09:18 PST 2/5/2021
in
Scott Roxborough
The actors – among them ‘Babylon Berlin’ star Udo Samel and Karin Hanczewski and Mark Waschke of the German TV drama ‘Tatort’ – published a joint manifesto on ‘Sueddeutsche Zeitung’ calling for a change in attitudes and more LGBTQ characters in scripts.
Nearly 200 LGBTQ actors in Germany, including some of the country’s biggest movie and TV stars, gave a mass presentation in a German national newspaper on Friday, in a public appeal for more diversity on stage and on screen.
The 185 gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender actors – among them Babylon Berlin star Udo Samel and Karin Hanczewski and Mark Waschke from the # 1 German TV drama Tatort – published a joint manifesto in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung asking for a change in attitudes and more LGBTQ characters in the scripts.
“I come from a world that hasn’t told me anything about me,” read the headline in the front page article in Friday’s newspaper.
“We identify ourselves, among other things, as lesbians, gays, bi, trans, queer, inter and non-binary,” says the manifesto. “Until now, we have not been able to speak openly about our private life without fearing repercussions on our professional life.”
In interviews with the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, the actors repeat sadly similar stories of being warned by agents, directors and producers not to reveal themselves publicly because that would prevent them from being considered for heterosexual roles.
“I wanted to attend an award and walk the red carpet with the woman I love, but I was strongly advised against it, I warned that it would ruin my career,” said Emma Bading, who played the lead role in Touch, a TV movie that won an international Emmy nomination last year.
“When we talked about it as a group, it suddenly became clear that this was how we could change something – as a group, as a large group,” said Hanczewski.
The artists also denounced the over-representation of heterosexual white men on and off the screen in German industry.
“Of course, I want to play characters that were originally written as white or heterosexual,” says Lamin Leroy Gibba, a black German theater actor. “At the same time, I ask: where are the black and queer characters at the center of their own stories?”
The issue of diversity and representation on the screen has only recently begun to be seriously discussed in German industry. Unlike some other European countries – including in the U.K. – in Germany, stakeholders in the film and TV industry have so far failed to establish mandatory diversity requirements in contracting or commissioning.