in our postmodern world. I think it is an absolute damning indictment of modern society.