Germany

I can often gauge the quality of a film by the length of time I sit at its closure reading the credits. When a film is great, I want to make sure that every person with a hand in the film was rightfully recognized. After director Margarethe von Trotta’s new release Hannah Arendt, I sat in the theater until there were no more names to read.

New German Cinema heavyweight director von Trotta turns a biographical lens toward the lauded German-American political theorist Hannah Arendt.

This informative, lively film manages to not stray into being too sentimental as it follows Arendt (Barbara Sukowa) through the Nazi trial that influenced her life’s work.  The film explores how this political theorist became the subject of both controversy and accolades in dark times.

In many ways Germany is not an unprogressive state. People are free to elect, choose and live whatever they want. We have a female chancellor and a gay minister for foreign affairs. People were even supportive of me wearing a skirt to support my skirt-loving son. 

But lately some things got pretty complicated. In the past few days, every channel on TV seems to be discussing big questions about sexism. The current conversation was sparked when journalist 29-year-old Laura Himmelreich published a portrait of 60-something political party leader Rainer Brüderle.  Himmelreich mentioned meeting the politician at an informal occasion where politicians and journalists are trying to get comfortable and set the real deals over a glass of wine. She asked how it would feel to be suddenly some kind of hope for his party at his age. According to the Himmelreich, Bruderle didn’t want to speak about age—at least not his age. He knows women her age, he told her before he made a comment about how her breasts would “easily fill a dirndl.”

As much as I adore music videos at dance parties, watching choreographed dance moves on a giant screen in public typically does one of two things to me: infuses my limbs with rhythmic possibilities (rare), or yanks the slippery beat from under my dance shoes (less rare). Sometimes if I’m not in a dancing mood (or able to shake it in my current location) watching someone else dance provides a kind of psychic fulfillment. I hope Austra and CocknBullKid’s new singles give you just that! Directly after sits a sedentary vogue-free video by Planningtorock. Apart from inviting you to a video dance, this B-Sides provides hope for the swarms of PTR fans who, like myself, have been chewing their nails impatiently for five years on the edge of the dance floor waiting for her sophomore release!

There's a lot of fun/interesting stuff happening in the blogosphere today! A sampling:

• A great interview from The Guardian with Gabby Sidibe. Be prepared to get irritated when she talks about how everyone conflates her with the character of Precious.

• Interesting piece at The New York Times on expectations of motherhood in Germany

• Latoya Peterson's insightful take on the ten most bizarre sex ed videos. Boys beware! (Women's periods and gay men in cars are dangerous!)

• Veronica Arreola on why she supports women-focused relief organizations. The first comment is someone calling her a sexist, of course.

• Jessica Valenti responds to Nina Power's claim that she is a "consumer/self help" feminist.

• Judith Warner on Elizabeth Edwards' public image in the light of Game Change

Any other links you'd like to add? Put them in the comments section!

Is capitalism helping feminism or is feminism helping capitalism--or both?

Photo credit: Glamour

So what do you have to do to get an ad banned in Germany? Simulate oral sex, apparently.

Coming onto the German hipster scene just one year ago, Missy Magazine looks at pop culture, fashion, art, sex, and music through a feminist lens. (Hmmm… sounds like a US-based feminist magazine I know. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.)