It is not the homosexual who is perverse, but the situation in which he lives

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Movie
Original title It is not the homosexual who is perverse, but the situation in which he lives
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1971
length 67 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Rosa von Praunheim
script Rosa von Praunheim ,
Martin Dannecker ,
Sigurd Wurl
production Werner Kloss
music Archive recordings
camera Robert van Ackeren ,
Rosa von Praunheim
cut Jean-Claude Piroué
occupation

It is not the homosexual who is perverse, but the situation in which he lives is a film by director Rosa von Praunheim made on behalf of West German Broadcasting Corporation .

It deals with the life of many gays at the beginning of the 1970s in the subculture and the consequences that can be drawn from it. It is not aimed at society, but at homosexuals themselves. The film's thesis: The bad situation in which they live is homemade. The tenor of the film is that gays should overcome their excessive fear and come out of their hiding places in order to stand up for a better, equal future with one another in solidarity and fighting.

This made it the trigger for the emergence of the modern German and Swiss gay movement , but it was also very controversial. The television broadcast became a scandal.

For cost reasons, it was shot as a silent film and subsequently underlaid with unsynchronized dialogues . An off-voice comments on the event in the style of social and cultural criticism.

action

The young Daniel from the provinces comes to Berlin and meets Clemens there. Both experience great love, move in together and try to copy civil marriage. After four months, however, they split up again because Daniel has now met an older, richer man, and he is moving into his villa.

A little later, his older friend cheats on him at a music evening. To him, Daniel was just an object. Daniel begins to work in a gay cafe, dresses according to the latest fashions and quickly adapts to the ideals of the subculture. He can be admired and spends his free time in the lido. At night he goes to gay bars and becomes more and more dependent on the ever-changing sexual adventures.

After a while he discovered the charms of cruising in parks and toilets , where he also saw older homosexuals being beaten up. At a late hour he ends up in a transvestite bar, where everything meets at this time who has not found a partner until then. Here he meets Paul, who takes him to his gay shared apartment.

The group discusses the problems of gay life with him and makes it clear to him that his life is very superficial. His job as an emancipated gay man is to acknowledge it and actively create other content than just fashion and sex. He is suggested to organize himself politically and to think about human forms of coexistence together with other gays.

Historical meaning

On September 1, 1969, the liberalization of § 175 StGB came into force. Male homosexuality practiced among adults was no longer a criminal offense. This slowly began a public gay life in Germany. This was shaped by the homophiles who lived incognito during the day, ingratiating themselves to the majority society and hoping for tolerance and their associations that had been possible since 1969, the commercial subculture, which was also described by the new movement as a sex ghetto, and the parks and toilets that served as contact points. Originally the full name of the film was: "It is not the gay who is perverse, but the situation in which he lives - or happiness in the toilet".

“The film was marked by anger and frustration that had built up in my gay life in Berlin so far . I was convinced that we couldn't just passively wait for society to be nice so that something could change to our advantage. [...] Our film should provoke, bring gays and Hetis out of their calm and into conversation. We definitely didn't want a movie that glorified or pityed the gays. It was important to us to relentlessly expose the shitty situation of gays, [...] "

- Rosa von Praunheim

In addition to Rosa von Praunheim and Sigurd Wurl, the sociologist and later sexologist Martin Dannecker provided the text contributions for the film. Together with Reimut Reiche , Dannecker worked since 1970 on his study of "ordinary" homosexuals.

The film premiered on July 3, 1971 as part of the Berlinale in the Forum of Young Films . During the performances in the cinemas there were often spontaneous discussions, sometimes in the presence of the authors, and in the same year numerous homosexual initiatives were founded, for example the Homosexual Action Westberlin (HAW), the Red Cell Gay (RotZSchwul) in Frankfurt am Main , the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in Cologne and the SchwuZ . Between 1971 and 1973 a total of 70 groups were founded, 55 of them with a general right to represent, many of them with reference to the film. This was the beginning of the new, initially student and left-wing lesbian and gay movement in German-speaking countries. There was little contact with the old homophile movement and there was often mutual animosity. As a result of the rejection of the existing local scene, several alternative meeting places and club halls were created.

The film was first broadcast on television on January 31, 1972 by the client WDR in the third program at a late hour. The originally planned broadcast date in the first program was postponed by the WDR to the third television program at the suggestion of the permanent television program conference: “The conference had expressed the opinion that this film was suitable to confirm or reinforce the prejudices against homosexuals that were still present at the time, instead of reducing them . "Another assessment of the discontinuation of the film on ARD is made by Günter Rohbach: Here," the homosexuals themselves are to be protected from harm ". The "International Homophile World Organization" ( IHWO ) in Hamburg acted against the television performance in advance , as they feared negative effects. As a precautionary measure, the WDR had manned the phones for the time, which turned out to be necessary. As usual in such situations, it was mainly outraged people who called, around 95% of the calls were negative. The opinion that was most frequently expressed was: “Let's be satisfied with the homosexuals, we don't want to have anything to do with them.” After the broadcast, there was a discussion on television.

The first nationwide broadcast on the ARD took place on January 15, 1973, "however, the Bavarian radio switches off". The Finnish film "Gasoline in the Blood" was shown.

Nowadays, the film title is sometimes deliberately modified or simply misquoted with “It is not the homosexual who is perverse, but the world he lives in!”, Which, depending on the interpretation, contradicts the intention of the film.

On April 29, 1972, the first gay demonstration in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany was held in Münster .

In Switzerland, homosexual acts among adults were no longer punishable since 1942. The magazine Der Kreis was discontinued in 1967 and several other homophile-influenced projects were started. In 1971 students from Zurich's two universities founded the gay and lesbian center Zabriskie Point . In the spring of 1972 Praunheim's film was shown. This led to the founding of the Zurich Homosexual Working Groups (HAZ) on March 22nd . In June 1972, members of the HAZ organized film screenings among students in Basel and Bern, which led to the establishment of the Basel Homosexual Working Groups (HAB, later HABS, June 30) and Bern Homosexual Working Groups (HAB, December 6). In Austria, the total ban was only abolished in 1971 and replaced by four new paragraphs. For this reason, among other things, the new gay movement only began there in 1975.

Quotes and groundbreaking statements

A taboo was broken when the words “gay” and “gay” were uttered around 900 times, which many homosexuals and heterosexuals at the time found unbearable.

“Gays don't want to be gay, they want to be as stuffy and cheesy as the average person. They long for a cozy home in which they can quietly enter into a marriage-like relationship with an honest and loyal friend. The ideal partner must be clean, honest and natural, a fresh and fresh boy, as sweet and playful as a German Shepherd.
Since the gays are despised by the philistine as sick and inferior, they try to become even more bourgeois in order to dispel their guilt with an excess of civic virtues. They are politically passive and behave conservatively in gratitude for not being beaten to death.
Gays are ashamed of their disposition, because centuries of Christian upbringing have taught them what kind of swine they are. That is why they flee far from this cruel reality into the romantic world of kitsch and ideals. Your dreams are dreams of a magazine, dreams of someone at whose side you will be released from the adversities of everyday life into a world that consists only of love and romance. It is not the homosexuals who are perverse, but the situation in which they have to live. "

“The majority of homosexuals resemble the type of inconspicuous son from a good family who attaches great importance to appearing male. His biggest enemy is the conspicuous queen. Tunten are not as mendacious as the bourgeois gay. Tunten exaggerate and make fun of their gay characteristics. You are questioning the norms of our society and showing what it means to be gay. "

“Homosexuals have nothing in common with one another but a strong desire to sleep with a man. The growing desire for a naked male body drives them out of their families to the places where they meet gays. In the gay community they can forget for a short time that they are lepers and outcasts. "

"Gays try to copy civil marriage instead of, to whom they hate all their misfortunes, it would be their greatest happiness to enter into a lifelong relationship that is permitted by church and state."

“Civil marriage works by raising children and oppressing women. Gay marriage can only be a ridiculous copy, as missing common tasks are replaced by romantic love; that is far from reality. The romantic and idolatrous love is nothing other than self-love. Most gays do not realize that when they love another, they only love themselves. The friend is seen as an idol of one's own hopes and longings. You don't try to understand and respond to him; they even burden him with their own difficulties. The gay marriage breaks up because of the rivalry between two vain men who were brought up to assert their interests instead of competing with one another. The lack of common tasks and the inability to understand each other because one remains too attached to one's own person soon leads to the tragic end of a romantic friendship. What remains is loneliness and the great emptiness that will soon be filled with new unreal and vain dreams. "

“But now is the time when we have to help ourselves. [...] The most important thing for all gays is that we acknowledge our being gay. [...] We gay pigs want to finally become people and be treated like people. And we have to fight for it ourselves. We don't just want to be tolerated, we want to be accepted. It's not just about recognition from the population, it's about how we behave among us. We don't want anonymous associations ! We want a common action so that we get to know each other and come closer together in the fight for our problems and learn to love each other.
We have to organize. We need better pubs, we need good doctors, and we need protection in the workplace.
Get proud of your homosexuality !
Get out of the toilets and into the streets!
Freedom for the gays! "

The prompt "Get out of the toilets, into the streets!" That is faded in at the end of the film and thus concludes as "morality" is a transferred adaptation of the imperative used in the USA "Out of the closet and into the street!" In German-speaking countries, the underlying phrase " coming out of the closet" and its meaning (literally: " coming out of the closet", figuratively: " coming out of hiding", in this context: "professing your homosexuality") is not yet available known. On the other hand, Dannecker's formulation fits the provocative statements about flap sex in the film.

Reviews

  • Vincent Canby in the New York Times [probably 1971]: A militant Marxist call for an end to gay oppression.
  • Der Spiegel, film premiere in 1971: In anticipation of this new self-confidence, the director refrained from adapting the form of his film to the prevailing cinema norms. The work seems awkward - just "just as incredible as we all in the simplest of situations" (Praunheim). But the Berlin audience mistook the authenticity of the play of light for “amateurism” and made fun of one of the best festival contributions in the “Forum of Young Films”.
  • Jürgen Ebert: Rosa von Praunheim. It is not the homosexual who is perverse, but the situation in which he lives. In: Filmkritik Vol. 15, Issue 9, No. 177, September 1, 1971. pp. 471–473
  • Der Spiegel, 1972, Günter Rohrbach : It is aggressive and polemical, it is both, especially against the homosexuals themselves. That makes it so painful for them, but that also makes it so problematic for the heterosexuals. The majority of both groups would have preferred a film that would have least of all to fear the director's verdict: an adapted film promoting tolerance for the phenomenon of homosexuality. (After all, they are people too!) Can you blame the homosexual Rosa von Praunheim for not wanting that? Would it be of any use to the liberation of the negroes if one made a film in which they were all made up in white?
  • Der Spiegel, 1973, Jörgen Pötschke: He shot it as a "gay shocker", with a stupid plot in which gays babbled so silly and acted and took so horny as society sees them according to their ideas. In urinals they grabbed their pants, in bars they choked their tongues into each other's mouth. In addition, a spokesman snarled the accompanying text by the left-wing sociologist Martin Dannecker: flawless class struggle tirades with bombastic pathos. There was fumbling on the screen and the loudspeaker boomed: "Being gay doesn't last a full evening." That was probably the most sensible sentence.
  • queerfilm.de, 2001: In the style of the 70s, this film is now a cinematic document of the gay movement and its time. Whereby the cinematic willingness to experiment confuses many a performer, as he has, among other things, a 10-minute silent scene! [While cruising in the park.] The film is also noteworthy as a document of the scene in the early seventh decade. Without taboos, he showed unseen pictures of gays on flaps or in the park. “It is not the homosexual who is perverse, but the situation in which he lives” is a contemporary document whose courage and strength are still impressive today.

More film dates

  • English title: "It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives"
  • Russian title: "Извращенец не гомосексуалист, а общество"
  • Italian title: "Non è l'omosessuale ad essere perverso, ma la situazione in cui vive"
  • French film title: "Ce n'est pas l'homosexuel qui est pervers mais la société dans laquelle il vit"
  • Spanish film title: "No es perverso ser homosexual, perverso es el contexto"
  • Production companies: Bavaria Atelier GmbH, Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR)
  • Production costs: approx. 250,000 DM
  • First screening: Forum of Young Films, Berlinale , July 3, 1971 | First broadcast: WDR III, January 31, 1972
  • First performances abroad: USA: November 24, 1977, New York | Colombia: July 4th 2001 (Ciclo El laberinto rosa)
  • The film was part of Documenta 5 in Kassel in the Film Show: Other Cinema department
  • Distributor: Friends of the Kinemathek & Legend Home Entertainment (Kino-Controvers Collection) [1]

literature

  • Sophie Kühnlenz: "Revolt of the perverts". On the reception of Rosa von Praunheim's “It is not the homosexual who is perverse, but the situation in which he lives” in media reports in the Federal Republic of Germany . In: Invertito - Yearbook for the History of Homosexualities 16 (2014), pp. 125–152.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate. Retrieved May 16, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b c Michael Holy: Beyond Stonewall - retrospectives on the gay movement in the FRG from 1969–1980 . In: Andreas Pretzel , Volker Weiß (ed.): Pink radicals. The gay movement of the 1970s . Männerschwarm Verlag, 2012, ISBN 978-3-86300-123-0 , 1971–1973: The Praunheim film as the beginning of the German gay movement, p. 46, 48 (footnote 16).
  3. ↑ Martin Dannecker, Reimut Reiche: The ordinary homosexual. A sociological study of male homosexuals in the Federal Republic . In: Fischer Format . 2nd Edition. S. Fischer, Frankfurt a. M. 1974, p. 17 .
  4. ↑ cf. Jannis Plastargias : RotZSchwul. The beginning of a movement (1971–1975). Querverlag, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-89656-238-8 .
  5. ↑ Teletype report dpa of January 13, 1972 - complete print in: Troubles im Paradiese. 30 years of gay and lesbian centers in Cologne [exhibition catalog]. Ed .: Centrum Schwule Geschichte eV self-publishing, Cologne March 2005, p. 54 .
  6. ^ A b Günter Rohrbach: TV-SPIEGEL - Without mask and invisibility cap . In: Der Spiegel . No. 5 , 1972, p. 100 ( online January 24, 1972).
  7. ↑ Raimund Wolfert: Against loneliness and 'hermitage'. The history of the International Homophile World Organization. Swarm of men, Hamburg 2009.
  8. ↑ http://web.ard.de/ard-chronik/index/4917
  9. ↑ On TV this week . The mirror. January 15, 1973. Retrieved September 14, 2019.
  10. ↑ Boo for bears . In: Der Spiegel . No. 29 , 1971, p. 107 ( online July 12, 1971).
  11. ^ Jörgen Pötschke: TV mirror - dispute after twelve . In: Der Spiegel . No. 4 , 1973, p. 109 ( online January 22, 1973).
  12. ↑ The article is based on the author's Bachelor thesis: "It is not the homosexual who is perverse, but the situation in which he lives". Film analysis, reception and significance for the German gay movement . Philipps University of Marburg . 2013.