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Zack Snyder’s Watchmen (2009) is complicated. To start, three people reading this might think of three different things when they read “Zack Snyder’s Watchmen (2009).” The first might recall the movie that ran in theaters; the second, the Director’s Cut; and the third—say, a brilliant person who read my article from last month—the set of media and experiences that includes the three cuts of the film, the special features, the game, and the motion comic. Yet, even when viewed as that set, as one large text, Watchmen still feels…lacking, especially when compared to the monolith that is Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons 1986–7 comic of the same name. The root cause of this shortfall is a difference of experience: as I’ll demonstrate, Watchmen the comic book embeds into its narrative the experience of reading comics in order to flesh out its story, themes, and purpose. Watchmen the film1 embeds the experience of being Zack Snyder, a fan whose loyalty to the source material blinds him to its critical and rebellious character in favor of surface-level connections between the page and screen.

I hinted at this last month when I said, “The narrative(s) of Watchmen are, no matter the ordering, merely poor scans of the comic to the film screen, replicating the source and failing to do much else. But that’s moving away from this material-oriented discussion, so it’ll have to wait until the next Tuesday Zone.” This issue isn’t separate from that discussion of materiality, though. It’s an outgrowth. First, consider Moore and Gibbons’ book. Within a few pages, or with a flip through them, we can see the 9-panel grid that defines nearly every page. The rigidity and regularity of this structure emphasizes the artificiality of the medium by emphasizing two of its most basic components: panels and layout. The color palette might also stand out to those who’ve read a lot of older superhero comics: Watchmen uses secondary colors (purple, green, orange) rather than the more common primary colors (red, green, blue), maintaining and subverting the boldness and consistency of the book’s contemporaries and antecedents (Fig. 1).

DC Comics Fig. 1: Note the predominance of orange (14.1, 14.3, 14. 6, 15.2, 15.4, 15.5), purple (14.1, 14.4), and green (15.4, 15.5).

These physical qualities are recognizable as particularly comic-like, but different enough to catch our attention. Moore and Gibbons at once engage us and force us to read the story at arm’s length. Why they do so has to do with the aims of the book at large. Watchmen is a critique and deconstruction of the superhero comic, and everything about it expands, distorts, or unveils some aspect of the genre. The authors realize that reading a comic book, whether in issues or a trade paperback, affects us. It changes how we see and read due to our preconceptions (good or bad) of what a superhero comic is. To utilize and comment on this, Moore and Gibbons make the act of reading comics an essential part of the narrative, putting this experience at the center of the story to break our preconceptions so that we can see the genre anew.

Before diving into exactly why they do this and whether or not it’s effective, I’ll outline how and where. Most literally, there’s the character Bernard, a kid who reads a somber and violent pirate comic book called Tales of the Black Freighter. In the backmatter2 of Chapter V, we learn that instead of superhero comics re-surging to dominate the medium in the 1950s, pirate comics took over because superheroes existed in real life. So, in this sense, Bernard is our double in the world of Watchmen, reading a gritty comic book from pop culture’s dominant genre. This is emphasized by transitions in the book from Bernard reading Tales of the Black Freighter to the pages that Bernard is reading (Fig. 2).

DC Comics Fig. 2: We can see the actual page of Tales of the Black Freighter in 8.9 that comprises the following page.

  Comics writer Grant Morrison argues that the doubling of the reader in the text goes even further: the entire book can be interpreted as Seymour—a hapless assistant at a right-wing newspaper—reading Rorschach’s journal, which he sees and reaches for in the last page of the book (Fig. 3). Rather than showing us a comic reader, Moore and Gibbons show how readers add to narratives, imagining the pictures, words, and transitions.

And then there’s Doctor Manhattan. Although his reflection of the comic book reader has been discussed in a few places, Jared Gardner describes it best: “Dr. Manhattan is capable of taking in past, present, and future in a glance, of moving back and forward between them effortlessly, even of making choices in the gaps between slivers of time that might impact if not the conclusion at least its ultimate meaning. Dr. Manhattan, that is, sees time like a comic reader” (188). In one scene, the god-like entity narrates that he will drop a photograph in twelve seconds, interspersing what he experiences with the mental count-down. However, what we see in the panels does not move linearly (Fig. 4). We see the photograph on the ground when he says, “TEN SECONDS NOW.” Next, he’s sitting with the photograph in-hand. Then he’s in the past, then looking at the photograph again. His ability to both perceive everything at once and progress linearly reflects the comic readers’ experience, a kind of god who is both brought into the world of the book and yet always detached from it. To us, every panel of Watchmen exists at once, just as every moment in time does for Dr. Manhattan.

And while that’s all interesting, it would be pretentious if done merely for post-modern, metafictional shenanigans. Fortunately, all of these choices are essential to the story Moore and Gibbons are trying to tell. They want us to see all the weird things that have been normalized in superhero comics, so that we appreciate what the characters and their actions mean subtextually. As a result, we follow the authors along as they point to the genre’s missing dimensions, its flaws, its logical endpoints, and its potential. Moore and Gibbons make the act of reading comics essential to the narrative because it reinforces that how and why we read comics isn’t detached from the genre and its implicit values. It’s a recognition that, in part, the medium is the message. And, of course, it shows that the Watchmen’s narrative is, at its core, a critique of and rebellion against everything that inspired it.

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DC Comics Fig. 3: The beginning is the end is the beginning. (That’s a topical reference, right?)

DC Comics Fig. 4: Dr. Manhattan sees time as we see the world in a comic book: existing all at once in its totality.

I doubt this analysis breaks new ground for one of comics’ biggest and most-discussed books. However, it’s necessary for understanding how fundamentally Zack Snyder’s Watchmen fails to understand the narrative purpose and power of its source material, and how it thus fails as both an adaptation and its own text. Again, we have to focus on how the experiences of consuming Watchmen the book differ from consuming Watchmen the film. Moore and Gibbons encode the experience of reading comics to bolster their narrative aims. Snyder encodes the experience of being Zack Snyder to capture the mindset of a loyal fan, the exact mindset that Moore and Gibbons sought to disrupt.

Before showing how this manifests in the diegetic3 parts of Snyder’s Watchmen, we can look at the non-diegetic components—largely the second disc of the Collector’s Edition, containing over two long hours of extra content—for additional context. Across the four featurettes and 11 video journals, everyone who worked on the film demonstrates a near-obsession with connecting the movie’s world to our own. The Phenomenon: The Comic That Changed Comics tells the history of Moore and Gibbons’ comic, but with such reverence that it erases the medium’s history in favor of myths (note the irony). Namely, several talking heads discuss how Watchmen pushed the medium to grow up, how it took the superhero concept and blew it open in a way never done before.

The interviewees seem to forget that Moore came onto the scene with Marvelman,4 which checked most of the same boxes as Watchmen four years prior, albeit with an eye for Superman-style comics more so than Batman-style. Two years after that, Moore flexed his abilities to deconstruct and reinvent comic book characters with the first several issues of his run on Swamp Thing. Moore himself had covered this territory already, which isn’t even to mention others in the field, but that would demythologize Watchmen rather than encourage this revisionist history.

Similarly, discussions of the book are hilariously lacking in self-awareness. One interviewee says—no exaggeration—that Watchmen “is the Citizen Kane of comic books.” This canonization is antithetical to Watchmen‘s basic function: the end of an unquestioned canon. Watchmen works best and makes the most sense in its context, but this awkward cultural history strips it from its context. Rather than exploring Watchmen in all of its detail, questioning its place in history and seriously thinking about its subject matter, we see how Snyder experiences Watchmen. This featurette isn’t a history of the book, but rather an exploration of the history and purpose that Snyder and many Moore acolytes have accepted as a given. It’s the experience of being Zack Snyder, thinking about Watchmen means regardless of reality, which is far more complex.

Equally indicative of this problem is Mechanics: Technologies of a Fantastic World. Scientists who were advisers for the movie meticulously outline the technology and science depicted therein, effectively explaining piece by piece what does and does not require suspension of disbelief. Again, we don’t learn about the world of the movie or the book in all of its complexity as a story and cultural artifact; we learn about what Snyder finds interesting, what he thinks it means to make a loyal adaptation. He seems compelled to explain how real this story could be, how tied to our world his text is. This is why there’s such a fundamental difference between the book’s use of backmatter and the film’s use of its equivalent (i.e. special features): Moore uses backmatter to flesh out his world, whereas Snyder uses it to flesh out how he and other devotees view their sacred text. Moore uses it to connect and differentiate his story from its inspiration(s), and Snyder uses it to unquestioningly relate his movie to his, like, #1 fave comic.

Most bizarre, though, is Real Super Heroes: Real Vigilantes. This featurette contains interviews with members of the Alliance of Guardian Angels, a real group of vigilantes. They describe 1980s New York in apocalyptic terms, with descriptions of complex moral issues that might sound familiar to some anxious Americans this election season: “But you have to do something other than just call 911. To me, that is so weak!” Whoever edited this piece seems to recognize the connection between these guys and particularly Rorschach;  images of the character are interspersed while Guardian Angels members speak. But just as this moment of awareness rears its head, another interviewee—portrayed as a relative authority on the subject—claims that even critics of the Guardian Angels would assume generally that they mean well. I guess that “critics” wouldn’t include Moore himself, who wrote the Comedian to show as bluntly as possible that vigilantes don’t put on a costume and fight poor people or “supervillains” for moral purposes. Again, we see not a consideration of the film’s themes and the questions they raise about power, morality, and the superhero genre, but rather Snyder’s simplistic reading of the superhero that likely stems from his enjoyment of the genre.

Interestingly, though, Snyder does have some insightful comments on the matter. He realizes that vigilantism has an “othering” quality, and that Rorschach has a violently psychopathic nature.5 He seems to acknowledge that Rorschach is not the respectable anti-hero that many readers envision. But then we begin to experience the diegetic narrative(s) of Snyder’s Watchmen. The video game presents the most comical dissonance between Snyder’s apparent understanding of the comic and the components of his actual text. Written by the book’s original editor, Len Wein, and advised by Gibbons, the game lets us actually be Rorschach as we…beat up convicts, then members of a street gang, then actual cops. All of this could be interesting, if it weren’t designed as an old-fashioned beat-em-up with increasingly complex and violent combos—and don’t forget the one-liners, like “What do you say we show Mr. Rorschach the shower facilities,” or, “We’ll fuck your face up for real!” The largely working class people that we mindlessly beat the crap out of are presented as fodder (Fig. 5). The game, as a result, plays like the exact opposite of what someone would think to make if they had just read Watchmen and knew what the word “theme” meant. The game reflects Snyder’s experience with the book, but not any experience that involves actual engagement with it.

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Fig. 5: Also…sewer people?

Even Tales of the Black Freighter, the animated adaptation of the original book’s comic-in-a-comic, fails at its basic function. Regardless of whether it’s viewed on its own, in tandem with the Director’s Cut, or integrated in the Ultimate Cut, it serves no real purpose. In the book, we get its history, an understanding of its aesthetic and reflection of pop culture, which helps us understand the world in which it exists. In the movie, it can’t act this way because it lacks the context that it had in the book. The animation style does not carry the aesthetic implications because it’s generic rather than specific to an era or style. The meta-commentary on the medium is gone. Snyder merely takes the panels from the book and fills in the gutters between them with basic movement, losing the powerful relationship between reader and comic but replacing it with nothing new. Rather than provide the experience of being in the world of Watchmen, it provides the experience of being Zack Snyder, reading the book and making the basic animations in his head with soulless late-2000s stylistics.

The motion comic provides much of the same experience but for the actual panels of the book itself. The narration and animation are interesting as a different way to experience the comic, but much of the aforementioned effect that comes from reading Watchmen is lost. The symmetry of the panel layout (and other details) that splits Chapter V of the book is gone, for instance, when it could have been captured in frames, cuts, or movement. The distinct effects and impressions that are integral to the materiality of Watchmen don’t work here, detracting from the completeness of the comic’s experience. And really, much the same can be said for Snyder’s approach to the film itself. It has the same level of thoughtfulness and insight as a plagiarized paper: none except what is inherited from its sources.

The movie—as seen in the various cuts of the film—reflects the misplaced loyalty seen in the featurettes, video journals, and other previously discussed media. For example, in the video journals, Gibbons comments on the layers of detail Snyder has incorporated. We’re told that we need to watch the movie several times to catch all of the details, and this appears to reflect one of the book’s greatest assets: its density. But in the book, the details expanded the universe. There are leitmotifs like the shadow of a man and woman embracing, which causes Rorschach unease. Its recurrence reminds us of the impending nuclear war and the human cost. The reader can go through the book and find this image, correlate it to the events or narration/dialogue, and find themes and patterns. In the movie, the density amounts to easter eggs, like the giant elephant float advertising the Gunga Diner (Fig. 6). Again, in the comic, the details flesh out the world, and in the film they represent Snyder’s self-satisfying references. The important experience here doesn’t enhance the narrative, but rather hopes to endear itself to viewers by replicating what endeared the book to Zack Snyder.

Warner Bros. Fig. 6: Weirdly, this is only the second most distracting part of this scene. The first is a guy who angrily says, “Now, listen,” and then politely waits for Veidt to say, “No, you listen!”

The scenes themselves alternate between painstaking recreation and Snyder-y excess. For example, the panel where we see Doctor Manhattan’s massive clocklike creation on Mars is nearly duplicated by Snyder’s camera (Fig. 7). In contrast, the fight scenes are “finessed” with the director’s favorite action technique: speed-ramping, or alternating between slow and accelerated motion. He uses this to accentuate the violence, but it’s in favor of Snyder’s action movie sensibilities as seen in 300 rather than the world of the film. For example, SPOILERS, I GUESS? in each of the three cuts’ openings, we see the Comedian’s death in far greater detail. His fight with the home invader is extended and, well, action movie-like. But seeing how well the Comedian fights—while in keeping with the character—reveals exactly how well the invader fights, and the mystery person’s style. Once we start meeting the characters, it’s hard not to realize that the murderer is probably that one super athletic guy who talks like a supervillain. The action isn’t integral, and it isn’t even just superfluous. It actually undermines the mystery and uncertainty surrounding the event that kick-starts the entire plot. In the book, a detective implies that the invader must have been strong, but there’s enough room for uncertainty as to make it speculative for the reader END SPOILERS…I GUESS

In total, it’s easy to see why some dedicated fans of the book loved the movie and some hated it. Many shared Snyder’s exuberance for seeing the panels translated to the screen, but many others saw that in his exuberance, Snyder loses the story’s heart. He loses the critical eye that places Watchmen in comic book history. He loses the touchingly human stories that drive the characters. He loses the medium-specific aspects that make it such a powerful book. In a sense, the film represents what Watchmen would have been were it the exact kind of book that Watchmen was meant to critique. The reason for this is that it’s the kind of movie that only a loyal fan could make, one who wants to share the experience of loving something unquestionably. However, Snyder might have picked the worst text to adapt in order to accomplish that.

(Left) DC Comics; (Right) Warner Bros. Fig. 7: Snyder did add a lot of brown, though, so I guess that counts for something?

How could such a medium-specific comic even be adapted, though? Well, Terry Gilliam appears to have had an ending in mind that would have certainly been…different, and at the very least challenging. But rather than look at what-ifs, a great counter-example to everything mentioned so far is one of the most-ignored parts of the Collector’s Edition: Under the Hood. Perhaps due to a solid script by Hans Rodionoff,6 this short film demonstrates exactly what Snyder could have accomplished. Rather than translate the content from the book to the screen, Rodionoff and director Eric Matthies adapt the material. In the comic, Under the Hood is an autobiography by Hollis Mason, the first Nite Owl, who describes his entry into masked vigilantism. This book-within-a-book serves multiple purposes. First of all, it shows how normalized super heroes have become in this society. Second, it reflects how, for lack of a better word, “sane” Mason is in this society. He’s not a sadist like the Comedian, or a Utopian narcissist like Veidt. He’s just some guy who grew up in New York with antiquated ideas about right and wrong.

In Moore and Gibbons’ book, excerpts from Under the Hood make up some of the backmatter. For the short film, Rodionoff and Matthies use two frame devices: first, a newscast contemporary to the events of Watchmen, where the anchor says they will show archival footage. This footage is the second frame, an interview with Mason following the release of his book. Already, these layers show that the writer and director understand the purpose of the backmatter and what it reveals about the world and that character. It captures that sense of normalization, of a costumed vigilante going public in his old age to capitalize on it. And, of course, actually seeing Mason’s blasé attitude toward his vigilantism captures his personality in a way perfectly suited for the medium, particularly with an actor as talented as Stephen McHattie.

Further, the frames emphasize how Under the Hood—and to a large extent the characters in this world—are historical documents. This allows Rodionoff and Matthies to capture the antiquity of Mason’s views on good and evil, the dichotomy he’s accepted and acted on in a way that is well-meant but bound to end in rebellion, as we see at the end of the movie’s opening credits when a rioter throws a molotov cocktail through a window spray-painted with “WHO WATCHES THE WATCHMEN?” There are other nice touches too, like old black-and-white news footage of the first masked vigilante, the Hooded Justice; and then there are the 80s-style commercials for Veidt’s perfume, Nostalgia. Everything is placed in a historical context, and the material is perfectly adapted to the new medium to add all the nuance it had in the book, while adding to it with the benefits of film and time passed. And while this might just be me over-reading, I find it interesting that the news program overlays a picture of an actual comic book character, the Blue Beetle. Moore had used the Blue Beetle, a character DC had purchased from Charlton Comics, in his initial conception of Watchmen. However, Moore instead opted to make him an original character, the second Nite Owl, so Mason’s Nite Owl is in many ways a version of the Blue Beetle. The reference to that character as a character in the world of Watchmen poses some interesting questions to the viewer and distorts the relationship between our world and the diegesis, rather than trying to desperately separate and show the connections between them.

While Under the Hood isn’t likely to win awards for best short film, it rises above everything else that Snyder incorporated into his adaptation of Watchmen. It considers the purpose of the original material, its context, and the necessary changes to capture the original’s potency in a new medium. The product is closer to the source and more engaging, despite its changes at the surface level. Had this approach been incorporated into the other aspects of the film, it might have been at least memorable, if not as dynamic as its source material. Snyder’s Watchmen is a representation of the limits of loyalty, a dangerous strain in nerd culture today as it was in the 1980s. Such an approach is particularly inadequate for something as critical and self-reflexive as Moore and Gibbons’ seminal comic. With comic book movies being made as frequently as ever, Watchmen demonstrates an important principle: in order to understand and talk about something, you need to be critical of it. Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice have demonstrated that Snyder might not be the guy to do so, but hopefully his work will inspire a new generation to both embrace and analyze, rather than accept and lionize.

Notes

For the rest of this article, when I talk about “the film” I will be referring to the larger text defined above: “the three cuts of the film, the special features, the game, and the motion comic.” This is for ease of reading. I will specify if I am referring specifically to “the movie” as one of or all of the three cuts.

“Backmatter” is material that comes at the end of the main part of a comic book issue. Because Watchmen consists of 12 issues (called “Chapters” in the book), there are 12 instances of backmatter.

“Diegetic” is a fancy way to say in-world, i.e. existing in the fictional world where the text takes place. So, for Watchmen, the diegetic components are the Theatrical Cut, Director’s Cut, Ultimate Cut, Tales of the Black Freighter, Watchmen: The End Is Nigh, Watchmen: The Motion Comic (kind of), and Under the Hood.

For curious readers, Marvelman is now Miracleman due to a long and convuluted history that is best described by Bob Chipman (aka MovieBob).

I want to state very clearly that psychopathy is not tantamount to being violent or “bad.” Rorschach is violent and psychopathic, and the two feed into each other for this character, but they are not inherently connected.

I feel obligated to mention that Rodionoff wrote the script that became one of my favorite comic books, and perhaps the best fictional take on the life and works of H.P. Lovecraft

References

Gardner, Jared. Projections: Comics and the History of Twenty-First-Century Storytelling. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2012. Print.

Moore, Alan, and Dave Gibbons. Watchmen. New York: DC Comics, 1987. Print.

Morrison, Grant. Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2012. Print.

The Tuesday Zone: Zack Snyder, ‘Watchmen’, and Misplaced Loyalty Zack Snyder's Watchmen (2009) is complicated. To start, three people reading this might think of three different things when they read "Zack Snyder's 

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The Tuesday Zone: What Is Zack Snyder's 'Watchmen'?

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That title is annoyingly simple, right? You should be able to answer it if you saw Watchmen in theaters in 2009, or got it on home video. But if you’ve ever wanted to watch Blade Runner only to find a whole Wikipedia article devoted to the different versions of the movie, you know that it’s not always that clear. For Blade Runner, it’s not too tricky; director Ridley Scott’s definitive version is…

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How is violence used in film, and how do audiences respond to it? In this podcast, Sarah and Alex discuss the appeal of violence in media, using specific films and articles to map out some key aspects of this massive topic. CONTENT WARNING: We talk about sexual violence (i.e. sexual assault and rape) starting at 37:00 and transition into a conversation about sexualized violence (i.e. films that…

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The Tuesday Zone: The Cloverfield Cinematic Universe

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I went to see Transformers in an enormous Montreal cinema when it debuted in 2007. Although I left the theater with little to say about the movie itself, my brain was still on fire from a teaser trailer that ran before it. Bad Robot, J. J. Abrams’ production company, crafted the perfect ad, one so mysterious that it drove the viewer to seek out information rather than hopefully remember the movie…

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Introduction

If you heard that in 1871, the newly-formed Germany passed a statute criminalizing homosexual acts between men, would you be surprised? Probably not. Such laws were on the books in parts of the United States until 2003, after all (Lawrence v. Texas). What about if you heard that in 1867, someone petitioned the statute to jurists, explaining that homosexuality is an inborn, natural trait? I was. In fact, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs’ progressive views preempted a Germany that would rise over half a century later: the Weimar Republic, which formed in the ashes of World War I and fell in the blueprints of World War II. However—even though this interwar Germany would push back against tradition and anticipate the modern LGBTQ movement—much of Weimar society retained the anxieties and prejudices of the Germanies that bookended it.

The cinema of the Weimar Republic has already been discussed in sociological terms, most famously in Sigfried Kracauer’s From Caligari to Hitler. He argues that pre-Nazi German cinema reveals a fascistic impulse, making the Republic’s demise inevitable. Yet, when you look at the queer cinema of the time, which Kracauer dismisses as “sex films [testifying] to primitive needs” (45), a different picture arises. Instead of desperate box office appeals, the films represent a diverse set of perspectives that capture a society increasingly aware of queer identities and experiences. Whether the directors looked at this world and saw anxiety, oppression, or possibility, they all listened and spoke to society through their films, rather than expressing latent desires for a Führer.

I Don’t Want to Be a Man (1918)

Perhaps the proper time to is just before the formation of the Weimar Republic in November 1918, and perhaps the best place is a genre: comedy. Ernst Lubitsch, director of more than a dozen comedies over the previous three years, released I Don’t Want to Be a Man (Ich moechte kein Mann sein) one month before the Republic came to be. Like the directors of many great comedies, Lubitsch uses laughter to reflect the audiences’ anxieties about a fast-changing world. While he doesn’t portray any explicit homosexual acts or queer identities, he does focus on the desire of a young woman who wants to escape her gendered confines by transgressing traditional social paradigms. Ossi’s behavior in the film’s opening minutes are magnified, as with many comedy protagonists, and she surprises both contemporary and modern audiences by smoking, flirting, and playing poker like it’s 1999. When she purchases a men’s suit and spends a day on the town, she enacts a different form of resistance, this time through queering gender norms.

The suit itself carries a lot of weight. Even today, clothing is gendered to such an extent that a stick figure in a dress connotes “woman.” Lubitsch emphasizes clothing as a symbol of gender roles via contrast: Most men in the film wear black. whereas most of the women wear white (Figs. 1 & 2). Ossi, on the other hand, wears a black-and-white striped dress (Fig. 3) The color-coding is the biggest visual distinction because it relies on the basic contrast of black-and-white film, and its association with clothing-as-gender emphasizes how artificial and incomplete the distinction is. But Lubitsch takes it a step further; the governess—an assistant to Ossi’s uncle and, by extension, patriarchal/heteronormative1 standards—wears a stark black dress (Fig. 4). For I Don’t Want, the roles of “man” and “woman are not inherent. They’re performed. Further, they do not represent reality, much in the way that silent, black-and-white film doesn’t. Instead of a limitation, the medium and technology provide unique ways to make Lubitsch’s point.

Projektions-AG Union Fig. 1

Projektions-AG Union Fig. 2

Projektions-AG Union Fig. 3

Projektions-AG Union Fig. 4

The costuming and makeup add to the film’s commentary on gender-as-construct/performance. As Alice Kuzniar argues in her study of queer German films, Ossi’s costume lacks credibility (Fig. 5). But within the world of I Don’t Want, her costume is seamless. As with most comedy directors, Lubitsch relies on exaggerated characters and versions of society to make a point, and his film posits that gender norms actually affect the way people perceive the world. Further, it’s through this exaggeration that Lubitsch allows Ossi to move through the world as a male, unquestioned, while the viewer never forgets that Ossi is performing masculinity. The awareness of the construct allows Ossi’s actions and people’s re-actions to deconstruct gender roles rather than promote its validity.

Admittedly, in 2016, discussions of gender as performance are old hat (see: Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble). Yet, I Don’t Want goes further than pointing out the arbitrary nature of gender roles, because Ossi does not don a suit to attain power like her governess. Instead, she does so to obtain the privileges of German men, in the hopes that she can better be herself without the restraints put on women. We know that notions of womanhood limit her self-expression because when the governess asks if she wants to be a proper lady, Ossi responds that “[she doesn’t] want that at all.” This time, Lubitsch uses editing to emphasize his point; he cross-cuts her travelling uncle’s expectations—”The poor child will be so miserable,” he says with a smile—with Ossi’s frolicking (Fig. 6). When the governess asks what Ossi’s uncle would say to her behavior, the film cuts back to the uncle for a joke at his expense: “Oh,” he says as the ship rocks, “I’m feeling terribly unwell” (Fig. 7).

Projektions-AG Union Fig. 5

Projektions-AG Union Fig. 6

Projektions-AG Union Fig. 7

Ossi Oswald, who plays the main character of the same name, uses the junction between expectations and her actual self to create a human being in this world of gendered limitations. Here, I should note that this “self” is not a transgender identity, as Ossi does not experience gender dysphoria. Instead, she performs as masculine to avoid restrictions of a patriarchal society, which alone fits the queering of social/creative norms that makes up the best queer cinema. But then the question becomes, who is Ossi? Well, there are several answers: she’s impulsive, brazen, curious, cheeky, flippant, clever, and much more. Sometimes she’s blase about everything, and sometimes she’s vengeful. Most importantly, she cannot be defined singularly or rigidly, which reveals the queer nature of Lubitsch’s film. While she’s a consistent character that we recognize throughout, she can change and react to her world while remaining an individual. She challenges the static sense of the self that is tied up in the gender roles she subverts.

While this gender play uses the basic tenets of queer theory in its subversion of what is “normal,” it also incorporates queerness in the more popular sense of the term. Ossi, in her disguise, goes to a party only to learn that her temporary guardian, Dr. Kersten, is also in attendance. She sabotages his attempts at wooing a young woman by covertly flirting with her from across the room (Fig. 8). The wordless charm that distracts the young woman from her conversation with Dr. Kersten capitalizes on the strengths of silent film and the charm of Oswald as an actress. The young woman is far more interested in Ossi than the guardian, and Ossi reciprocates the affection, as the two have better chemistry than the heterosexual pairing. But this quietly queer moment gives way to a more complex one. After some booze, Ossi and Dr. Kersten kiss, with more than a friendly linger (Fig. 9).

Projektions-AG Union Fig. 8

Projektions-AG Union Fig. 9

Lubitsch presents several ideas to the viewer here with this play on the female-as-male comedy trope, which was popular and familiar to audiences of the time (Kuzniar 31). He can tackle anxieties of the film-going public about sexual identities that they may have only recently learned about. Anyone concerned about the homosexuality on the screen could reassure themselves that Ossi is a woman under that suit, but the questions raised by the kiss are clear to the viewers, because the guardian is unaware. Lubitsch plays with gender and sexuality in a popular comedy centered on a kiss between a man and a woman pretending to be one, but he doesn’t make homosexuality the punchline. Instead, society’s homophobic beliefs are the joke, because we’re the ones obsessed with arbitrary rules about gender, sex, and sexuality. Perhaps, the film posits, the best answer is to do away with artificial barriers, such as the one that Ossi and Dr. Kersten tear down when they realize each other’s identities and embrace. This ending could be read as challenging in that sense, but the return to a comfortable status quo with the homosexual pairing is a more likely explanation, especially considering the frequency of such an ending in the comedy drama.

Different from the Others (1919)

One year after I Don’t Want, another filmmaker looked at the burgeoning gay community and saw anxiety. Instead of the concerns of bourgeois society, though, Richard Oswald saw the perils the gay community itself faced. Oswald was known for films focused on social ills, a genre called “enlightenment films” (Aufklärungsfilm), so he was an ideal business partner for sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld. Hirschfeld was famous for his research into homosexuality and sexual health resources available to anyone in Berlin, so he knew the issues that some of the gay community faced. What did he think was most pernicious? Violence? Marriage equality? Not quite. Surprisingly, the biggest issue that Hirschfeld saw was blackmail, a scourge that threatened the privacy and economic/social stability of gay men across the country. The problem had existed for decades, and was so rampant that police commissioner Leopold von Meerscheidt-Hüllesem changed the name of the Department of Homosexuals to the Department of Homosexuals and Blackmailers in 1896.2

Why was blackmail so dangerous, beyond the obvious financial distress? The answer yields more surprises. At first glance, the issue is that Paragraph 175 forbade homosexual acts between men (and later, in the interest of equality, women). The central concern, though, had more to do with reputation than litigation. Despite Berlin’s thriving gay community, the social and professional damage of being outed were devestating, with many taking their own lives—a far worse fate than the relatively minor criminal sentences. The police under Hüllesem had accepted that homosexuality wasn’t dangerous or even rare; some argue that Hüllesem’s superior, Bernhard von Richtofen, was himself homosexual (Beachy 46). If anything, the police aided the growth of a gay community in Berlin. Starting in the 1890s, the police had a “containment” policy, where instead of shutting down known meeting places like bars for homosexual/transgender men and women, Hüllesem let them exist undisturbed. As a result, despite the social and professional danger of being outed to the public at large, many men and women were able to be a part of a thriving community. This community gave Berlin a unique atmosphere that led to Hirschfeld’s message to German society, a film called Different from the others (Anders als die Andern).

Hirschfeld’s performance as a sexologist in Different reflects his roles in Weimar culture and the film’s production. In the movie, the sexologist explains to different characters throughout the film that homosexuality is perfectly natural, echoing the somewhat revolutionary claims of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs over half a century prior. The sexologist thumbs through a photo album and explains that transgender, homosexual, and intersex individuals are not ill or dangerous. They’re just people. Outside of the film, Hirschfeld had a similar job as director of the Institute for Sexual Sciences (Institut für Sexualwissenschaft), where he led research projects and managed a sexual health clinic.3

Hirschfeld worked daily with gay men in Berlin, and was himself homosexual, so he was tapped into the concerns of the community. His decision to focus on blackmail does have issues of classism, as it was more likely to affect middle- and upper-class gay men, but it was also a concern that even the police recognized. Along with Hüllesem, another police commissioner, Dr. Heinrich Kopp, claimed that there was only one case where gay men were arrested while in a sexual act between 1904 and 1920 (Beachy 83). Although several more people were charged for violating Paragraph 175 via evidence of homosexual behavior, the blackmail had been a more common issue for decades. It created an existential risk for any gay man who wished to practice his sexuality. Further, this film had an appeal for less sympathetic viewers: the antagonist of the film is not bourgeois society, per se, but rather criminals who exploit vulnerable members of society. This issue also allowed Hirschfeld to use a traditional narrative structure with the common trope of good (people who wish to live undisturbed) versus evil (those who wish to exploit others).

Even Sigfried Kracauer begrudgingly admits the broad appeal and success of “sex films” like Different, although he attributes to them a lack of revolutionary views on sexuality (46). In a sense, he’s right. Different doesn’t reinvent social paradigms through a new sexual order. However, to say that Different is just a sex film ignores the fact that homosexuality was a challenge to the heteronormative, patriarchal society. The right of gay people to exist and live as normal sexual beings was a direct challenge to even the liberal Weimar Berlin and its status quo, to a law so steeped in tradition that it had roots in the Holy Roman Empire. Further, to dismiss Different as valueless, with no statement other than “blackmail is bad” is unfair, and reflect’s Kracauer’s inability to see how something could be revolutionary if it didn’t benefit him.

Instead, I think Different captures society and inspires it with more than famous figures or polemics. In terms of capturing society, queer audiences would likely recognize Anita Berber playing the sister to one of the main characters, Kurt Sivers. Berber was famous at the time for her entirely nude performances in cabarets, anticipating the likes of Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo (Beachy 166). She was also bisexual, an identity that found little acceptance in gay and lesbian communities, no less society at large. In terms of inspiring society, Different starred Conrad Veidt a year prior to his performance in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari) and turned him into a gay icon. Beyond the names, though, Different enters a deeper discourse with Weimar Berlin. The film opens with renowned violinist Paul Körner surrounded by darkness as he reads about the suicides of a factory owner, a respected judge, and a student (Fig. 10). The intertitles compare Paragraph 175 to the sword of Damocles, a common allusion to imminent danger.

In another shot that even Kracauer would have to admit goes beyond the base appeal of a “sex film,” we see Körner’s vision of famous, reportedly gay figures throughout history (Fig. 11). This procession stretches back across the frame from right to left, forcing us to recognize the damage Paragraph 175 and its predecessors has caused. The figures fade into darkness until we cannot see the tail end, asking us if maybe that factory owner, or judge, or student could have entered this hall of greatness had they not been pushed to suicide. Or maybe, these individuals could have done more had they not faced discrimination in their own times.

Oswald further his critique of the oppressive law through the narrative of Körner and Sivers’ blossoming relationship, which leads to the blackmail that drives Körner to suicide. Like Ernst Lubitsch, Oswald adds depth by using the medium of cinema and the unique strengths of silent film. Whereas intertitles that explain the story or show dialogue are black cards with white text (Fig. 12), a few explanations appear as diegetic writing or printing. For example, the concert that leads to Körner and Sivers’ meeting and eventual romance is formatted as an invitation, a document from the world of the film (Fig. 13). The ominous newspaper clippings take the same form. This aesthetic choice binds specific information to the written word, the same written word of the letters that made up the majority of blackmail, including some that Körner receives. In this way, the film comments on its own hand in ending Körner’s life. The standard techniques of silent film become the standard techniques of oppression, and thus open up questions about whether the language of cinema itself damns those who challenge social norms.

Richard-Oswald-Produktion Fig. 10

Richard-Oswald-Produktion Fig. 11

Richard-Oswald-Produktion Fig. 12

Richard-Oswald-Produktion Fig. 13

Most interesting historically speaking is the dynamic between Körner and Sivers. The two are introduced by Sivers’ family, who wish for Körner to be his music teacher. This evolves into a greater mentoring role and eventually a sexual one. The specificity of this relationship reflects a subset of the gay community in Weimar Germany whose ideas often opposed Hirschfeld’s. This group, the masculinists, was led by people like Adolf Brand who argued that all men were fundamentally bisexual. He encouraged a revival of the Greek “pederastic” social structure, wherein older men befriended, mentored, and ultimately had sex with (or raped, by most modern definitions) young men until the boys became adults and married (Beachy 102). Beyond the pedophilic issues, the masculinists were also fundamentally misogynistic, viewing homosocial relationships between men as the key to improving society. Whereas Hirschfeld saw homosexuality as an inborn trait, Brand saw it as a radical concept that could restructure society. Although Hirschfeld never commented on the similarity of Körner and Sivers’ relationship to the model of his frequent adversary, it reveals the extent to which Different reflects various strata of Weimar society and the gay community.

Michael (1924) 

The influence of masculinism seen in Different from the Others also appears in one of the most popular early queer films, Michael. A classic love triangle narrative with substantially less expository politic than Different, Michael relates the story of famous painter Claude Zoret and his lover/pupil, Michael. Their relationship is less explicit than Paul Körner and Kurt Sivers’, but director Carl Theodor Dreyer draws ties between love, friendship, sex, art, life, and death that strengthen the film’s relationship to Adolf Brand’s theory of homosexuality. In keeping with this masculinist impulse, a female character is added to the mix and defined largely by sexist archetypes. However, her addition to the film as Michael’s sexual partner reveals other aspects of how the gay community interacted with and was perceived by Weimar culture at large.

Most notable is the lack of discussion since the film’s release about Michael’s actual sexuality. While he has a relationship with Zoret, the central drama is Michael’s seduction by proto-femme fatale/Kanye West song subject, the gold-digging Princess Lucia Zamikoff. The princess desires Zoret’s fortune but finds Michael more susceptible to her charms. His bisexual orientation is obvious, but the critical focus on homosexuality isn’t surprising. First of all, “gay-themed cinema” is a more common term than “bisexual-themed cinema”; second, bisexuality was (and remains to this day) at best unrecognized and more often harshly criticized. Bisexual people were excluded from queer communities (Lybeck 170), which complicates Michael’s place in the film because Zoret’s home and relationships act as metaphors for the gay community and its isolation from mainstream German society.

Zoret’s home is sizable but enclosed, an open space that is shut out from the rest of the world. The closed cinematography of the house contrasts the open camerawork outside of it, such as when Michael and Zamikoff go to the ballet (Figs. 14 & 15). There are frequent cuts that place the couple in relation to other people and locations in the city, contrasting Zoret’s isolated world where the cuts go between close-ups of emotionally attached characters. Dreyer’s treatment of the Zoret mansion reflects the isolated queer bars and meeting places under Hüllesem’s policing, but it also captures how extravagant they were. Michael’s ability to traverse the worlds bears a certain sense of cynicism, a sensibility shared by much of the German public. Neither world is condemned in Michael, but they are treated as separate, and Michael’s refusal to do so is predicated on his naivete and results in his separation from Zoret.

Universum Film (UFA) Fig. 14

Universum Film (UFA) Fig. 15

Dreyer appears to wallow in Zamikoff’s manipulation of Michael, equating his attraction to her as a betrayal of some abstract idea of true love. When Michael associates Zamikoff with eternity, we are meant to compare this to the first shot of the film, an intertitle that describes neither the plot nor story. Instead, it tells us a motto: “Now I can die peacefully, because I have seen a great love.” Whereas here death is welcomed due to its association with true love, Michael believes he has found eternity in a woman that is using him for money. The joke at Michael’s expense reflects a larger critique of his flippancy that ends in him failing to visit Zoret on the painter’s deathbed, while an old friend confesses his secret love. The final scene is a retribution for Zoret, who feared he would die alone. In essence, homosexuality is accepted in the world of the film, but only if it follows monogamous norms and remains distinct from heterosexual romance.

This critique of Michael’s bisexuality also lines up with the views of the patriarchal masculinists, and is reflected by stereotypes that exist today. Michael is wavering, promiscuous, and easily swayed by sex. While a queer take on the “love triangle” trope could be transgressive or challenging, here it reflects even more antiquated ideas of romance. It does little to deconstruct gender, sexuality, or tropes by portraying a homosexual relationship, but instead assures its audience that such relationships can exist while not disturbing “normal” society. Whereas Different feels standard at first glance but reveals quietly radical ideas, Michael does the opposite. The film has long been celebrated as a queer masterpiece, but a closer look reveals its traditionalist heart.

Girls in Uniform (1931)

Girls in Uniform (Mädchen in Uniform) is in many ways the shadow-self of Michael. Most obviously, it focuses on the relationship between two women, a boarding school student and her governess. More interestingly, though, it links Governess Fräulein von Bernburg’s sexuality with an alternative world-view, compared to Zerot’s continuation of heteronormative relationships.��Girls‘ governess is first brought into the plot as an authoritative figure to protagonist Manuela, the head of her dorm in a boarding school. The two soon become romantic partners, and this change in dynamic is matched by our changed perception of her as a radical force of change in the school. Whereas the headmistress advocates authority and hierarchy, Fräulein von Bernburg argues that students need affection.

The governess has a strong case for the superiority of her methods, as her students respect her, love her, and excel academically. But the tenets of Prussianism are embedded into the school, emphasized by the opening shots. The film cuts from Greek statue to Greek statue as if in competition, with each posing for war not against a mythical beast but each other (Fig. 16). Director Leontine Sagan continues to portray Fräulein von Bernburg as an alternative to the boarding school’s ethos, which is associated with Prussianism to show how outdated such a philosophy is. Sagan bookends scenes of the young girls bonding with scenes of the headmistress enforcing obedience. The girls repress their frustrations, but because Manuela is new to the system, she rejects the headmistress’s ideology to embrace (philosophically and romantically) Fräulein von Bernburg. Manuela’s peers follow. Another student, Ilsa, previously laughed with her friends about letters she’d sneak out that complain about the boarding school. When one is confiscated, though, she breaks down and packs, intending to leave forever. They can no longer tell themselves that the boarding school is how life must be.

The increasing resistance of the students is tied to Manuela’s burgeoning relationship with Fräulein von Bernburg, and such a connection makes sense in the context of lesbian communities in Weimar Berlin. Marti Lybeck in particular argues that female homosexuality in Weimar Germany was tied to feminist movement because it presented women as sexual subjects, an emancipation from patriarchal objectification. Some lesbian communities viewed homosexuality in women similarly to how masculinists viewed it in men, in that they saw desire and subjectivity as “masculine” traits that could (and should) be re-taken by women through a new social dynamic (194–5). For example, in the periodical Frauenliebe (literally “Women Love”), this view was taken to such an extreme that bisexuals were rejected. In numerous letters to the magazine, women stated that the idea of sleeping with a woman who had been with a man was nauseating. Such “promiscuity” and “greed” were negative traits of men (Lybeck 170).

Clearly, then, a moderately public subculture of homosexual German women associated lesbianism with feminism, a challenge to patriarchy. While some used this to exclude other members in the LGBTQ community, the power of subjectivity following centuries of objectification was undeniable. The sexual identity was a part of an argument for camaraderie among women that would lead to emancipation from a system withholding rights such as suffrage. Manuela and Fräulein von Bernburg reflect the sentiment that a lesbian sexual identity is inextricably tied to feminist movement. Sagan emphasizes the camaraderie as well by employing an all-female cast, mixing (relatively) diverse personalities to welcome women of all sorts to the toppling of the status quo.

Sagan ends her film with a shot that argues this possibility can become reality. The headmistress—clad in a black dress, like the governess in in I Don’t Want to Be a Man—walks down a long hall into darkness (Fig. 17). She moves across the screen from right to left, evoking movement backward through history (Now You See It). To the right is the stairwell whose steps lead up and are covered with the feet of the students. These kids just saved Manuela’s life with the compassion they learned from her and Fräulein von Bernburg, embracing the alternative to Prussianism. Unlike Michael, Sagan’s film presents a radical change to society that reflects and promotes non-heterosexual identities. Most optimistically, these changes succeed, in stark contrast to the major change that would shake Germany two years later. Unlike the masculinists, Sagan does not associate women with utopia, but rather associates empathy with a better way of life.

Deutsche Film-Gemeinschaft Fig. 16

Deutsche Film-Gemeinschaft Fig. 17

Closing Thoughts

The Weimar Republic contains several surprises, tensions, and pleasures that challenged the Germanies that preceded and followed it. Its films listened and spoke back to the world that produced them. Particularly, contemporary queer cinema captures this powerful possibility of film, offering a less cynical alternative to Kracauer’s damning psychoanalysis of the German people. The anxieties, communities, movements, and radical new possibilities exploded and combined in a culture that accepted the destruction(s) of previous empires, confident that something better would be built in the ruins. The openness and occasionally radical worlds of queer Weimar cinema is surprising when you consider the oppressive regime that followed, but the breadth of ideologies at this place and time reflects the openness that allowed queer cultures to thrive. While the Nazis would take over two years after the release of the optimistic Girls in Uniform, we can still receive the messages of Leontine Sagan and her contemporaries. My only hope is that we look further into this era and its messages to add more perspectives to the conversation. After all, the Weimar Republic was nothing if not diverse, so it requires a diversity of perspectives, from Kracauer to Kuzniar—and beyond.

Notes

By “patriarchal/heteronormative,” I refer to a social system that enforces gender roles/assumed heterosexuality and privileges men/”male characteristics.”

I don’t want to have so many citations that these historical sections become unreadable, so I will note that the following historical information, unless stated otherwise, is from Robert Beachy’sGay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity. I will include pages for contested or specific quotations/facts.

The Institute as an establishment deserves far greater discussion than I provide, so I will again point to Beachy’s book. From controversial experiments to visits by Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, the rise of this establishment and its eventual destruction by the Nazis is a story all its own.

Films Cited

Anders als die Andern. Dir. Richard Oswald. Perf. Conrad Veidt, Anita Berber, and Magnus Hirschfeld. Richard-Oswald-Produktion, 1919.

Ich möchte kein Mann sein. Dir. Ernst Lubitsch. Perf. Ossi Oswald. Projektions-AG Union, 1918.

Mädchen in Uniform. Dir. Leontine Sagan. Perf. Emilia Unda and Dorothea Wieck. Deutsche Film-Gemeinschaft, 1931.

Michael. Dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer. Perf. Walter Slezak, Benjamin Christensen, and Nora Gregor. Universum Film (UFA), 1924.

Works Cited

Beachy, Robert. Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity. New York: Vintage, 2014. Print.

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1990. Google Books. Web. 28 Feb. 2016.

Kracauer, Siegfried. From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film. Ed. Leonardo Quaresima. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2004. Print.

Kuzniar, Alice. The Queer German Cinema. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. Print.

Lawrence v. Texas. 539 U.S. 558. U.S. Supreme Court. 2003. Justia. Web. 28 Feb. 2016.

Lybeck, Marti M. Desiring Emancipation: New Women and Homosexuality in Germany, 1890-1933. Albany: State U of New York, 2014. Print. SUNY Ser. in Queer Politics and Cultures.

Now You See It. “Which Way Did He Go? Lateral Character Movement in Film.” YouTube. YouTube, 15 Feb. 2016. Web. 28 Feb. 2016.

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