Der Spiegel

4.2 Analysis of German Epitext Discussing Wetlands

At the time of the first publication of the German version of Wetlands in February 2008, Roche was already a well-known television personality. Despite the novel’s controversial character and feminist message, one cannot dismiss the possibility that Roche’s status and image in German society also played an instrumental role in determining its overwhelmingly successful reception. This section will evaluate ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ epitext in the form of reviews in liberal and conservative German newspapers as well as Amazon reviews, with the aim of determining the underlying political and ideological factors underlying the success of Wetlands. Particular attention will be paid to the authorial role and Charlotte Roche’s image portrayal in German epitextual material.

4.2.1 Der Spiegel

As already mentioned in Chapter 3 of this thesis, the German magazine Der Spiegel is a liberal political magazine, renowned for its high-quality investigative journalism. It was originally founded by a British army officer and a German Wehrmacht radio reporter after the Second World War (Hoffmann & Fraser, 2006). According to the Economist, Der Spiegel magazine is the leading magazine in continental Europe (Der Spiegel and Germany’s press, 2002). Wetlands ranked number one on the 2008 Spiegel bestseller list and on 25^th February 2008, shortly after Wetlands hit the German bookshops, Der Spiegel published an interview with Charlotte Roche conducted by journalists Roche Moritz von Uslar and Claudia Voigt.

First and foremost, the interview provided Roche with an opportunity to specify her authorial intention. Since media and other discursive channels play an active role in constructing authorial image (Summers, 2013, p. 11), it is highly likely that the values of Der Spiegel magazine align with Roche’s intention.

In said interview, Roche confirms that the book was supposed to be a feminist manifesto, but when asked whether it was her intention to provoke, she declines to answer, explaining that she had not expected the book to spark such an outcry. The German publishing house ‘Kiepenheuer & Witsch’ that was originally going to publish Wetlands, made the last-minute decision not to go ahead with it as they deemed it too pornographic. Der Spiegel asks Roche if it was her intention to write pornographic literature, and she answers that she would welcome the idea of Wetlands being categorised as porn. After all, current mainstream pornography is created and defined by men wherein women are portrayed as passive creatures dominated by men, which is not the case in Wetlands. The book is primarily about masturbation and exploring one’s body (Moritz von Uslar und Claudia Voigt, 2008).¹⁴

Von Uslar & Voigt (2008) discuss the main themes of Wetlands including the exaggerated hype around hygiene. Given that seventy percent of the story is based on autobiographical facts, they ask if Roche herself is as sexually uninhibited as the protagonist Helen. She admits to being quite shy in real life and says that she wishes she were as courageous and open-minded as Helen.¹⁵ For example, she says that she would like for women to stop

14“…wobei der Mann derbe abgeht und die Frau die Unterlegene spielt. So kommt das

shaving and explains that we perceive body hair on women as disgusting due to our social conditioning. For the sake of making a political statement, Roche deliberately stopped shaving her armpits when she was working as a television presenter at VIVA. However, due to increasing societal pressure, she ultimately resorted to shaving her armpits again. She states that she finds this problematic and wants women to be aware of this issue.¹⁶

Roche and the two journalists proceed to talk about feminism. Roche proclaims that she does not like women like Paris Hilton or Heidi Klum. In her eyes, Madonna is not a role model as she fails to age gracefully. They further discuss German feminist and activist Alice Schwarzer as well as chancellor Angela Merkel’s influence on feminism. When asked about Schwarzer, Roche says that she is grateful to Schwarzer for everything that she has achieved for German women but maintains that her take on feminism is dated. According to Schwarzer, engaging in bondage sex is un-feminist, a notion that Roche does not agree with.¹⁷

As for her secret on how she incorporates feminism into her marriage and family life, Roche says that she is convinced that as long as a woman has a feminist husband, allocation of household chores and child rearing will not be an issue.¹⁸

16”Ich hätte gerne, dass es auf Frauen einen weniger großen Druck gibt, sich komplett zu enthaaren. Frauen rasieren sich aus einem vorauseilenden Gehorsam”

17 “Junge Feministinnen müssen Alice Schwarzer für viel dankbar sein, zum Beispiel dafür, dass Frauen ihre Männer nicht mehr fragen müssen, ob sie arbeiten gehen dürfen. Bei vielen ihrer neuen Kampagnen wie bei der Verteufelung von Pornos können wir aber nicht mehr mitgehen. Frau Schwarzer möchte Sadomaso-Sex verbieten. Frauen sind aber total masochistisch, das wird auch sie nicht ändern können. Ich habe keine Lust, Frau Schwarzer erst um Erlaubnis zu fragen, bevor ich im Bett richtig loslege”.

18 “Die Leute fragen sich, wie man es schafft, Feministin zu sein und trotzdem mit Männern zusammenzuleben. Meine Antwort lautet: Man muss sich als Frau mit einem Feministen zusammentun. Wenn der Ehemann selber Feminist ist, läuft alles glatt”.

Finally, Roche clarifies her intention in a previous interview with British singer Robbie Williams, where she allegedly asked him if he had ever eaten his own sperm. She explains that at the time of the interview, Robbie Williams was not being very responsive. When he lethargically responded that he only listened to his own music when driving his car, Roche wanted to tease him and countered “that a musician listening to his own music is the same thing as a man drinking his own sperm”.¹⁹

In the interview conducted with Der Spiegel, Roche is able to clarify her authorial intention and to scale back on her provocative image. The way she is depicted in the interview, corresponds to the image of a young feminist who is not as brazen and uninhibited as one might assume. Instead, she admits to not being as cheeky as Helen in real life, showing a more vulnerable side. Furthermore, the fact that she explains her feminist ideals and what feminism means to her, means that she comes across as someone who is smart, reflective and not superficial. Overall, the interview seeks to fulfil three functions: (1) a commercial function; (2) authorial function; and (3) political function.

A few months later in July 2008, Der Spiegel published another article titled Verknallt in Charlotte [Madly in love with Charlotte], published on 24^th July 2008. Journalist Judith Liere attended a talk by Charlotte Roche given at a German university. The lecture was attended by 800 students, who were very eager to meet Roche. Most of the students still remembered Roche from their teenage years when she was working as a television presenter for the German music channel VIVA. The students recall seeing her as a cool role model with a great sense of humour wearing funky clothes. She listened to what was considered the right kind of music

and did not shy away from asking brazen questions in interviews. In short, girls saw her a role model and boys were impressed with her knowledge of music.²⁰

While some of the students admit to finding the content of the book rather gross, they also maintain that it is very interesting.²¹ The majority of students interviewed loved the book and felt that it managed to hit a nerve in society.

Similarly to the previous Der Spiegel interview, Roche explains in her speech what she sought to achieve with her book. She highlights the fact that she had not planned on publishing a controversial book and that it just happened by accident. She thinks that it is crazy how successful the book has been and wonders if this is indicative of how crazy society has become.²²

Since students constitute seventy percent of the sales revenue of Wetlands, she thanks her student audience for their support and brings up the topics of body shaming and society’s obsession with women shaving their body hair.

After the talk, many students have been taken in by Roche’s aura. The common feedback amongst the students who attended the event appears to have been that Charlotte is authentic, genuine, friendly, likeable but also vulnerable, and not really like Helen. The final

20 “[Sie ist die] Coolste überhaupt, hatte die tollsten Klamotten an, den besten Humor, hörte die richtige Musik und machte dreiste Interviews. Sie war das Role Model der Mädels, die Jungs waren von ihrem Musikwissen beeindruckt.”

21 “Ja, es sei schon ziemlich eklig, aber auch interessant, mal was anderes”

22"Ich schwöre beim Leben meiner Tochter, dass ich nicht damit gerechnet habe, dass dieses kranke Buch ein Massenphänomen wird. Die Leute müssen verrückt sein."

paragraph of the report concludes by saying that the key ingredient to success is Roche’s charisma and aura.²³

The concluding remark of the article seeks to draw a very positive image of Roche by portraying her as a very likeable person, thus highlighting the importance of the author function. The author’s intention, as established in a previous Der Spiegel interview, is reinforced by depicting Roche as a likeable, reflective and smart feminist. Since the magazine attracts a more liberal and upper-class readership, it is highly possible that Roche’s feminist values align with that of Der Spiegel magazine. The fact that the magazine published an interview as early as February 2008, at a time when it was unclear if the book was going to be a success, portraying Roche in a likeable manner, suggests that Der Spiegel generally agrees with the political message conveyed in Wetlands and subsequently used its article publications as an epitextual threshold for political activism.

Roche’s positive depiction could be seen as a strategy for promoting the novel. The purpose of the interview might have been to clarify and convince more sceptical readers of Roche’s true objective, a strategy pointing to a politically or commercially motivated function.

Since Der Spiegel is affiliated with the German Spiegel bestseller list, the magazine could have had an interest in promoting Wetlands due to the political message of the novel or simply, because they might have had a personal financial interest in boosting the sales numbers.