German TV

I’ve been watching a lot of German TV lately. Can’t say that I understand too much of it. It’s like that old Far Side cartoon where in the first panel the dog owner is scolding his dog in a long stream of invectives and commands, while in the next panel you see what the dog hears, “blah, blah, blah, Rover, blah, blah, blah, blah, Rover…”

That’s how it is in most conversations or exchanges I observe here in Austria. Only it’s individual German words I’ll recognize, not my name (well, actually I do recognize my name, as well). I’ll endure minutes of unintelligible dialogue until a word I recognize jumps out, like etwas or machen or uberhaupt. Bingo! I feel like I’ve hit an etymological jackpot. My lexical tail starts wagging and I bark (metaphorically, of course) sicher, ich verstehe, gib mir mehr. And they do (give me more).

There are words in every sentence I recognize; some of them I even understand. And that’s where my problem lies: I feel like I am wandering alone, lost in the great chasm between recognition and understanding.

So, like the Far Side canine, I sit with an expectant smile on my face, having no idea what’s going on, but hoping, nevertheless, that someone will notice me and speak slowly and deliberately while patting my head.

Anyway, back to German TV. It’s very much like American TV, with the exception of shows like Bier Stemmen (sort of a beer weight-lifting competition), Bauer sucht Baeuerin (farmer seeks farmer’s wife), and commercials featuring naked women (really).

When a commercial for soap comes on and a lovely young woman demonstrates the efficacy of said soap while showering without strategically placed washcloths or loofa brushes, I relax visibly. This isn’t about titillation; it’s exactly the opposite. It’s not sexual at all; it’s about the naturalness of the human form. It is just a really cute girl lathering vigorously with a super cool soap. What’s sexual about that?

There are plenty of crime stories and romances on TV here and I have noticed that the actors are no way near as pretty as ours. Half the time when I’m watching an American TV show, I’m not sure if it’s a drama or a Calvin Kline commercial. Our actors are hunky, blow-dried studs; our actresses sultry, pouty-lipped vixens.

Here, the actors are not as weird looking as those on British TV, but they are of a kind. The men seem to be older, balding, unshaved, asymmetrical featured (we call that character), and big-chinned; the women are sultry, pouty-lipped vixens. OK, the men aren’t pretty like ours, but they are handsome and really masculine. Our TV actors are boys; German TV actors are men.

And actresses on both sides of the Atlantic look like women we men would want to have babies with. Or at least die trying.

Well, gotta go. Mein Neues Leben is coming on. That’s a show that follows German families who emigrate and start lives just like the ones they left in places like Canada. Inevitably the first thing they do when they land in a country like Canada is buy the biggest car they can afford, like a Chevy Tahoe or Suburban. Since everything else in their new life is the same as their old –same work, same cold weather, snow, German friends – I think they leave just for the cars.

Tschuss!