I don't believe that this idea, which in cultural studies is called essentialism and which suggests something of an innate defect, is true. The cliché about Germans is that they are too grim and have no sense of humor. So the question is not so much about whether German comedy can be exported or not, but whether German comedy be translated into a form that is compatible with what a different audience would expect? Since sound was introduced to film, this has been been grounded in a language problem. Is this more difficult with German comedy? In the US, silent film comedy was relatively soon oriented towards a global market and was always associated with the question: Who is the audience, to whom is the production being addressed? It was always about taking the gag to the extreme, in other words, about maximum comedy. In these, there's a permanent dialogue with the audience that knows something the character doesn't yet know. We start with the silent movie era: Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Laurel & Hardy. I'm currently teaching a course on comic forms. At least it has a different line of tradition than in Anglo-Saxon countries. American Studies professor Christof DeckerĬhristof Decker: Yes.
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