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Jan Böhmermann
Photo: ZDF
The TV entertainer Jan Böhmermann won the German TV Prize in the category "Best Book of Entertainment" on Thursday.
His program "ZDF Magazin Royale" sets standards for television entertainment.
"Satire has to be well written and well researched," it said in the explanation, "the ZDF Magazin Royale raises both of these to a new level."
I watched some episodes of the Böhmermann show.
Here excerpts:
“The Hamburg Senator for the Interior, Andy Grote, doesn't want to be called Pimmel. Amazing with someone named Andy. Can he actually be happy? "
"Sebastian Kurz: Just fuck the world for a moment."
"Benjamin Blümchen fucks up the rule of law."
"Why is German film so shitty?"
"Could it be that even the shitty American films are even better than the good German films?"
"Bild.de, the fuck portal for particularly big wankers."
"Election advertising that doesn't just go to the heart, but directly into the gut."
"Somebody should finally fucking polish Dieter Nuhr's face."
"Fuck you, you ugly, shitty Lower Saxony."
I'm not a TV expert, but if this is the new level of aspiration in TV entertainment, you might have to worry.
My children always laughed heartily when someone used to say "pee, poop, pups";
however, they were about 4 years old and not 40 like the ZDF award winner.
Böhmermann became known to a larger audience when, a few years ago, he treated Turkish President Erdoğan as a goat fucker with shrink balls. In the German attitude section this was considered brave; Deutschlandfunk compared him to Heinrich Heine. Since then, Böhmermann has been considered a hero of freedom of expression.
What to think of this became apparent a few days ago when Böhmermann met Markus Lanz at a panel discussion. It was about the accusation of offering a TV stage to people whose opinion was "saturated with misanthropy". At first I thought that meant »ZDF Magazin Royale«, after all Böhmermann once called Donald Trump an »orange pile of human waste«. Surprisingly, however, it was Böhmermann who raised the charge of misanthropy and directed it against Lanz: He had invited "people" like the virologist Hendrik Streeck to his show, even though it was "technically" not a good idea; such people should not be given a forum. So much for freedom of expression, if Böhmermann has its way.
In a TV review on SPIEGEL.de I once read that Böhmermann exudes “juvenile vigor, pop-cultural reference thunderstorms and investigative furor”. Maybe it's age, but to me he feels more like a social studies teacher with Tourette. To say it with Heine: Ficki, Kacki, Böhmi.
