Fictionalization of Germanness in the times of Greek crisis: deconstructing the ‘two strangers’ frame in TV sketch comedies

ABSTRACT

As processes of identity construction are relational, the ways the Greeks view the Germans are intrinsically interrelated to how they see themselves, especially in a period of economic recession. Against this backdrop, in the present paper, I consider the ways Germanness (and thus, also Greekness) are constructed in a popular Greek TV stand-up comedy show. The analysis revealed that they were depicted as two distinct universes consisting of different language, music and culture, echoing (at first impression) rather well-held ideas about Northern Europeanness vs. Southern Europeanness, which circulate in the (Greek) public sphere. Nevertheless, through the strategy of fictionalization, such stereotypical representations were actually challenged by the TV sketches, since they were systematically exoticized through several indexes (e.g. the stylized language performance of German characters), with the aim to be deconstructed.

KEYWORDS:

• Germanness
• Greekness
• TV comedy
• fictionalization
• indexicality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Anastasia G. Stamou holds an MA in Language in Society from the University of East Anglia, UK, and a PhD from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. She is an Associate Professor at the Department of Linguistics and Language Teaching of the School of German Language and Linguistics, in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Her research has been informed by critical and sociolinguistic approaches to discourse analysis, seeking to explore fictional representations of (youth, gender, ethnic/ national) identities in Greek popular cultural texts. On this topic, she has recently guest edited a Special Issue entitled ‘Sociolinguistics of Fiction’ and appearing in Discourse, Context & Media.

Notes

1 The two TV sketches are originally in Greek. There are also some turns in German (in the scenes depicting ‘German’ characters), annotated with italics (all the transcription conventions used are provided in the Appendix). In the original, these turns are accompanied by Greek subtitles for Greek viewers. For the journal readership, both sketches were translated into English by the author. The author would like to thank Dr. Nikos Katsaounis and Mrs. Claudia Schein for helping her with the transcription of the TV sketches.

2 The clip can be accessed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EItXqWHfqtUandt=102s (02:08-05:12, last access: 05.10.2018).

3 The clip can be accessed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EItXqWHfqtUandt=102s (21:27-24:19, last access: 05.10.2018).

4 Although the Greek address form mana is translated as ‘ma’ in the conversation, in fact, there is no English equivalent, as it tends to be used by Greek males in an emancipatory and/or ‘virile’ fashion (e.g. when referring to mothers in a group of adult friends).