(now retracted - read retraction here)
Of course Baader shouted "Ficken und Schiessen sing ein Ding!" (fucking and shooting are the same thing!), feeling his rebellion was as much against sexual conservatism as Capital.
Perhaps this is the root of the revisionist attempt to misunderstand Andreas Baader. In Uli Edel's film, this quote is symptomatic of the entire approach; to portray the RAF as this gang of the socially excluded and the impressionable, following the Marlon Brando figure of Baader as a symbol of just their desire to be loved. Baader is given a speech about the gun, as if to cement this idea that his ejaculation is his revolution. I don't intend to get into how little Moritz Bleibtreu knows about his character, but to think of Ficken, Schiessen und Entkaff.
Of course we don't know if he ever said it. But Edel's inclusion comes at a critical point in the film. We witness the RAF training with the PLO, and beginning to act like spoilt children - led by the id Baader. At this stage the revolutionaries are playing at soldiers in the desert, with an authority to rebel against, and it is the relish with which they do so that cements their adolescence. We are in danger of sympathising too much with them; we have seen the shooting of Rudi Dutschke, and of Benno Ohnesorg, and Gudrun Ensslin stamping her feet. Now we see the liberal nude Germans defying these conservative Arabs, and our inner rebel is erect.
But then he says it, "Ficken und Schiessen sing ein ding!", and our erection is crumpled. Surely he can't be worshipping guns? I thought he was just a bit drunk earlier? It's gone to his head. He's taken it too far. I'm guilty about my penis, but he seems to love his! I hope nobody thinks of mine as a gun. I'm scared of the caveman.
This is how we have to misunderstand Baader. He fires his gun from the hip, spraying his revolutionary ejaculate over Germany. He thrusts his body forward in argument. He wants to fuck us so that we love him, he wants to turn us round so we can't talk to him and fuck us.
We have to see his frustrated dick as the 1960s. It is a phase, something they used to do back then.
Then: we don't have to fear Baader. We can fuck him as well as talk to him. We have always been in control of the speaking: now though, we are no longer scared of spraying our own ejaculate on his face. We are excited by the thought of it. Because he is just a phase, a phase we all go through. You remember wanking as a child, don't you? That's all he is! He's just the bit when you used to rub yourself til you bled over the lingerie section of the Argos catalogue! He's a fantasy, he doesn't exist! He's the bit we grow out of! He's Hitchens before he grew up, he's the bit where you try to be funny at your parents' dinner party! So fantasise back! He's in your private world, he's the bit -you know the bit- where it's OK to push someone's head into a pillow until they suffocate, he's the bit you fuck harder and harder and harder because you want to shoot and shoot and shoot and hit and hit and hit! He is porn! He is waiting, eager to be blinded by your cum facial.
Because, see: he thinks fucking will free him. He is us, being told masturbation is naughty, being caught with pants down in front of the mirror, being embarrassed when we ask our partner to put their fist in our arse, spending money in Pigalle.
Fucking and Spending "sind ein ding". More, more, more, harder, harder, harder, i'm nearly there, nearly, i'm gonna, i'm gonna... and you do, and it's short and dirty and then you're depressed. Consumerism has always been a sexual act, in the way that sex is measured in time and speed and decibels and consumerism in time and speed and pounds. No wonder Baader's revolution failed. It was only within himself, he only fought himself. "I want to spend/I am ashamed of spending" "I want to fuck/I am ashamed of fucking".
So it is with coffee. I am tired, I want a break, I will spend, I will buy coffee, and then I will be awake to do my work. But I don't want to work! I don't want to be up all night! Capital comes to my rescue: Decaff, Entkaff! I can set aside my guilt at spending to sit down, at spending on something from miles away, on something grown by slaves - it is decaf! It is fairtrade! It is cheap! Just as fucking was a capitalist rather than libertarian revolution, so ethical coffee is a capitalist revolution. We can provide coffee with no problems! We can provide the ultimate coffee. Because coffee too is sex - coffee, strong, moodily lit, what filmstars do with their perfect bodies in the places they all meet to have verbal sex before they do it violently later.
There is a sign in Brighton that says "The Espresso Revolution Will Not Be Televised".
Ficken und Entkaff sind eing Ding: Kapital.
Of course Baader shouted "Ficken und Schiessen sing ein Ding!" (fucking and shooting are the same thing!), feeling his rebellion was as much against sexual conservatism as Capital.
Perhaps this is the root of the revisionist attempt to misunderstand Andreas Baader. In Uli Edel's film, this quote is symptomatic of the entire approach; to portray the RAF as this gang of the socially excluded and the impressionable, following the Marlon Brando figure of Baader as a symbol of just their desire to be loved. Baader is given a speech about the gun, as if to cement this idea that his ejaculation is his revolution. I don't intend to get into how little Moritz Bleibtreu knows about his character, but to think of Ficken, Schiessen und Entkaff.
Of course we don't know if he ever said it. But Edel's inclusion comes at a critical point in the film. We witness the RAF training with the PLO, and beginning to act like spoilt children - led by the id Baader. At this stage the revolutionaries are playing at soldiers in the desert, with an authority to rebel against, and it is the relish with which they do so that cements their adolescence. We are in danger of sympathising too much with them; we have seen the shooting of Rudi Dutschke, and of Benno Ohnesorg, and Gudrun Ensslin stamping her feet. Now we see the liberal nude Germans defying these conservative Arabs, and our inner rebel is erect.
But then he says it, "Ficken und Schiessen sing ein ding!", and our erection is crumpled. Surely he can't be worshipping guns? I thought he was just a bit drunk earlier? It's gone to his head. He's taken it too far. I'm guilty about my penis, but he seems to love his! I hope nobody thinks of mine as a gun. I'm scared of the caveman.
This is how we have to misunderstand Baader. He fires his gun from the hip, spraying his revolutionary ejaculate over Germany. He thrusts his body forward in argument. He wants to fuck us so that we love him, he wants to turn us round so we can't talk to him and fuck us.
We have to see his frustrated dick as the 1960s. It is a phase, something they used to do back then.
Then: we don't have to fear Baader. We can fuck him as well as talk to him. We have always been in control of the speaking: now though, we are no longer scared of spraying our own ejaculate on his face. We are excited by the thought of it. Because he is just a phase, a phase we all go through. You remember wanking as a child, don't you? That's all he is! He's just the bit when you used to rub yourself til you bled over the lingerie section of the Argos catalogue! He's a fantasy, he doesn't exist! He's the bit we grow out of! He's Hitchens before he grew up, he's the bit where you try to be funny at your parents' dinner party! So fantasise back! He's in your private world, he's the bit -you know the bit- where it's OK to push someone's head into a pillow until they suffocate, he's the bit you fuck harder and harder and harder because you want to shoot and shoot and shoot and hit and hit and hit! He is porn! He is waiting, eager to be blinded by your cum facial.
Because, see: he thinks fucking will free him. He is us, being told masturbation is naughty, being caught with pants down in front of the mirror, being embarrassed when we ask our partner to put their fist in our arse, spending money in Pigalle.
Fucking and Spending "sind ein ding". More, more, more, harder, harder, harder, i'm nearly there, nearly, i'm gonna, i'm gonna... and you do, and it's short and dirty and then you're depressed. Consumerism has always been a sexual act, in the way that sex is measured in time and speed and decibels and consumerism in time and speed and pounds. No wonder Baader's revolution failed. It was only within himself, he only fought himself. "I want to spend/I am ashamed of spending" "I want to fuck/I am ashamed of fucking".
So it is with coffee. I am tired, I want a break, I will spend, I will buy coffee, and then I will be awake to do my work. But I don't want to work! I don't want to be up all night! Capital comes to my rescue: Decaff, Entkaff! I can set aside my guilt at spending to sit down, at spending on something from miles away, on something grown by slaves - it is decaf! It is fairtrade! It is cheap! Just as fucking was a capitalist rather than libertarian revolution, so ethical coffee is a capitalist revolution. We can provide coffee with no problems! We can provide the ultimate coffee. Because coffee too is sex - coffee, strong, moodily lit, what filmstars do with their perfect bodies in the places they all meet to have verbal sex before they do it violently later.
There is a sign in Brighton that says "The Espresso Revolution Will Not Be Televised".
Ficken und Entkaff sind eing Ding: Kapital.
"What is genuine is proved in the fire, what is false we shall not miss in our ranks. The opponents must grant us that youth has never before flocked to our colours in such numbers, ... in the end, one will be found among us who will prove that the sword of enthusiasm is just as good as the sword of genius."
ReplyDeleteBaader, and many of his ilk make me think of Engels.
Innit ;)
'Ere! You are potty, you are!
ReplyDelete