Kenneth Longden

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Channel 4's recent foray into foreign-language television
drama, *Deutschland 83*, highlights a preoccupation of contemporary
culture, and of contemporary television, with identity. The mediation of
this theme/meme through popular television in particular has taken many
dramatic and representational forms. But significantly, one of the most
interesting developments of this sense of identity has been the
acquisition and broadcasting of foreign-language dramas. In an age of
so-called 'Post-national' concepts and transnational communications, the
'national' and its narratives of difference has paradoxically become
'hip' in the television drama world.

Channel 4's *Walter Presents* is just one example of a broadcaster that,
following in the footsteps of BBC4's recent successes with *The
Killing*, *The Bridge*, et al, is offering to showcase dramas from all
over the world. *Deutschland 83* is just one of these dramas. It is a
broadcasting strategy and trend in popular television that recognises
what Katja Valaskivi identifies as 'Cool Nation' branding; a branding
that has understood how the national is also foreign and exotic and
therefore has potential transnational appeal through a dichotomy of
local/global identity.

I don't want to suggest, however, that *Deutschland 83* is particularly
serious or self-conscious about how it discusses themes of identity
through its narrative; It isn't, despite the fact that its story focuses
on the ideological division of nation and national identity during the
Cold War. In this last respect, and if anything, the series suffers from
a *dramatic *identity crisis.

This perceived identity crisis was unknowingly confirmed by the
programme's producer, Jorg Winger, in an interview for the
'*Goethe-Institut'*, London. Winger recounted how he had carried the
idea for the story around with him for a while, "wondering if I could
make a comedy, crime story or thriller out of it." (Anna Schiller/Magnus
Polcher, *Goethe-Institut*, February 2016). In the end, he tried all
three. Promoted as a Cold-War espionage drama, it was a far cry from the
more intense (paranoid?), and topically-minded espionage
drama *Homeland* which it replaced in the Sunday evening schedule (UK).

The interview for the *Goethe-Institut* was a salutary lesson in many
respects, because had I not read it, I would now be talking about how
the programme had tapped into various transnational and global
marketing/production strategies, and pursued self-reflexive creative
approaches such as 'Double Occupancy' (Elsaesser), and more recently,
Katja Valaskivi's concept of 'Cool Nations' branding (2016). I am still
going to talk about *Deutschland 83* in these and other terms, but it is
worth considering the serendipity which Winger alludes to elsewhere in
his interview for the *Goethe-Institut*.

In his interview, Winger describes how *Deutschland 83* became a
transnational/global drama at the scriptwriting stage, and largely by
accident. This was because the screenplay was originally written in
English and later translated into German for the German broadcaster RTL.
As Winger relates:

"It was never supposed to be an international series and we never
expected it to go in that direction...A colleague in England sent the
English \[version\] script to... Sundance TV... if the writing process
had been in German, the script would never have made it to London."
(Anna Schiller/Magnus Polcher, *Goethe-Institut*, February 2016)

*Deutschland 83*, therefore, was not made with the concept of 'Double
Occupancy', or 'Cool Nation' branding in mind (at least not by the
scriptwriters). In other words, the drama was not originally conceived
of in terms of transnational/global appeal through a conscious
self-reflexive and self-exoticising form of "performative self-display"
of national identity (Elsaesser 2015) for foreign audiences.

For Elsaesser, as well as for myself, this act of self-display or
conscious awareness of how national traits, characters, stories appeal
transnationally, are significant (but not crucial) elements in
understanding not only the dimensions of transnationalism, but also the
ways in which contemporary national television has re-invented and
re-branded the national for external/global use. As Elsaesser observes,
"Post-national pastiche, as well as 'self-othering' represent more fluid
forms of European identity" (2013), and as a consequence the
transnational appeal of such programmes is not through an antagonistic
assertion of identity in difference, but through the "impersonation of
difference" (Elsaesser 2013). There is no 'impersonation' of
'difference' in *Deutschland 83* other than the dramatic representation
of East German difference, and this is significant.

The potential transnational appeal of *Deutschland 83* (it has received
mixed reviews) therefore lies in a related, but different area of
self-exoticism. This concerns retro culture, and the dramatic scenario
and story of the series; its depiction of a paradigm of western cultural
history -- the Cold War -- and the popular narratives surrounding German
re-unification were a catalyst for change, including changes in modern
identities.

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In many respects, the DDR, and communist Eastern Europe in general, were
both Germany's and Europe's exotic 'other'. In terms of the television
series therefore, it is not contemporary Germany that appeals
transnationally, but its exotic other (the DDR) and its depiction of how
the world used to be until very recently -- television, communications,
national identities, attitudes, etc. These elements, which have formed a
large part of retro culture (very different to nostalgia) have proved
equally exotic to contemporary television audiences, and their appeal,
re-inscribed through a variety of local dynamics, have proved to be
equally transnational.

On a dramatic level, the series does not do this very well (a dramatic
identity crisis), and in some respects its representation of the times
and attitudes depicted bares a similarity to the popular cultural
phenomenon of Ostalgie, a phenomenon which Enns, in his essay *The
politics of Ostalgie*, suggested was intrinsically linked to television
(2007: 476). Ostalgie, as Boyer suggests, was "less a symptom of East
German nostalgia then \[sic\] of West German Utopia" (2006: 361). The
phenomenon, as evinced by television programmes such as the *DDR Show*,
and films such as *Good Bye Lenin*, was both lighthearted and euphoric
in nature, and these themes or attitudes seem to influence *Deutschland
83*. Ostalgie branded the DDR and its national identity for wider appeal
and consumption in interesting and highly symbolic
ways. *Deutschland* *83*, therefore, although not intended "as an
international series", refers to a time in recent history and a process
of self-exoticism that was widely appealing beyond the borders of
Germany, and more significantly, was re-inscribed at various local
levels.

For Germany in particular, and Europe in general, we can consider the
ways in which the DDR and the communist East represents a process of
'self-othering' to be understood transnationally. And this is also the
case with concepts of retro culture and retro television.

The series makes great play of its references to the 1980s through
music, fashions, brands (Sony Walkman), and just as
Netflix's *Narcos* uses actual newsreel footage to establish the
narrative within a certain time period, with its attendant attitudes,
so *Deutschland 83* imports (what Ebbrect calls the 'Migration' of
images to other texts and narratives, 2007) similar external texts into
the narrative for both symbolic and aesthetic purposes. It is a
short-hand process that also confirms Boyer's wider message of a utopian
present.  For Guffey, this is a common feature of a retro culture (and
retro television) that displays "subversive instincts" and which often
side-steps historical accuracy, "allowing society to find 'new ways to
tell itself its own history' (Guffey 2006: 9).

 

Already, the appeal for television dramas and non-fiction depicting
recent history (*Life On Mars*, for example) has shown a move from 1970s
to 1980s to meet the dynamics of the viewing audience, and *Deutschland
83* can also be considered an example of this process/trend. If, as Enns
believes, Ostalgie was largely a television phenomenon, then not only
is *Deutscland 83* an expression of Boyer's "western utopia", but we can
also see it as a particularly national/local expression of a much wider,
and transnational, retro culture. This is a culture that is strongly
linked to transnational processes of self-exoticism, and 'Cool Nation'
branding -- intentional or otherwise.

As with *Deutschland 83*, *The Bridge*, and others, nation/national
branding and national characteristics are part of the appeal of these
television series, and television in particular, whether it be through
global television formats, foreign-language dramas, or streaming
services such as Netflix, has become significant in revealing the
local/global dimensions of transnationalism. Further,
although *Deutschland 83*may not have intended to be an international
product, the "incessant memory work" (Elsaesser 2013) done by television
-- tele-visual media memory, eyewitness accounts, home movies,
memorabilia -- has ensured that the series can be approached by
audiences through a variety of complex networks of meaning and affinity
that confirms or disavows equally concepts of collective and personal
identity.

For Channel 4's *Walter Presents*, we can consider Katja Valaskivi's
concept of *Cool Nations* (2016) where the "transnational idea of 'cool'
has circulated from popular culture, fashion, and marketing into
describing nations" and into describing national television and its
products (2016). In this respect, national television adapts to meet
global competition, but it does so through branding national identities
as 'cool', or for these purposes 'exotic'. Does *Deutschland 83* make
German television 'cool'? Is *Deutschland 83* an example of nation
branding in television? *Walter Presents* and Channel 4 seem to think
so.

 

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**n.b. **Thank you Elke Weissmann for our conversation on the merits/or
otherwise of German television, and also German culture, kuchen, and
wein.

 

**Kenneth Longden  **has lectured as part of the academic staff at
Liverpool John Moores University in Media, Critical, and Creative Arts,
and studied for a MPhil/PhD in Transnational Narratives at The
University of Winchester. He is a Fellow HEA, and a Peer-Reviewer for
various academic journals. He has been published by Intellect Books and
Palgrave MacMillan, and writes on Popular Narrative, Film, Television,
Fandom, and Popular Culture.

 


Channel 4’s recent foray into foreign-language television drama,
<em>
 Deutschland 83
</em>
, highlights a preoccupation of contemporary culture, and of contemporary television, with identity. The mediation of this theme/meme through popular television in particular has taken many dramatic and representational forms.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

CHANNEL 4’S DEUTSCHLAND 83: ‘COOL NATION’ BRANDING, THE TRANSNATIONAL, AND RETRO CULTURE. (SELF-EXOTICISM #3)