TV Comedienne Giulia Becker: "Spectators like to eat what they know"

"What are the old white men afraid of on TV?" Giulia Becker sings, twitters and plays - as clever and witty as no one else right now. The "Neo Magazin Royale" author was born in 1991 in the province of Siegerland, for which she is also increasingly in front of the camera herself: Above all her clip "Damn Shit" made her known in Germany, about 900,000 people have the Song viewed on YouTube so far. In the video, in which inter alia Jan Böhmermann and Nora Tschirner occur, Becker criticized a culture in the workplace, in which men with blowjob jokes and Buddytum systematically exclude women. She sings: "Guilt is my sheath" - and then joins other women to fight sexism: "And if you're with me, swing your sheaths now".

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mrs. Becker, Your song "Damned Shit" draws a frustrated woman in the job of a creative TV editor. How close is the scenario at the work reality in the "Neo Magazine Royale"?

Becker: The Bildundtonfabrik, which produces the program, has the decisive advantage that actually everyone is receptive and open to the topic. It reflects, it's about making it better - maybe we're not there yet where we want to go, but it's going on steadily. At the moment, we even have a female quota that's a little better than fifty-fifty. Three years ago, there was still a "Sexy Carp Calendar" in the office - today it's no longer possible.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How can good, contemporary TV comedy look like today? For example, the "Neo Magazine Royale" is strongly aligned with the blueprint of the classic American late-night shows.

Becker: That's right, but like the Americans, we're trying every week to come up with new ideas, one-actors, rubrics, songs, actions that make the program an original thing in most cases. Also try something, which is not classic "television", of which live the show. In Germany, the cliché track à la "women can drive a car and men are lazy" or "Hey, you still know the song of the Gummibärenbande? still the best chance of success. Many viewers like to eat what they know. I find that often very depressing.

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SPIEGEL ONLINE: You also appear more often in front of the camera in the show - how is your relationship to the stage?

Becker: Very ambivalent. In my childhood, I was always a bit of a rush. I sang, danced, played theater. It suited me because until my puberty, I had a good deal of self-confidence, including my body. Unfortunately, that sometime remained on the track. And now I divide myself: On the one hand there is a desire to act out the Rampensau and on the other hand my introverted side demands their right. The latter also not too short, permanent self-doubt accompany me every day. That's just an eternal fight. There are days when I come by myself with ideas for the stage - and at other times I have to drag myself to shoot, because it really does not work. I carry both sides in me. Let's see which one wins in the end.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you make appearances in public easier or harder because you are now not only speaking for yourself - but also perceived as a role model, as a feminist, for example, or as a representative of a body image beyond the drought ideal?

Becker: Actually, that simplifies the whole thing for me. Because this feedback is something that also encourages me. There are a lot of people out there, who are happy to be represented on TV - when they see someone who is not standard-looking, when they see a woman making jokes on TV, and as a matter of course. That I can go there as a positive role model, drives me.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: There are also women artists who feel this permanent representation as a burden.

Becker: I understand that well. I know female musicians who are annoyed when they are asked again because the organizer needs a woman for his line-up. They rightly think, "And what about my music?" But I see it this way: We live in a time where it needs the odds to build something stable first. That's why you can not really escape this role-model-being - I see the future, that is, what you can enable future generations with their own visibility.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You have just addressed the "Alibi Musician". Why is the allegedly so colorful pop company so behind?

Becker: One big factor is that more and more people consume and celebrate the music of men - even mediocre music by men. Whereas mediocre music by women is a complete no-go. In the case of men, this creepy "I have no idea, but I'll just do it" then sympathetic, the whimsy guy next door, the doer. It's a pity for women, she's just not good enough. " That alone is an imbalance that needs to be overcome. I can only bear the downfall of this male mediocrity badly. I want them all to be successful with their meaningful stuff. But please, women also celebrate us for mediocre achievements, as if we were the next Messiah.

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Giulia Becker:
Life is one of the hardest

Rowohlt book publisher; 224 pages; 20 Euros.

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SPIEGEL ONLINE: You deal with topics that Internet Trolls particularly like to jump on. How do you handle the hate in the net?

Becker: When everything started, I made a firm decision: never read the comments. But if you're sleepless in bed, you can usually never do it - and of course you also want to know, what are the people actually writing? Bad mistake! But what can one say about that? It's just unbelievably blatant what guys anonymously throw at you on the Internet, just this normal hail of anti-feminist utterances that pounces on you. Since you have to look, that you are well grounded, so that does not throw everything off the track. I already see systematic hatred for women on the internet.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How do you react to hostility?

Becker: Of course not at all. How should one argue against hate? On Twitter, I share the really bad stuff but sometimes, so that others see what the reality for women on the net looks like. This surprises every time many men: "How crass, with something you have to deal with every day ?!" Yep, Johannes, I have to, while you can solve the Middle East conflict every day for hours unmolested in the comment columns of Zeit Online.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Would you rather like the male colleagues just joke jokes - without an explicit agenda?

Becker: Sometimes I wonder where I would be if I was not a woman - and the thought is devastating. Because the struggles I have to carry out every day take time. Privileged men can use their resources for other things, can make a career without looking left and right. And then I often only see this struggle with me, the many reflections, reflection, reading and posting, then everything from the beginning - and think, that is your life content every day. Wow. But with discrimination, it's just like, "Once you've seen it, you can not stand it". Once you understand how deprivation works in society, if you look at system contexts, then you can not put that aside.

Currently Giulia Becker is on tour with Jan Böhmermann and the Rundfunk Tanzorchester Ehrenfeld, all data can be found here. At the end of March 2019 Becker's first book will follow. The novel "Life is one of the hardest" appears in Rowohlt.