Kiel "crime scene" about misogyny
Mario, man up!
From macho men in men's seminars to misogynist trolls on the Internet: The Kiel "crime scene" shows facets of misogyny - and how it erupts into violence.
By Christian Buß
05.03.2021, 3.10 p.m.
The man is a predator. The woman his prey. Many men still cling to this analogy from the imagery of infantile Stone Age machismo. And perhaps it is precisely those who are particularly unsuccessful in the wild - to remain in their limited image resevoir - who do it the hardest. The nervous Mario (Joseph Bundschuh), who is looking for female contacts in a discotheque at the beginning of this "Tatort," listens to the online tutorial of a pick-up artist, whose gender image is still kindly described as prehistoric.
Pick-up artists are men who elevate "picking up" to an "art form," but at the same time propagate the primitive slaying of the opposite sex. The one from whom Mario gets his shaky ego pumped up before going to the disco is called Hank Massmann (Arndt Klawitter) and says in his video: "Be dominant, and you win." He references animal movies because inspiration could be drawn from the hunting behavior of lions or leopards. "Let them run!" murmurs the alleged chief ripper, confident of victory. And his young fan dutifully tries to put the macho tips into practice: Mario, man up!
But the awkward boy doesn't get very far in the club with his painstakingly trained predatory behavior. The awkwardly targeted young woman, to whom he buys a drink, leaves him standing at the bar after a dubious remark. The next morning, her body is found on a bank not far from the disco; a code has been drawn in the sand that suggests a right-wing extremist group.
Only two clicks to right-wing extremism
In their new case, Borowski (Axel Milberg) and Sahin (Almila Bagriacik) have to deal with various facets of misogyny. It's about men who give free rein to their atavistic impulses in sweaty seminars in order to give themselves courage against what they perceive as the insidious nature of women. And it is about men who meet in so-called "incels" forums to lament their "involuntary celibacy". They prefer to blame their condition on migrant men who allegedly steal their German wives. The "incels" are just one click away from racism - and from there to right-wing extremism is just another.
The testosterone-swollen gatherings in events with titles like "Back to the Man" and the sad trollishness of the isolated in the "Incels" forums: the people responsible for this "Tatort" (directed by Nicole Weegmann, written by Peter Probst and Daniel Nocke) describe them as two sides of the same misogyny. Ominously, they let the misogyny of both forces interact and condense them into a scenario of male violence.
World Women's Day in their sights
"We are many!" the men shout as they drum on their chests at group seminars. This nightmare takes the form of a new terrorism in "Borowski and the Fear of White Men."
While Mario, the nervous boy from the disco, threatens to radicalize himself in the course of the plot in order to live out his hatred of women as a lone assassin running amok, incited by the "Incels" chat acquaintances, an unspecified terrorist group is organizing a series of attacks in the background. The target date for the fictitious militant misogynist faction is International Women's Day - which is actually scheduled for the Monday after the "Tatort" is broadcast.
Up to now, right-wing extremists with an "incels" background - the assassins of Christchurch or Hanau were also among them - have appeared as loners. The plot twist in the direction of group violence, however, is already permissible as a dystopian condensation. But the fact that the female characters, of all people, have little more depth is a problem of this "Tatort" episode. There are simply too many female stereotypes strung together.
For example, the victim from the discotheque was filled with liquid ecstasy without the knowledge of her stupid girlfriends and thus driven into the arms of the perpetrator, which suggests a certain co-responsibility of the women for the death of the others. And Mario gets another chance for a date after the failed attempt at the dance floor, because he helps an overtaxed young woman to park the car.
Let's put it this way: in terms of role diversity, there's still room for improvement in this "Tatort".
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