Media and Minorities

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Daniel Wildmann
friendship, Jews, and German and German-Jewish history.19 In Tatort, erotic
relationships and friendships are also always comments on contemporary societal
debates. What is unique, in the context of the Tatort and the Schimanski
series, about the constellations of desire in our two episodes is their connection
— in particular regarding the issue of eroticism — to the Judenpolitik [the
Nazi policy towards the Jews], and to fantasies about Jews and Judaism.20 It
is also significant that ultimately, the desires and fantasies of the German
much more than of the Jewish characters stand at the center of the triangular
constellations.
6. Moral Sentiments and Pleasure
From a film-theoretical, historical perspective, emotions can be understood
as dispositions for actions, as the result of cognitively grasping situations relevant
to actions in a certain historical and cultural context. Films can represent
such emotions, but they can also create them. In film, emotions can be
assigned to three different dramaturgic and narrative levels: Firstly, as a fundamental
part of the filmic story, that is, as a specific feeling displayed to the
audience, which shapes and holds together the narration, secondly, the emotions
of and between the film characters, and thirdly, the emotions suggested
to the audience in relation to specific characters.21 It is the second and third
level in particular that interest us in our context.
The British film scholar Murray Smith argues that from the perspective
of the viewer, there are two movements: On the one hand, viewers can adopt
characters’ cognitive perspectives, thinking, for instance, “I understand why
X behaves in this way,” but, on the other hand, they can also agree with char-
19 On the literary tradition of the topic of eroticism between Jews and Christians in German
culture, see Eva Lezzi, “Liebe ist meine Religion.” Eros und Ehe zwischen Juden und
Christen in der Literatur des 19. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2013). Lea Wohl von
Haselberg provides an overview of the filmic tradition of the topic of Jews, Germans, and
eroticism in German film after 1945 in Und nach dem Holocaust? Jüdische Spiel figuren
im (west-)deutschen Film und Fernsehen nach 1945 (unpublished dissertation, University
of Hamburg, 2015), 125–132 and 286–314.
20 On Tatort and eroticisim, see Dennis Gräf and Hans Krah, Sex & Crime. Ein Streifzug
durch die “Sittengeschichte” des TATORT (Berlin: Bertz + Fischer, 2011). On National
Socialism in Tatort, see Christian Hißnauer, “‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’ im Tatort?
-Bezüge in der ARD-Krimireihe,” Repositorium Mediengeschichte 7 (2014), 3–49.
21 On this issue, see Matthias Brütsch et al., eds., Kinogefühle. Emotionalität und Film (Marburg:
Schüren Verlag, 2005); Anne Bartsch, Jens Eder, and Kathrin Fahlenbrach, eds.,
Audiovisuelle Emotionen. Emotionsdarstellungen und Emotionsvermittlung durch audiovisuelle
Medienangebote (Köln: Halem, 2007).
© 2016, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen
ISBN Print: 9783525300886 — ISBN E-Book: 9783666300882