Germans adopt the british sense of humor?
The Anglo-Saxons have a talent for caustic satire and painful put-downs: that's a fact. Moreover, negative humour – teasing and ridicule, as well as more offensive, racist or sexist forms of humour, together with defamatory humour – appeared to be genetically connected only in Britain and it really suits them. Not exactly... The german version of Focus magazine is trying to prove us all wrong.
After all, we have to admit that no one could expect that in less than 200 years from the discovery of the statue of Aphrodite in Milos island, german archaeologists would have already found her right hand in its full dimension...
on 23-02-2010 By lycanthrope - Corinthian
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Excellent point of view of the whole matter!!!
I think it's a fun illustration - but the comment around it is kind of a shocker. According to the writer of this post "offensive, racist or sexist forms of humour and diffamatory humour appear to be genetically connected" to the Brits - and now the Germans! Whatever! I thought we Germans had "genetically" no humour at all ;-). It makes me smile how offended the Greeks are by this front page.
By the way congratulations - the swastika on the Brandenburg gate in greek newspaper Eleftheros Typos is a nice piece of Greek humour! (http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausla...)
Greece and France must share the money of the German visitors to Louvre admiring the lost hand of Aphrodite. Finally was found!
Excellent!
I think efforts have to be done on both sides. Of course the Germans are fed up to see that each time a problem is to be solved the other side just throws out the nazi argument! And there we go again! That really sucks. Germany doesn't want to pay anymore? Then remind them, that they will have to pay their historical past eternally anway (reparations for greek victims of WW 2 for example)... That's not a solution for the current problems the greek state and the Eurozone are facing. Hell, get on a table together and find solutions instead of making a polemic out of a journalistic front page, no?
As a Brit I'm a little contrary to isolating caustic attitudes just to this part of Europe! Have you ever heard the French speak? It's almost unbearable how high their horses are when it comes to inherent racism and oddities. Careful where you point your sword!
'genetically connected' and 'really suits them'? @elina why is that an excellent point of view on the matter to bash the Brits on the side? A little strange the argumentation going on here, if not borderline sadistic. In any case you've all fallen for it. The folks at Focus are probably up in laughs about your stung reactions to the cover. It's just that: something to get them talked about!
sorry, but does this really have to be discussed? And in such a superficial manner? The Focus magazine is a very stupid magazine - so please - let's just ignore the whole matter...
@Patrick Kennedy
I think, if this blog post was written and published on Babel Athens' blog, we definitely have a point of discussion here. Even if FOCUS is not THE most in depth magazine in Germany, it's still one of the BIG THREE and has a large spread readership in Germany. The reactions in the greek press show that they took the headline very seriously... so, let's discuss!
@Editors
Hey com'on guys that s pretty offensive for a Greek but OK I like Lycanthrope's angle of seeing the matter, humouristic! And yes, Brits have a weird sense of humour that s why I am very fond of them :))
@Katha
I don't agree. If you react to such senseless provocations you will have to discuss every stupid BILD or SUN headline about the matter. Honestly, it's just not worth it. But if you do want to discuss it then you should have a look at the dynamics behind such provocations and deconstruct them.
An example: Do you remember the confrontation between the German BILD and a Polish tabloid during the World Cup 2006 about some football issue, including the good old WW II vocabulary? It was staged by the German publishing house Axel Springer who actually owns both tabloids...
as Kenzo pointed out - 'offensive, racist or sexist forms of humour and diffamatory humour appear to be genetically connected' - @Elina justify why you'd be fond of that. There's no balance in the context
@Patrick Kennedy
You're certainly right about the German/ Polish example you give. But this time we have another case here. Of course FOCUS magazine tries to catch up on discussions that have been going on since quite some time now and certainly they do so in quite a populist style (and of course to sell their magazine). They basically ride on a wave going on since weeks now. But in my eyes it's highly dangerous to compare a football match to the diplomatic crisis that those two countries are facing at the moment. The issue, even if addressed clumsily by the German magazine, has to be tackled seriously and together with the other member states. Greece is not the only country that suffers as well, so the 27 should sit on a table together for once to discuss the future of the eurozone or the validity of the Maastricht criteria (a few weeks ago we could read about the Goldman Sachs case in Greece: http://www.spiegel.de/international...).
@Katha
"But in my eyes it's highly dangerous to compare a football match to the diplomatic crisis"
Sorry, perhaps I haven't expressed myself well. I was not comparing a football match with a diplomatic crisis. I was trying to point out that you have to look at the media that boost such crisis situations by publishing stupid articles. Café Babel should not ride on their wave of nationalistic, anti-European discourse - which this blog post, at to some extent at least, obviously does.
@Katha
"But in my eyes it's highly dangerous to compare a football match to the diplomatic crisis"
Sorry, perhaps I haven't expressed myself well. I was not comparing a football match with a diplomatic crisis. I was trying to point out that you have to look at the media that boost such crisis situations by publishing stupid articles. Café Babel should not ride on their wave of nationalistic, anti-European discourse - which this blog post, at to some extent at least, obviously does.
oups, sorry for the double post...
Well, I think that no matter how disgusting the front page of the Focus is, and regardless of what the Germans had done to Greece in WWII and the reparations for that matter, the Greeks (including myself) brought it on themselves by voting and supporting corrupted politicians for more than 3 decades. Greece supposedly has a democracy and those people were voted by the mass majority of the people to run the country. And not let us forget that all the corruption that exists outside politics and all the corrupted people in the Military, Hospitals, Municipalities, IRS, car technical inspections, urban planning, Courts and in all major markets (dairy products, agricultural products, fuel etc etc), are indeed Greek Citizens. It is up to us finally do something to change the negative picture the foreigners have for us. But again I doubt if anything changes…
This is unfair. You can't use the Aphrodite of Milos in order to offend us (I'm Greek). German journalists prove that they dont respect culture. Congratultons. Anyway, I'm really sorry about my country that some stupid politicians ruined it..However, I'm really sorry about German people now..I can see there's no moral..You can offend us..Maybe our country is falling down but at least we still belong in the mankind..You cant judge every single Greek person is this way because of some arrogant and selfish politicians..I'm Greek, a disappointed Greek about the goverment of my country..But I'm really proud.
I think we all misunderstood the real message of this cover at Focus magazine. The Greek Aphrodite of Milos island, with her beauty and her excellent ancient spirit speaks as a re presenter of Greek people (as always did). She is reveals the thieves of Euro Family with a brilliant magazine cover, published into their own country, tolerating to herself a little bit of cultural hubris.
Yet another reason why I like being an American. This magazine cover would be so offensive and blatantly racist in the United States that it would cause heads to roll. The public outcry would have been enormous. The editor would have been fired or forced to make an apology in order to keep his job. Where do Europeans find humor in this? It is demeaning, racist, stereotyping and wrong! This is ultimately the biggest problem of the Eurpean Union; there is no union!. It pretends to be a United States of Europe but it is blatantly obvious that "Old Europe", with its idiosyncracies is still alive and well.
Maybe I forgot to mention that the tongue-in-cheek European "humor" is dark, DIVISIVE, and seditious. Will we watch the EU crumble before our eyes? Will a line be drawn across Europe again with Catholic/Protestant to the west and Orthodox to the east? Greece would benefit ditching the EU and bringing back a devalued Drachma. Beware that if it does the Euro will collapse and so will all the economies of the "honest" European countries with it. Greece's economy would skyrocket with a devalued currency. It would greatly benefit by doing so. Investment would pour in. Public moral would go up. Inflation would stabilize. What real benefit does Greece have in remaining with its so called "friends". Greece cannot forget friends like the German Nazis marching in and planting Swastikas on the Acropolis or Mussolini's Italian armies invading its sovereign soil. What about the Greek monarchs of Dutch dissent? Or the kind British gentlemen who felt that whatever they dug up in Greece became property of their Queen? Shall we discuss the 470 years that fellow Europeans sat idle as the Ottomans ravaged Greece? What friends? Is it any wonder why Greeks have been looking to the east to Russia? Pipelines? Arms purchases? Visas? Economic exchanges? etc?
Shall Greeks forget the FOURTH CRUSADE??!!!
Shall Greeks forget the FOURTH CRUSADE??!!!
Jim, you're good. Almost all points are very valid, but this whole story is essential to happen everytime, because it aids in the revelation of scams and political scandals. It happens in the US as well, just because heads roll, doesn't mean that there aren't gonna be more people expressing their opinion the same way. And if you fight for something you think is right, you'll keep fighting. Heads rolling is suppression of specific beliefs (in my eyes, this is fascism). The depiction is indeed humoristic, only if you don't get offended. It is very smartly designed, because that is exactly what WE Greeks do. We give the finger to the EU who provided endless amount of loans, and even gave compensation (i think it was 1,5 mil marks) that the Greeks never received from the government. The government is corrupt. To an extent you cannot perceive. I am proud of the person who thought up the picture combined with the headline. It's not only the politicians, it's our mentality. The war was over 70 years ago. We had our chances, and we always voted for the one that bribed us more, so they could rise to power and keep all the packages we were getting from the EU. I am proud to have left Greece. We have had a glorious past, have a sad present, and will have a completely decadent future. P.s. I do not recall any of today's Germans taking place in the war. Noone alive today should be blamed for anything that happened generations before them. Just because we cannot forget, doesn't mean we have the right to act accordingly with hate and prejudice to people that weren't there.
Our Greek lecturer brought this up in one of my lectures a few days back. He said he found the Focus cover upsetting but acknowledged it as a clever piece of satire, HOWEVER, the Greek response was horrendously out of proportion. The magazine cover had an element of intelligence and wit, the reponse was insulting to German people whose image still receives a battering and also to Jews and, well pretty much everyone. Personally, I though the focus cover was a funny and clever piece of satire.
Has anyone stopped to consider that perhaps this current crisis is a direct result of the greek mindset that basically is saying... Hey world, we gave you western civilization and we can take it away just as easily.... Bye-bye Euro, welcome back Drachma????? Se gnorizo apo ti kopsi tou spathiou ti tromeri!!! hehehe
This is hillarious !
the most hilarious of all is that in that article Germans make mock of the Greek cuisine too!!!!! who? those who make boiled sausages.........