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oh-theres-a-woman · 4 years

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Peaky Blinders OC: Bettina Valentina Rosamond (nee. Schmidt)

Bettina Valentina Claudia Rosamond (nee. Schmidt)

Pronunciation: “Bet-tina Val-en-tina Claud-ia Rosa-Mond” Nickname(s) or Known As: Bet - Affectionate nickname fleshed from Bettina’s family and adopted by her husband. Presently in 1919 the only person that calls her that is her love Horace, whose been mentally wasting away. Mistress Rosamond - Known by the family’s staff as Mistress Rosamond, Bettina has never been one for such a title because of her rather modest background in Austria. But, after the war her thoughts towards it have never mellowed, Bet normally just lets the staff call her want they wish and doesn’t cause any issues with it. After all, her main concerns are her main concerns are Horace’s and her children, the generation that will lead on their father’s legacy more so give Horace something to stay living for, if not for her sake. Madame - Loyal patrons of the Rosamond’s Pleasure House establishment, often refer to her as the Madame as she’s more often or not seen dealing with the business. Bettina has never seemed bothered by this respective title. Mrs. Rosamond - Often addressed by business partners, or police that she sells information to. Personally doesn’t really like people calling her Mrs. Rosamond because in her heart she’ll always be a Schmidt.

Temptress - A teasing nickname that her husband calls her when Bettina manages to seduce him. Often referring to her as his Temptress in passionate moments or leading up to such a time. Date of Birth: 9th September,1891 (28 years old) Birthplace: Vienna, Austria Nationality/Ethnicity: Austrian, Austro-Hungarian. Personal Motto: Live for the new day, and pray for a better future. Quotes: “The war may have broken my home, and shattered the heart of my husband. But it will not take me, it didn’t then, nor will it ever.” “Our children are the breath of tomorrow, Mister Shelby. My proposal was to assist the expansion of the Shelby Empire, so our blood doesn’t crust and run dry with the coming turf wars but rise up as the victors. Much like my parents had done before me by ensuring my marriage to Horace.” “You call it murder, I call it being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” “Horace, God chose you to be my husband the moment I was born. Things might not have been simple in the beginning remember? We said our vows in moments that didn’t promise certainty and a future of happiness, yet look at those glorious children we have. They’re our purpose to carry on now. For the sake of their future.” “Mister Sabini, always a pleasure really. So what can I do for a drug fucked, loose canon such as yourself?”

“Birmingham, it’s quite different from what I’m used to… But it will have to do.”

Occupation: Currently - Matriarch to the Rosamond family, runner of the family business between her husband. Furthermore the boss of the illegal operations of the Rosamond’s family; Drug Dealing, Illegal Sales on the English Blackmarket, Professional Assassins, Criminal Setups, Covert Operations with Staff, Selling Information (between police or other gangs), and Privately Running a Pleasure House. Formerly - Spy for the British Intelligence during the duration of the Great War, posted in the unstable city of Vienna. Before becoming a spy she married her husband Horace Rosamond, though kept her maiden name in Vienna because it was a matter of safety.

Reliable Skills Mastered:

Fully mastered the following languages; German, Hungarian, French, Slovenian and English.

Capable spy - Able to change accent, dialect, pitch, and general appearance with the training she has received.

Multi-tasking - The perks of being a mother has shown Bettina is quite the multi-tasker dealing with children not getting along as well as business.

High level of education - mastering reading, writing and mathematics at a young age.

Capable of making bombs and weapons for junk. Much like different types of bombs from the cheapest and crappiest of materials.

Quiet the actress - To survive Bet has learnt a great deal about playing pretend emotions and actions.

Able to hold her own in a fight, even against much larger people. Because of certain techniques, she’d mastered in the time of being a spy.

Weapons of Choice:

Mauser C96 - Semi-Automatic Pistol

Steyr Model 1907 (M1907) - Self-Loading Pistol

A Capsule of Cyanide - For if she’s caught in the wrong hands. Kept within a small locket that she always wears, that was an heirloom that was passed down in the generations of her family.

Social Status: Wife of a known veteran whom was left paralyzed, had five children, four of which are still living.

Marital Status: Arranged Marriage to Horace Rosamond (since. 1908)

Issue:

Archibald ‘Archie’ Gilbert Rosamond, aged 10 years old (born April, 1909)

Jeremiah ‘Jerry’ Rowland Rosamond, aged 8 years old (born August, 1911)

Septimus Vincent Rosamond, aged 7 years old (born September, 1912)

Julius Hiram Rosamond, stillborn (born April, 1913)

Henrietta Priscilla Myra Schmidt-Rosamond, aged 4 (born February, 1915)- Bettina found out she was pregnant with her fifth child while undercover giving her sometime more to hide under, as pretending she was wedded to her second-cousin during the time.

Schmidt & Rosamond Family History: Respective families that had alliances going back decades. The English family of Rosamond and Austrian family of Schmidt, decided to join their families together with an arranged marriage. This was arranged at the birth of the youngest and only daughter of the Schmidt family, Bettina Valentina Claudia Schmidt. Drawn up in agreement between Horace’s grandfather and Bettina’s parents, the two rather underground operating families agreed to expand their business relations through marriage. They were to be married when the young Schmidt girl turned seventeen. Till then, the two would marry to stop them from running or dispising one another. On the 13th of July 1908, after much preparation Horace and Bettina married. The newlyweds were a sign of good luck between the two families so they partied, not truly caring if the pair loved one another. Bet was seventeen years of age, and her husband Horace was twenty-one so it made finding a level playing ground difficult to establish for the young couple. Even language was a barrier, and caused some emotional strain between the pair. But, doing at they must the marriage was rightly consummated, and about September 1908 shortly after the lonely young woman found out she was carrying her husband’s child, which made both families overjoyed. While her first pregnancy Mistress Rosamond as her husband’s maids called her, learnt English slowly and weakly. Gaining more of her knowledge of her husband, and comfort in his company on the harder days. Most mornings she’d wake at the side of her husband caressing her swelling stomach, trying to soothe the child growing within her, hoping to allow it’s mother some more sleep. Though, Horace respectively worked hard on the family business, he worried for his young wife’s health and the risks that came with childbirth as it was still a risk even with the best aid they could afford. By the following year, in the middle of April 1909 their first son was born after long hours of labouring. Horace named their first son Archibald after his late father. The exhausted young mother agreed, as long as, Gilbert became his second name. After her father whom died from influenza in the later stages of her pregnancy. As a couple they had gained more of a solid relationship through the birth of their first son, often doing their most to experience with the young boy they fondly called ‘Archie’ together. Everything thrived with the booming family, and excelling business that the two families had worked so hard to maintain. Bet took her place at her husband’s side after the birth of their third son Septimius Vincent. As she felt that she was needed to assist her husband in opening up some further expansion plans for the family business. Which was when their first pleasure house was opened up in White Chapel, by the time their four and final son was born Julius Hiram whom was stillborn, Bet was struck by the brief of the loss after it had left her fighting for her own due to infection. Horace felt his wife begin to slip away even after passing the infection, and recovering. Her grief had caused her to neglect looking after herself, and moving up in the family business. It took months of her state to improve, and then the officials came knocking on their town house door with an order to take Mrs. Rosamond into custody under suspicions of her being an Austro-Hungarian spy. Truth be told the young woman was cleared of not being a spy, yet was tasked a mission even her husband couldn’t know about. To spy on officials and check in on the general life in Austria throughout the war. To others it looked like she was just being deported, and thrown away for good. Separated pained Georgiana, but the realisation that she was once more pregnant with her husband’s child made her commit to the course, and fight to protect the chance of going home to meet her love once more. Protecting her cover, one of her second-cousins stepped up and took the role of her husband in a chaotic time of Austria. Acting as her support, and companion in that time, even though she remained loyal to a fault with Horace. Sending word rarely through to her husband, managing to get a letter with a photograph of her and their first daughter to him when she was born in February of 1915. Her daughter was raised in Austria much like her mother was, though when the war ended she went home with her mother to England. The reunion with husband, and sons was said to be something of her dreams one of the notable times she was seen sobbing in public. War had broken so many people, and it had robbed her husband of his ability to walk. Moving to head of the Rosamond household at her husband condition, Bettina became a strong-minded figure. Loyalty never faltering from her family and the business. Though, since she had spent some time away from her young children, when she came home her sons struggled to reconnect with her. Which has caused resentment toward members of authority such as Mr. Winston Churchill. Henrietta fell into alignment with her siblings quite easily though, her brothers holding a sense of endearment towards their youngest sibling. Horace was depressed from the war, and lost in the mindset of those days when he was able. A depression that almost lead to his suicide, but Bettina stopped him at the right time. Supporting her husband through his woes, and the struggles that he now faced many rich men began to approach her trying to take her under their wing as their mistress or lover. Yet, she refused. The grown woman of twenty-eight had her family and business to worry about. Reaching out to the Peaky Blinders as a wish to push an Alliance, Bettina has offered herself at the disposal of Thomas Shelby in order to keep her unwell husband alive. Willingly doing whatever the Shelby brother wishes of her to do, much like she did at the age of seventeen with her husband ten years ago. To benefit her parents then, but now her husband and children.

Personality Traits: Loyal - It is a spoken trait of the Schmidt family that loyalty means everything. Bettina possesses this trait and it could quite possibly be her own downfall. If there was any dog that could explain the level of loyalty Bet held for her family and close friends it would be the German Shepherd. She’s always there for the people that need her in the lines of business and personal relationships. A downfall of her loyal personality is that she has a bad habit of forming a bias for the people she cares about. Though, after time and energy in thinking through situation she’d often see the other side to the story. Bettina often struggles with people that can’t grasp the importance of loyalty. In one of the views that really personally erks her is when a spouse, or lover can’t seem to hold a level of loyalty. Inturn people that she knows are like this aren’t respected by her. Loving & Devoted - Love has what kept Bet alive throughout the war, in various ways. After the separation from her children after their father was taken to fight at war her need to get back to her children has truly shown through. Finding ways to get in contact with them even countries away from them, from morse code message on their birthdays through agents, cards and letters when their little sister was born. She found no matter the distance she’d do anything for them, making sure they were taken care of and watched by her workers. Finally at the war’s end Bettina took all the time in the world around her, trying to make up for the lost time with her children. Even if her debications to work called, the mother always made sure to have time with her family. Driving them out to the countryside on holy days, and having a picnic. Getting some assistance on those days to make sure her husband’s wheelchair could come along too. During the long cold nights she stays by her husband’s side, speaking with him about his worries and fears. In the comfort of their own privacy in their bedroom. Soothing her husband lovingly when he crumbles with his fears and the thoughts about topic of discussion. Bettina has accepted what has happened to her husband, and loves him no-less because of his condition. Nor will she ever let him feel that he’s a burden to her. Business Orientated - From a early age Bettina has been raised about the importance of Good Business, and how to keep that kind of business. Forming and solidifying alliances with other gangs and powerful people. Originally she was believed to be a quiet observer by her husband’s side during the early days of their marriage. On some notable occasions with Darby Sabini apparent King of the Underground in London. Yet, she very quickly out-stepped those thoughts made by others. Becoming a rather ambitious rival that looked for alliances in many places, even the most unlikely. More impressively those business endeavours with the most unlikely have more often proved the most successful for the Rosamond Family. Bettina’s charming wit, and surprising amount of scarcaims have also helped on many occasions with known sexiest. The business woman is more than happy to take her success as an example of what women can do outside of a kitchen or nursery. Or more blunty not lying in bed for their husband’s to please themselves with. She openly recognizes that this is now the time for change as women have proved themselves rather useful at holding up the fort during the war, why should they be tucked away in their kitchens again? She hopes to make a larger place for women within the world, and the people she works around. Bet believes it's important for her daughter to know, and understand that she doesn’t have to be a simple house wife. Intelligent - Gifted the highest and best education that Bettina could afford in a considerably wealthy family had its up sides. But not all of her intellect came from the education from schools, and professional tutors. From a young age Bettina learnt what he family business was, and how she could use that to her advantage in any background. Her adaptive personality has allowed her brain survive the worse of conditions, most of all back in the war. She always holds more cards at her disposal, and uses them with great care which has been part of the reason she's respected by the paranoid Sabini, and hasn't had any trouble from them. Mothering - Extremely capable at being a mother, Bettina from a young age helped people in Austria with delivering and raising their children before having any of her own. Now that she is a mother of her own, and a busy business woman, Bet tries to balance her life to be there for her children, often taking them with her when it came to travelling her children often stuck by her. Her eldest son has now begun to hand out some of her letters to people she wishes to meet along with his little sister Henrietta, often putting up that it was just children sending letters that their father or mother wants to pay off something. Giving her business a little more of an innocent face before the person reads the letter. Outside of work hours she often enjoys spending time with her children in the country-side, having a picnic, or joyous times. When she or her husband aren't with her children they are all watched with respective body guards that she appointed after years of service, trust and loyalty. If those guards slip up she's more than happy to execute them herself to ensure the safety of their children. Archibald is often in her company for business day now because of the fact he's the heir to the Rosamond legacy, yet Henrietta is also there so she learns that woman have just as much strength as men. It was the way her father raised her in Vienna, Austria as a child also. Excellent Spy - As a young woman married into a family quickly in a foreign country, Bettina became quite the observer over time watching on from the distance. Never able to be detected when entering from room to room, the young woman seemingly would float through atmospheres rather nicely, able to observe and get information from her targets without them even noticing. Bettina's acting skills are also something that made the young woman in places of high class, to the lowest of class between the many roles she could play.

((OOC- Face Claim; Idda Van Munster))

#peaky fookin blinders #by order of the peaky blinders #peaky blinders #peaky blinders rp #peaky blinders roleplay #rp #idda van munster #1920s flapper #1920 #rp oc #oc #roleplay #writing partner wanted #original character #strong female characters #paired with alfie solomon #paired with tommy shelby #alfie solomons x oc #tommy shelby x oc

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berlinaura · 4 years

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Last spring in Finland I attended a course “German for those who are going to have an exchange year”. They told us about the stages which one usually goes through during an exchange. As far as I remember, the stages were roughly somewhat like this: firstly one views everything and everyone better than in their home country and everything is super interesting and fun. This basically means that the everyday life hasn’t kicked in yet. The next one is getting annoyed at everything and everybody. Comparing the country to your home country and maybe even feeling like it would have been a better idea to just stay home. After this comes the stage of adaptation where one gets used to customs and stops comparing everything to one’s home country. Last phase is coming back to home country and seeing it in a new way. And of course telling stories of the exchange year to friends and family until they are bored to death.

I remember thinking two things when we were taught about this. Firstly, who the hell would go through a phase of hating the country they go to? It seemed so irrational. The second thing was “Now that I’ve heard about this stuff, I can rise above it and use my brain and self-knowledge to avoid it. Yeah... As you might guess, it did not happen. I admit, during last few weeks I have spend a huge amount of my time wallowing in “WHY DO YOU DO THIS LIKE THIS” “Why can’t you do it in the right way” “What the hell is wrong with Germans!”. Mostly my frustrations have been related to my university. The mornings I am usually in a good mood. I drink my coffee, get ready (I have started to care more about what I wear and how I look like now that I am in Berlin hahaha) and go to school. All in all it takes me around 45 minutes to get from my home to university which includes walking, tram and S-Bahn. The way there and back are usually my favorite bits of the day. I enjoy watching people, traveling through Berlin in S-Bahn and listening to music. On the way back from university the people in public transport are usually going to pubs or parties so it’s nice to see happy and lively faces. I try not to overwhelm myself with school even though I feel like I need to be constantly studying to keep up. The thing is, even though the courses seem a bit challenging, partly because I am not used to academic English and partly because I am studying in a new study field, I find all of them interesting and genuinely think they are useful. I think I will shortly find a balance because now I feel super drained after every day and still feel like I have the “responsibility” to do fun things and go to places whenever I am not studying. It’s like a freshman year all over again.

So, what has happened after the last post? Quite a lot. I was on a Wanderlust trip to Dresden in October. We also visited a famous bridge (Bastei) in Saxony. The views and the scenery were incredible! Dresden was also very cozy and historical city. It was a lot smaller than I expected. We only had a few hours to browse through the city but we could easily reach the most important sights by just walking. On the bus we opened bottles of wines we got from Lidl and played some car games with the people who sat around me. I suggested searching “questions to get to know each other” so on the few hour way back we just simply shared our biggest secrets and fears as if we had been knowing for a long time. The french boy sitting in front of me got interested as I mentioned we are throwing a sitting here, so he wanted to help. We formed a committee of 5 people for a sittning, planned it in a cafe and contacted international office. Their response was rather dry and due to International office organizing a similar event in December, we decided to postpone the sittning and start planning it again in January.

Wanderlust trip was good because everything was already planned and sorted out for us. We just had to be on time to catch the bus. I already booked another wanderlust trip to Magdeburg in December. They have a Christmas market there. I also want to see the city that was my other option to have an exchange year in. By the way, I am super glad I ended up choosing Berlin over Magdeburg.

The next day me, the Austrian girl who sat next to me on the bus and her friend went to see a light show in the city centre. There is this light festival held in Berlin where they project things onto famous buildings and monuments. The one projected on Brandenburg gate left me speechless. They projected things like collapsing of the wall, JFK’s speech and techno culture of today’s Berlin.

One Friday evening my friend, my roommate and her friends decided to go to a burlesque show. The bar was super fancy as was the show. I just couldn’t get my eyes of the woman who performed. She danced to a remix of Britney Spears’ Toxic so naturally I had to ask her after the show if she liked Britney Spears. She said they only picked it because they needed something that people would recognize but at the same time something that isn’t the actual song. :( She was amazing tho.

In October I also went to see Prinz Pi live at Columbiahalle. I’ve never been to this venue before and it was so cozy! Man the concert just got better and better and I just had goosebumps for like half of the show. At the encore Prinz Pi said something in the lines of “You know.. The next place I go to.. You don’t want me to tell the audience that the audience of Berlin was dull? Go crazy then!” and I have never seen an audience getting so hyped during a song (”Gib dem Affen Zucker”). I got inspired of this so I already booked a ticket for Sido’s Christmas show in Columbiahalle. Actually I tried to go to his normal tour’s concert which is actually today, but I thought too long and it got sold out. People were asking 200€ per ticket (the original was around 45€) so I gave up. Then I decided to go to his christmas show but AGAIN thought too long because they are held in 20.-22.12. and I needed to sort out my flights to Finland first. But one day I decided to go to eventim’s page to see if someone was selling their ticket (they were, but overprized again) and I saw that there was one original ticket on sale even though it was sold out before. Someone had cancelled their ticket and some forces of the universe told me to refresh that page at a right moment. So now I have my ticket and just can not wait for it!

In the beginning of November I went to Prague to see my friend. The train ride was only 19 euros and I could easily do my homework and watch Kotikatu there. Priorities were sorted out! I navigated to Revnice where we went to a local brewery and shared things about our lives. The beer was the best beer I have ever had in my life which is sad because I literally can’t get it anywhere else than from there. Damn brewery! The next day we played board games, ate well and went swimming. My friend introduced me to a new thing: putting honey in a coffee. At first I doomed the though: ew, who the hell does that? Honey belongs to tea, not coffee. Then I tasted it and... it was delicious. It is yet to discover if it because of the honey or their super fancy coffee maker. Then we went to the brewery again and played a Czech card game called “bang”. I think I got the gist of it and even won the game once. On our last day we were just sightseeing and went to a concert together. The songs were translated to me and for a moment I felt super ambitious to learn Czech. I don’t want to miss out on funny songs just because I don’t know the language!

Last weekend there was a celebration in Berlin due to it being 30 years from the fall of Berlin wall. It was a bit similar to the light festival. We were out with friends two nights in a row and found a super cute place in Prenzlauer berg: Houdini. They have Indian food and cheap cocktails. We continued the evening to this living room looking place that was connected to a Späti. The Späti-drinking culture is something that is missing from Finland. Here Spätis are these small shops that mostly sell drinks (beer, soda, water, cider and so on) and candy.They are open late which is actually where the name Späti (Spätkauf = late shopping) comes from. There are often benches and tables where people can enjoy their drinks which are cheaper than in normal pubs of course. The Späti man asks if the beer is to be enjoyed in the living room and adds a small fee if it is. And there’s a bottle opener on the counter. Everything is sorted out so in my opinion Späti-drinking is a good way to go out and get drunk with small budget.

Yesterday we had an excursion with my German class. We went to Berlinische Galerie which is a museum of contemporary art. They had an exhibition of Bauhaus, the art/design/architecture Academy in pre-WWII Germany that affected modern design and architecture. We were walking around and filling up a worksheet the teacher gave us. I enjoyed it so much and everything seemed so pleasing to the eye.

Afterwards we went to a open stage event which was basically a talent show. There were 10 acts of which everyone had 10 minutes to convince the audience who voted for a winner. We also had beer and wine counter there naturally. My favorite was this one dude in tight ballet outfit who preformed a circus act which was funny and impressive at he same time. His background music was swan lake but the dude sang along in a terrible way which made it less serious. Then he juggled with 6 balls and every time he messed up, he cried out in a dramatic way. Then at the end of the show he turned his back to the audience and we could see he was digging something from his crotch and then he turned around and swiped of sweat from his face with a pile of tissues he had as a crotch-filler the whole time. The tipsy audience laughed so much that the winner was pretty much clear at that point. The dude who went after him performed a horrible keyboard improvisation and his face screamed “ I am sorry to be here, I just want to flee!” hahahahah. The act that came second was funny as well, they performed “Let it go” but with a German translation, the google translate type of translation. Conclusion is: the audience wants to laugh at talent shows, not see real talent.

On top of all the events I have also been attending the hiphop dance class I think I told about. The teacher is super funny (and hot :D) and the dancing is so intensive and so much fun! I look terrible, though but it’s not the main point here. I might continue this hobby when I get back to Finland.

Now I have to start packing my things because I am going to Szczechin (Poland). I heard it is a city where Berliners go to shop because it is cheaper there. I feel like this trip can be either a massive success or a terrible flop. Time shows...

#erasmus #exchange year #berlin

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kuriquinn · 7 years

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may piss off some people here, but that’s not the intention

Warning: talk of racism/white privilege, discrimination, current issues, etc, so if you don’t feel like reading or want to filter it out, feel free to skip

May be wading into dangerous waters here, but everyone is entitled to their opinion, right? And I really dislike people using the wrong terms as a means of bolstering their arguments or stirring up trouble... (I’m the type to chew out my students for misusing and making light of the the word “triggered”, accusing one another of “assaulting” one another or calling empowered teenaged girls “feminazis”)

So there have been a bunch of posts showing up on my dash lately (and I don’t know what’s with the sudden influx, but okay) suggesting white people are inherently racist even when they try not to be.

I take great issue with this premise, based mostly on the confusion of the idea of racism with the idea of white privilege.

I don’t think anyone is inherently racist, whether you’re black, white, brown, etc.; especially as racism alludes to prejudice, discrimination or antagonism directed against someone of a different based on the belief that one’s own race is superior. An individual first has to understand the concept of race to be racist.

Now, a person can be raised to be racist based on their parents, community or society’s values/messages, but it really depends on all of those factors.

Yes, I am white. Yes, I grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood, but most of my friends from daycare to university etc came from every different culture, race and background imaginable. I didn’t even understand the idea of race existed until I was about three and asked one of the boy’s in my class why his skin was black and him, not knowing the answer, said “just because”.

And we went back to playing mega blocks.

Even then, the idea of race never entered into it. I accepted the explanation and just went on living my life. I felt no antagonism toward my friends of different skin colour, nor a belief that I was better because I happened to be white, have blond hair and blue eyes. I was more concerned with who was wearing the pink dress-up gown and how long it would before it was my turn to wear it.

When I asked my mother the question later that day, she didn’t give me any explanation having to do with race or people being better or worse, she explained about melanin and how it affects people who live closer to the equator/with more sun (but in words a three year old could understand, obviously) and that was the reason for the different skin colours.

Looking back on that conversation today, I find my mother’s response an interesting one, considering she was raised in an Irish-Catholic background in Newfoundland. Now, I’m fiercely proud of my Irish heritage, but I’m also the first one to admit that the Irish can be some of the most discriminatory sods on the planet. Yet instead of regurgitating back the explanations she had been taught by her parents back on the Rock, most of which offered some racist/religious/social darwinist explanation for why anyone who wasn’t white and catholic was going to hell, she gave me a factual, science based explanation that made sense and didn’t alter any type of world view. In my mind, the world was just more interesting now: people could be different colours, just like they could speak different languages and be good/bad at certain activites--cool.

Now, that thought right there? That’s not racism. It is an example of white privilege though.

See, I had the luxury of believing the world was a harmonious real-life example of the “It’s A Small World” ride at Disney, where every person gets along and is treated equal no matter what they look like/what god they worship/where they come from. My friend Daniel whom I had asked about his skin colour no doubt had a different outlook on the world, one which I definitely could not have understood then (and even today will never truly understand because I am not nor will I ever be a black male).

I continued playing with my diverse group of friends, learned to read using books that featured characters of every colour (admittedly, there weren’t as many back then, but they did exist) and watched tv shows/movies with casts that were becoming more and more diverse than anything my parents had ever seen growing up. Mine was the generation that grew up on Sesame Street, Barney and Friends, Magic School Bus, Reading Rainbow, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, Family Ties and the Cosbys. This was natural to me, and the idea of an all-white cast was strange to me even then.

Admittedly, some of the subject matter went over my head with regards to racial issues, but these shows were foundations of my childhood and eventually I started to understand: especially when shows like Fresh Prince of Bel-Air dealt with matters like racial profiling, interracial relationships, stereotypes, etc.

It wasn’t until I reached Grade 5 that I started to understand that things like discrimination really existed and weren’t going anywhere any time soon, whether it’s religious/cultural (my mother took me to see Anne Frank the play to start explaining the Holocaust to me) or the existence of the LGBT community.

Again, that’s my privilege showing. If I were a person of colour, or a discriminated religious minority, I would have already known about this, but I was sheltered as a kid even if I was precocious and wanted to learn about everything.

It’s in Grade 6 that I finally learned about racism and everything it touches. We studied American history, slavery, the civil rights movement, read newspaper articles and watched newcasts of events which were happening. I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of racism because to me, on a fundamental level, it makes absolutely no sense. It’s idiotic. And yet, it shapes our history, our societal experiences, our access to jobs, education, the way people treat us. Some days I still can’t fathom that human beings are so small-minded that they let skin colour and different beliefs dictate how they will treat another person.

Part of my experiences learning about the persecution of people of colour, of Jews and members of the LGBT community led me to develop an interest in history to figure out where that sort of thing comes from. Even today I’m one of the first people to speak out against those who are ignorant to the struggles of the indigenous peoples in North America, defend the rights of Muslims to their beliefs (living in Quebec, there’s a controversy going on right now trying to limit how Muslims dress in public), be understanding of the cultural differences many of my Asian students face when they start living here... I get into arguments with my German/Austrian grandparents trying to explain to them why their views (which they learned living in Nazi occupied Europe) make absolutely no sense.

None of this makes me a saint, of course. Anyone who walks around pretending their shit don’t stink is an idiot.

I accept that my whiteness gives me a certain privilege, that there are certain experiences I will never undergo because of that whiteness. Just as there are certain doors that are open to me which might not be open to someone of colour who the same qualifications, because we are part of a racist society whether we like it or not. But I have never in my life looked at someone, zeroed in on a particular fault, and decided, it’s caused by their blackness/asianness/nativeness/etc in the face of my whiteness.

To reduce a person’s predisposition to be racist to the colour of their skin is a racist action in and of itself. It’s important to know the difference between racism and privilege because while they are related, they are most definitely not the same thing.

#racism #white privilege #just an opinion

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apsidedownce-blog · 7 years

Photo

( &&. GENERAL INFORMATION )

Full Name: alice liddell

Pronunciation: al-is lid-DELL

Aliases: um, mary ann

Preferred Name: alice

Age: twenty

Preferred Pronouns: she/her

Sexual Orientation: bisexual

Languages spoken: english, french

Native language: english

Occupation: student

Current Residence: avenir apartment complex

Current relationship status: single

( &&. BACKGROUND )

Ethnicity: austrian, english, french, german, scottish

Nationality: english

Financial status: upper class

Hometown: london, england

Past Residence: london

Education: studying at avenir university

( &&. FAMILY )

Mother: helen liddell née kingsleigh

Her Age: fifty eight

Her Occupation: businesswoman

Father: charles liddell

His Age: fifty one - deceased

His Occupation: businessman / ceo of gb trading company

Siblings: older sister’s margaret liddell

( &&. PHYSICAL APPEARANCE )

Looks like: dove cameron

Height: 157 cm ( 5 ft 2 )

Weight: 52 kg ( 115 lbs )

Hair color and length: blonde, medium-length

Eye color: blueish green

Piercings: earlobes

Do they wear Glasses or Contacts?: nope

Dominant hand: right hand

Distinguishing Features: heart shape face, dimples, full lips and button nose

If painted, what color are their nails/toenails typically?: light pink

Usual style of clothing: loose skirts, shirts, dresses and pants, or lolita dresses

Frequently worn jewelry: a black ribbon in her hair

Describe their voice, what kind of accent do they have?: having lived in avenir for a while now, her accent has softened but definitely hasn’t faded. she’s still got a very clear british accent in her inflection

Scent: rose or strawberry depending on the day

Posture: she has good posture, but likes to slouch and relax her muscles

( &&. MEDICAL INFORMATION )

Birth Name: alice pleasance liddell

Blood type: a+

Date and Time of birth: may 4th, 3:15 pm

Place of birth: london bridge hospital

Vaginal birth or c-section?: c-section

Sex: cis female

Diet: nonexistent, alice eats what she wants when she wants

Addictions: she has a drug addiction to what she is prescribed and what she is not

Do they get occasional checkups?: monthly, much to her displeasure

Ever broken a bone? How?: a small bone in her foot, after tripping on a dip in the ground

Any physical ailments/illnesses/disabilities: nope

Any mental illnesses/disabilities: schizoaffective disorder and insomnia

Any medication regularly taken: antipsychotics, anticonvulsants, ssris, hypnotics

Were they ever legally declared dead, but were revived?: nope

( &&. PERSONALITY )

Positive traits: imaginative, adventurous, brave, kind, polite, sweet, generous, playful, intelligent

Negative traits: clumsy, shy, sensitive, easily flustered, stern, naive, pedantic, curious, introverted

Likes: daydreaming, flowers, tea, cats, stories with pictures, adventures, rabbits, adventure

Dislikes: rudeness, being lost, yelling, violence, judgement, being called a liar, perfection

Strengths: while it can also be a huge weakness of hers, alice’s imagination and bravery is one of her main strengths, and helps her in her day to day life (especially with uni)

Weaknesses: her naivety, curiosity and impulsive nature is the cause of many of alice’s downfalls, being the root of all evil in her life

Insecurities: she’s always been insecure about her intellect, fearing she’d never be as clever as her older sister, she is also fairly insecure about relationships and doesn’t want to lose friends and family after losing her father, she’s also terrified of doing the wrong thing, failing others, and losing her temper

Fears/phobias: shrinking out of existence, having a lot of people staring at her at once, getting lost and never finding her way home, gamophobia

Hobbies: humming, painting, taking photos, dancing, playing croquet, playing with cards, writing and telling stories, having tea parties, making flower crowns

Desires: to know exactly who she is, to make sure her late father’s legacy lives on, to live happily in a world of her own, and to travel the globe by air or sea

Regrets: not getting to go on an adventure with her father away, and not realizing that he was ill, before he passed away

Secrets: alice keeps her addictions a secret from her family and most people that come to care for her, she keeps her addictive and dangerous relationship to the medication she was prescribed to herself too, as she doesn’t want to draw attention to herself or be seen as an incurable headache for her mother to deal with

Are they generally dominant or submissive?: submissive

Emotional, logical or both: both

Book smart or street smart: street smart

Are they more introvert or extrovert: introvert

Optimist or pessimist: both

Spontaneous or structured: spontaneous

Instinctual or logical: instinctual

Expensive or inexpensive: inexpensive

Generous or stingy: generous

Polite or rude: both

Are they a day or a night person: day

( &&. SKILLS )

Talents: she has great artistic talent in acting, singing, dancing, writing, drawing, photography, and her problem solving skills are fairly impressive

Ability to drive a car?: no

Can they drive any other automobile? What?: she can’t

Can they ride a bike?: yes, though not without a tumble or two

Do they play any sports? What?: only croquet for fun; she doesn’t take the game all too seriously

Do they have any combat training? Why?: she can throw a punch and a kick and swing a bat, but other than that, she lacks in the combat department. to quote her mother “ladies don’t fight”

( &&. MISCELLANEOUS )

Do they have a fake ID?: yes

Are they a virgin?: no

What can you find in their pockets/wallet/purse: chewing gum, small cookies either in a plastic bag or loose, change, a tube of lip gloss, bobby pins, a single key to who knows what, a few playing cards, her medication (not often), and other drugs

Places your character can always be found: the apartment complex, avenir university, abra nightclub, anaheim park and the outdoor cinema, gardens, cafes, the library, and craft shops

What is their idea of perfect happiness?: she honestly has no idea... freedom?

What or who is the greatest love of their life?: her father was, is, and always will be the greatest love of her life, she only wishes she were back in london, so she could visit him daily

On what occasions do they lie?: almost all occasions, simply because even if she tells the truth people tend to not believe her

Do they snore?: no

Do they chew their pens/pencils?: yes

Do they chew their nails?: yes

Can they curl their tongue?: yes

Can they whistle?: yes

Do they believe in the supernatural and magic?: of course

Have they ever cheated on anyone?: no

Have they ever been cheated on?: no

Has anyone ever broken their heart?: yes

Have they ever broken anyone’s heart?: yes

Are they squeamish?: yes and no

Have they ever killed anyone? Why? How?: no

Have they ever seen anyone die? What happened?: luckily, no

Are they a lightweight?: yes

#avn.tasks

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suburbanidiocies · 7 years

Text

Austria’s Failure to Find a Third Way

Austrian interwar authoritarianism presents a fascinating series of contradictions. The Dollfuss-Schuschnigg regime was anti-Nazi yet welcomed the friendship of Mussolini’s Italy. It looked towards an Italian movement rife with Nietzscheanism while founding itself on Catholic social teaching. Finally, the Ständestaat (corporate state) looked to uphold a specifically Austrian identity while also defining itself as a German state. The literature on the Austrian regime varies wildly in its sympathies. Some authors praise the Ständestaat as a bulwark against Hitler, while others deride it as just one more fascist regime among many. From the narratives of both camps a common thread can be drawn that reveals the reasons behind the ultimate debacle that was the Anschluss. The Ständestaat failed to secure its independence in the face of German aggression because it failed to create its own distinct mass political movement. Combating the left was considered more important than building effective social support. Adherence to a conservative economic vision prevented the regime from satisfying either the capitalists or the working class. Finally, instead of presenting a radically revolutionary vision of social change, the Ständestaat allowed the Nazis to set the terms of the debate.

A note should be made about the appropriateness of the term fascism in reference to the 1934-1938 Austrian government. For decades the literature about the Ständestaat has been the site of a bitter struggle. Some insist on the term “Austrofascism,” arguing that the Austrian regime was essentially the same as its Nazi counterpart. Others more sympathetic to the record of Dollfuss and Schuschnigg have preferred the more positive term Ständestaat.[1]These historians have emphasized the good faith efforts of the regime to combat Nazism and preserve Austrian independence in the face of aggression. Such debates, though interesting are beside the point.[2] It is more important to understand how the Ständestaat failed to thrive by its own standards than to decide whether it deserves the automatic opprobrium associated with the fascist label.

The Austrian regime was brought down more by own weaknesses than by the overbearing strength of Nazism. As in the case of the French Third Republic in 1940, Vienna in 1938 lacked the will to fight to the bitter end for its national independence. Undoubtedly, Austria had been dealt a bad hand in the domain of foreign affairs. The strongest assurance of protection came from Italy, one of Vienna bitterest historic enemies. When Mussolini decided to embark on his Ethiopian adventure, he alienated the western democracies. This forced Rome to draw ever closer to Berlin as a natural ideological ally. Part of the price of this realignment was the weakening of Italy’s commitment to Austrian independence. With the loss of its one time protector, Austria became increasingly exposed. At the same time, Vienna failed to win over the sure support of the democracies. France was sympathetic, but unwilling to act alone without the support of London. The United Kingdom in turn did not consider central European affairs to be one of its vital national affairs.[3] From this perspective Austria’s diplomatic abandonment was one of the many unfortunate results of the policy of appeasement that characterized a low, dishonest decade.

However, despite these facts, it remained the case that the weaknesses of the Austrian state were essentially internal. Schuschnigg decided to resign even before either Italy or the Western powers had given him a final refusal.[4] The Ständestaat gave up the fight even before trying the path of military resistance. While some governments occupied by Germany chose to go into exile and organize resistance from abroad, Vienna allowed itself to be snuffed out entirely. Further, as pointed out by several authors, the national socialists were not a strong enough as an internal force to bring the Ständestaat to its knees. As Gehl observes, “the Austrian Nazis could not achieve success without pressure from outside, and they were too weak to force recognition from the Austrian government on their own account.”[5] It was the government’s own decisions that led to the final debacle, not the irresistible might of its opponents. Finally, the fact that Italy’s changing diplomacy had such an effect on Vienna should indicate that the regime had a larger problem than just being unreliable friends. Foreign factors took on an exaggerated importance because the Austrian government was laboring under its own chronic ineptitude and internal weaknesses.

The Ständestaat arose out of the crisis brought about in the vacuum left behind by the death of the Austrian Empire and the end of the monarchy. During the late-Habsburg era, the Christian Socials and Social Democrats grew up together beneath a capacious imperial canopy. Outright collision between the rival mass movements was prevented by the supervising mediation of the Emperor. A precarious equilibrium existed which, while not same as the absence of conflict, avoided the polarization of the people into irreconcilable factions locked in a state of civil war. But with the end of the imperial system, there was no longer an overall authority figure that could claim to be equidistant from all competing factions. Now there were only rival citizens who faced each on a horizontal plane of competition from which there was no easy exit.

In addition to the new angst of coexistence within a republican order, there arose the question of whether Austria without the Hapsburgs had a real future. The Christian Socials were still convinced in the viability of the so-called Austrian idea. In part this was an expression of barely repressed royalist hopes for a restoration. Yet it was also an expression of belief that predominantly Catholic Austria, with its centuries old heritage of an independent existence, had a separate identity from the predominantly Protestant German nation. Finally, as will be explored later on, they thought that their country represented a superior brand of “Germanness” than the one offered in Berlin. By contrast, the Social Democrats longed for unification with Austria’s northern neighbor. While they were more committed to democracy than were the Christian Socials, the socialists were not convinced that an Austrian republic had a real reason to exist. They favored unification with Germany as an inevitable working out of the rationality of history.[6] Austria was thus divided between patriots who were dubious about the value of republican forms and solid democrats who did not feel much attachment to the nation they inhabited.[7]

These conflicting ideological tenants led to a spiraling series of confrontations between the two sides, neither of which was unwilling to resort to force to achieve their objectives. Like the Weimar Republic, the Austrian First Republic throughout the 1920s and early 1930s was marked by repeated street fighting between the left and the right while the parliamentary system became increasingly discredited by the economic instability of the times. This culminated in a brief civil war, which consolidated the control of the Christian Socials and paved the way for the issuing of the authoritarian May Constitution. All parties were abolished and replaced with the Fatherland Front, an organization that was supposed to connect Austrians of all backgrounds to the state. One faction had put an end to the seemingly unworkable social contradictions brought about by democratization through declaring a dictatorship. In a typically Austrian gesture, the parliament was declared to have abolished itself, as if no one was willing to take responsibility for the termination of democracy.[8]

The Austrian regime prioritized the suppression of its leftwing opponents over winning a mass following. While it sought to split moderate Nazis from Germany, Vienna waited until the end was in sight before seeking to reconcile itself with the Social Democrats. Rather than trying to protect itself from Nazi aggression through allying with the democratic nations of Europe, the Ständestaat put too much faith in fascist Italy. While the Nazis successfully wooed elements of the social democrats, the Austrian regime remained dependent on a narrow conservative base that proved all too willing to throw in its lot with Hitlerism.

Despite the regime’s commitment to resisting Berlin as well as Moscow, the Staandstaat was at the end of the day more concerned with repressing the left than with combatting Nazism. This was particularly true after the death of Dollfuss and the failure of the 1934 putsch. Despite the obviously aggressive intentions of Germany, a lawyer named Arthur Seys-Inquart was given a position in Austria’s cabinet to represent the “national opposition” (i.e. the Nazis).[9] Further, the Ständestaat, hoping to gain breathing room from the insistent pressure of Berlin, made several concessions to Austrian Nazis as early as 1936. “Nazi political prisoners…were amnestied, a select number of German newspapers would be allowed to circulate in Austria following an earlier ban, and Nazis symbols would be permitted again on certain occasions.”[10] In addition, during that same year, the Ständestaat disbanded the Heimwehr units.[11] These paramilitary groups had been instrumental in the suppression of the socialists 1934. They represented one of the few bottom up expressions of support that the regime had. Yet, the Ständestaat was willing to sacrifice them in the hope of partially appeasing Berlin. Later, in 1937, Schuschnigg made an agreement in conjunction with Berlin which released 145 National Socialists and promised to limit police suppression of “any offices that might be established in furtherance of the pacification movement.”[12]

As a result of these various concessions, Nazis were still not recognized as a legal party but they were given more room to function. In the words of Gehl: “The strength of the regime was no longer based on opposition to the Nazis but on the compromise concluded with them.”[13] This may be too harsh a verdict, but it captures the extent to which Vienna had undermined its own position.

Finally, while the Austrian regime sought to win over “moderate” Nazis, no such effort was made to split the Social Democrat bloc. In fact, attracting national socialists was one of the reasons for the intensity of the regime’s persecution of the left. As Dollfuss explained as early as 1933:

“I am convinced that, as soon as you appeal to all sound national forces in Austria, and strike a blow at the Social Democrats in their stronghold, Vienna … then many of those who today are active in the ranks of the Nazis will come over to the circle of the national front.”[14]

Even at the eleventh hour, Schuschnigg was unwilling to allow the Social Democrats to organize again as a party. In part this was an understandable effort to keep out the Nazis. The Fatherland Front was supposed to represent all Austrians. If this political monopoly was broken to allow for a party of the left, the Nazis would undoubtedly demand their right to participate in political life as well. But deeper than such tactical considerations was the continuing antipathy of Schuschnigg and others to the Social Democrats as a red menace to a Christian Austria. No distinction was made between the socialists and the communists loyal to Moscow. While the Ständestaat should be commended for reaching to its political opponents, it was clearly a matter of too little too late.

Austria alienated otherwise sympathetic countries through its unwillingness to tolerate the existence of a leftwing opposition. Public opinion in both England and France disapproved of the persecution of the Socialists.[15] In a world divided by a global struggle for power between fascism, communism, and liberalism, the idiosyncratic authoritarianism of Austria lacked many viable allies. One of the main reasons for the existence of the regime was its opposition to annexation by Nazi Germany. But because of its rightwing politics it could not expect much natural sympathy from the western democracies or from the Soviet Union. On a more local level, the oddly half-hearted reactionary politics of Vienna alienated its neighbors. The Austrian state could not join Little Entente partly because of its unwillingness to renounce definitively the restoration of the monarchy.[16] Finally, Austria, while eager to gain assurances that other nations would protect its independence, was unwilling to join in any alliance that was explicitly committed to combatting Germany.[17] The bond of kinship between the two nations undercut Vienna’s desire to maintain its own sovereignty.

The Ständestaat failed to win over the left. The state’s sweeping ideological opposition to the Enlightenment left little room to compromise with socialists or liberals. Perhaps more importantly, the Austrian regime’s unwillingness to engage in Keynesianism or to permit unionization gave workers inclined towards socialism little material incentive to change their loyalties. This was in stark contrast to the Austrian regime’s Hitlerite rival, which, while similarly opposed to both liberalism and socialism, was far more adept at branding itself as a truly modern alternative to the status quo. It helped that Nazism, being also an officially proscribed group, was not tainted by association with the government’s suppression of the left. As one observer said as early as 1934:

“Owing to its wait and see attitude, the hands of the NSDAP would remain free of the blood of the citizens, and the NSDP therefore formed the natural reservoir into which the insurgent masses of German workers would be channeled.”[18]

Thus, it is estimated that 1/3 of the Social Democrats base defected to Nazism.[19] Bombarded with anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic propaganda, many workers were convinced that Hitler was a desirable alternative to the current Austrian government. These Social Democrats preferred an admittedly anticlerical foreign regime to being governed by their bitter ideological enemies.Their desire for vengeance and their long established preference for Anschluss with Germany quieted their proletarian scruples

The Ständestaat was prevented from building a mass base by its inability to come up with a popular economic response to the problems raised by the Great Depression. Instead of adapting to modern labor relations, the regime tried to freeze society in the image of a rose tinted medieval past. Rather than adopt a flexible monetary policy, the Ständestaat crucified Austria on a cross of gold. Finally, instead of enabling economic growth, Vienna bogged itself down with shortsighted policies of protectionism.

The Ständestaat sought to transcend social conflict through corporatism. Society would be divided into different estates, which would all be harmonized in the unity of the state. The disruptive forces of trade unionism and entrepreneurial avarice would be negated through integration into a properly Christian social order. Class interests would be channeled into a general spirit of cohesion. This attempt to turn a theological critique of modern social conditions into a concrete third way between socialism and liberalism satisfied no one. Instead of conciliating social-economic differences, it let class differences fester into a general resentment of the Austrian state. The urban proletariat was alienated from a regime that failed to take seriously their demands for autonomy and political participation. Nor could they be expected to appreciate cuts to their living standards in the name of maintaining the budget. While the working class remained unappeased, the well to do were also dissatisfied with the Ständestaat. Capitalists certainly appreciated the state’s suppression of labor militancy. But they did not find much positive value in the corporatist state. The sentimental elevation of the rural countryside as the bedrock of society was no doubt irksome to men who saw themselves as being forces for social and material progress. And while many no doubt liked the absence of new taxes, even the fiscal orthodoxy of Vienna was not an unmixed blessing for big business. The stagnation imposed on the economy by the Ständestaat affected profit margins as well as wages. Many industrialists looked towards the dynamic economy of Nazi Germany as an alternative. As one business man bluntly said:

“Business is always about surviving the next day. After you’ve survived a crisis, nobody asks you how you did it. I am known as a rather successful industrialist. As such I say and can only say: What they are doing out there with the economy [in Nazi Germany, G.S.] is quite simply impressive.”[20]

All this was in strong contrast to American Catholics who were eager to link the liberal modernization of the New Deal to the same papal document, Quadragesimo Anno, cited by the Austrians authoritarians.[21] It was a definite choice on the part of the leaders of the Austrian regime to view the only possible application of Catholic social teaching as being a return to the 13th century. Instead of reinterpreting present day realities through the spirit of orthodoxy, they became lost in the letter of long since departed social realities. Ironically, despite its clear debt to the imperial past, Ständestaat showed none of the Hapsburgs willingness to compromise with modernity. The piety of the old dynasty had not prevented it from being willing to acknowledge contemporary realities. The petite bourgeois clericalism of the 1930s Austrian right by contrast burdened itself with quixotic aspirations.

The regime in Vienna prioritized preserving a balanced budget and the value of the Alpine Dollar over stimulating economic growth. While other countries had adopted fiat currency because of the state of the time, the Austrian government mulishly stuck to fiscal orthodoxy. “Although other countries abandoned the gold standard mentality in the 1 930s - Great Britain in 1931, the United States and Germany in 1933, and even France in 1936 - Austria clung to it until the bitter end.”[22] What is commonly known as Keynesianism remained more or less anathema to Vienna. “Attempts to stimulate the national economy … remained much too weak in Austria since they lacked genuine conviction on the part of the government.”[23] While the American government and the Nazi government, through their expansive monetary policies, were able to take the sting of the Depression from the public imagination, Vienna allowed the economy to largely work itself out. At the same time, the country sought to protect small businesses from being rendered redundant. Centralization and rationalization of production was thus discouraged. At the same time, idle capacity was allowed to build up because of a lack of effective demand. As a result, “Industrial output in 1937/1938 was below that of 1929.”[24]

This flawed approach to economics extended into agriculture. Dollfuss effusive rhetoric about the social importance of the peasantry, the agricultural policies of him and his successor were of dubious value for Austria’s farming industry. The leaders of the Ständestaat were of course unwilling to pursue the “red” solutions of land reform and the creation of unions for farm workers. However, they were also unwilling to use free trade as a means of rationalizing Austrian agriculture. Instead, the Austrian regime pursued a policy of subsidizing the nations’ farmers and imposed a strict quota system on their products.[25] This discouraged agricultural modernization while inflicting high food prices on the already disaffected urban proletariat. The result was that the passive support of the countryside was assured. But laboring masses in the cities were left with little effective attachment to the regime, thereby exposing them to the siren call of Nazism.

The Ständestaat did not succeed in creating a distinct (counter)-revolutionary vision of its own. It failed to compete with Nazism on the ground of German identity politics. Instead of bringing back the monarchy, it tried to recreate the old imperial system minus the dynastic base. While Nazism put forward clear answers on the nature of the people, the Austrian regime offered a confusing ambivalence that really satisfied only a minority of the population it tried to rule. Finally, instead of confronting head on the psychological angst and uncertainty of modern life with a radical vision, the Ständestaat tried to coast by on a weak political mandate with a merely bureaucratic authority.

The Ständestaat defined itself as a ‘German’ within its constitution. This marked its continuity with the programs of the Christian Social party. It was also concession to the self-understanding of a majority of Austrians. But in the long term, this self-definition undermined the attempt to build an Austrian identity. The sincere members of the Fatherland Front (who perhaps were never a majority) believed they represented the better Germany that had not been led astray by the errors of Protestantism and modern Neo-Paganism. Dietrich Hildebrand summed up the official attitude of the regime when he wrote:

“Can one conceive of an ethos or a mentality that is more contrary to the great spirituality and quiet depth of this noble German character than the loud, propagandistic, aspirtual conduct of National Socialism, its mechanical enforcement of conformity in all areas of life, and its disavowal of German traditions and culture…?”[26]

To supporters of the Ständestaat, Vienna was the true uncorrupted embodiment of Deuchteum (Germanness). They thus already ceded that the main issue was a national identity, with dire consequences. As one Catholic intellectual observed at the time, “Those who regard Austria as a German state and speak of the German nation in Austria will sooner or later have to deny the Austrian state.”[27]

A post-imperial Austria could not claim to offer an essentially different conception of political belonging. The choice than was between who could project a more convincing simulation of the reborn Germanic Reich. When the question was posed in that way, the ultimate issue could not be in doubt. The restored Holy Roman Empire was a pipe dream, while the Nazi state was an undeniable reality. The volk proved more politically potent than piety and defunct dynastic loyalties. This in fact proved to be a decisive factor in the death throes of the Austrian state. One of the reasons for Schuschnigg’s final capitulation was his unwillingness to shed fellow German blood.[28]

Many members of the Austrian regime had royalist sympathies including Schuschnigg.[29] However, perhaps bizarrely, they were unwilling to bring back the Hapsburgs. The monarchists were a solidly anti-Nazis constituency both out principal and by necessity. Hitler was violently opposed to the Hapsburgs as a family of degenerate cosmopolitans that had betrayed the German people with their sympathies for the Slavs. This was one of the themes dealt with in Mein Kampf, which diagnosed the death of the Austrian empire as a result of its multinational character. In the face of this one could say that the Austrian regime, hoping to avoid providing a pretext for Nazi aggression, had solid reasons to choose not to bring back the dynasty.[30] But one could also argue that, considering the fact that nothing would convince Germany to abandon its scheme of unification, Vienna had nothing to lose. Something over and above diplomatic calculation informed the Ständestaat’s reluctance to bring back the king. Perhaps at bottom they thought they were building a more genuinely Christian society that would not make the messy compromises with liberalism and socialism that had characterized the late Hapsburg period.

The Ständestaat relationship to Anti-Semitism demonstrated both the reality of its anti-Nazism and its uncomfortable kinship with its northern rival. This relative toleration for Jews definitely distinguished Austria from Nazi Germany. There was no equivalent to the Nuremburg laws or Kristallnacht. Many German Jews found asylum in Austria. The Fatherland Front incorporated into its official party platform the text of 1933’s pastoral letter by the Austrian Bishops. The document clearly denounced ‘racial ‘anti-Semitism along with racism, eugenics, and the exaltation of nationalism over religion.[31] In a sense, the Ständestaat continued the tolerant policies of the late Hapsburg Empire, albeit without the liberal and constitutional features of that regime. In turn, some Jewish writers and intellectuals, such as Joseph Roth and Franz Werfel looked to Austrian identity as a defense against the nationalist extremism of the times.[32] Nostalgia for the old order proved to be in this instance a justification for accepting rather than rejecting cultural outsiders.

However, this atmosphere of relative toleration was fraught with ambivalence. As indicated above, the Fatherland Front and the Austrian bishops only condemned “racial” Anti-Semitism, not all possible forms of hatred towards Jews. Pace the Nazis, no human tribe could be written off as beyond salvation, but there was still a special opprobrium that surrounded the alleged obstinacy of the Hebrews who had rejected Christ. Distrust and hostility towards Jews for being members of an alien religion was implied to be acceptable. The practical difference between the racial anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism was difficult to maintain for most Austrian Catholics, who still insisted on differentiating between gentile and Jewish members of the faith.[33] Further, despite the mildness of the official policy, popular anti-Semitism remained unchecked. Notably, a pro-regime newspaper published the editorial by one “Professor Austriacus” who described the murder of a Jewish intellectual named Mortiz Schlick as a ‘truly satisfactory solution to the Jewish question.’ ”[34] It would only take a small leap from such sentiments to approve of wholesale extermination of the Jews as a people. In the end, the half-hearted toleration of the Ständestaat could not compete with the straightforward racism of the Nazis. The former refused to directly confront the bigotry of the Austrian population, while the latter gave the masses permission to vent their worst instincts.

The May Constitution of 1934 by itself demonstrates the unwillingness of the Austrian authoritarians to settle themselves to the realities of mass politics. The preamble declines to name the power, which issued the constitution. Neither the traditional dynastic right nor the popular sovereignty is admitted as a legitimizing principle. As Eric Voeligan observed: "[The 1934 preamble] lists the principles of the constitution, it names the object benefiting from the constitution-but it says nothing about the power issuing the constitution.” [35] God Himself is invoked, but the founders of Ständestaat did not dare say that their statutes were direct expressions of the divine will. The constitution situates itself more as a provisional document than an enduring expression of a specific set of power relations. This was a continuation of an old problem that had hounded the Austrian polity throughout the 19th century. "The impossibility of creating clear domestic power relations shifted the emphasis of the problem of the Austrian Reich from the field of politics to that of administration."[36] But at least in the past, there had still been at the end of the day the divine aura of the dynasty itself, which could credibly claim to stand apart from the various social and national struggles that had riven the old empire. The May Constitution, by contrast, wants the form of an administrated state without creating a social institution capable of giving substance to such a form of government. The realities of political power are obscured in an appeal to an elusive authority which has yet to commit itself to a foundational decision.

There is a profound irony at work here. Hitler wormed his way into power through technically legal means without having to replace the Weimar Constitution. The Austrian authoritarians, from this perspective, were formally more radical in the sense that they issued a brand new constitution to replace the founding document of the first republic. But this boldness when it came to practice hid a timorous approach to the realities of governing a modern state. Instead of directly tackling the problem of legitimization in modern mass society, the Ständestaat deferred making a political decision about its own foundation to the indefinite future. By contrast, Nazism founded itself openly and unambiguously on the “volkish” people. It tried to ride the modern tide of popular sovereignty even as it schemed its overthrow democratic rule.

Austrian identity had historically been based on two transnational institutions, the Hapsburg dynasty and the Catholic Church.[37] It had grown up in an atmosphere of spiritual and secular cosmopolitanism that had never had to confine itself to the limits of a nation state form. While this sensibility could, under certain circumstances, make Austrians appear more modern than the inhabitants of countries with more straightforward homelands, it left the subjects of the old empire ill prepared for an age increasingly defined by a heady mixture of patriotism and revolutionary politics. The cataclysm of the First World War forced Austrians to consider on what terms they could exist as a distinct people. The loss of the monarchy left Austrian identity even more dependent on the Church. But this made it ever more abhorrent to the socialists. Indifferent to the traditional religious debates between Protestant and Catholics, secular leftist Austrians thought that nationality trumped the lingering scars of the Reformation. Throughout the 1920s and 30s, liberal and leftist partisans participated in pro-Anschluss activism.[38] They sought to affirm a shared republican German identity that would paper over the scars left behind by the departure of the Hohenzollerns and the Habsburgs. This aim ironically converged with the aims of the post-royalist nationalist right. Even the victory of Hitler was not enough to definitely silence left sympathies for a unification with Germany, particularly as many opponents of the Ständestaat groaned under official persecution.

The Fatherland Front condemned the positing of the nation as a higher collective entity than the state itself. However, this left unanswered where legitimacy flowed from. When a monarch who stood above the people ruled society, the state was truly independent from the nation. But in a post-dynastic present, there was no clear institutional reference point that could play the role of autonomous mediator. There was instead a gaping void in the political imaginary. The Nazi Volksgemeinschaft, by contrast, presented a simpler, perversely more democratic equation: The state was legitimate because it represented the people that made it up. A German people needed a German state. In the face of this simple logic, Vienna could only hem and haw. Austria wanted to be a supranational entity but instead only came across as a deformed parody of the nation state. Deuchteum, in the last instance, trumped whatever the Austrian idea was supposed to stand for.

The Ständestaat’s opposition to democratic forms worked against its attempts to justify its own existence. When distinguishing itself from its northern neighbor was key, Vienna tried to imitate some of Berlin’s forms. The Austrian regime, despite the sincerity of its opposition to Nazism, adopted the Führerprinzip as its own. Within their general practice of governance, each level of organization was subordinated to the leader of the Fatherland Party. Dollfuss even chose to take on the title of Führer.[39] However, as Bruce F. Pauley observes: “All in all, there was a distinctly temporary and defensive quality to the governments of Engelbert Dollfuss and Kurt von Schuschnigg. Neither man had any desire to set up a permanent dictatorship.”[40]

If rightwing authoritarianism was the only option available, choosing between an unabashed charismatic leader and a glorified bureaucrat riven by self-doubt might seem like an easy choice to make.

The lack of emotional energy behind Austrian authoritarianism can be vividly demonstrated by its choice of symbols. In contrast to the enigmatic energy of the swastika, the Austrians had the clunky crutch cross (Krukenkruz).[41] These details on the level of spectacle were symptoms of a deeper psychological difference between Vienna and Berlin. Nazis offered the revolutionary division of spoils among racial brothers fused together in an armed mass in the wake of the passing of God and Kaiser. The deserving sons would inherit the inheritance left behind by a father who had proven too weak to stop his own demise. Fascist filiarchy would replace the stale reign of traditional patriarchy [42] The Austrian regime, by contrast nostalgically wavered in front of the void left by the passing of the pre-1914 order. Particularly after the assassination of Dollfuss, the role of Chancellor was more a bureaucratic function overseeing the persistence of the status quo than a post defined by transformative leadership that could promise a new future for the various frustrated strata of modern society. The potent mixture of paternalism and democracy offered by the American New Deal was beyond the capabilities of the Austrian regime. At the same time, the Austrian state did not offer its citizens a true restoration of the ancien regime. The leaders of the Ständestaat lacked the pious audacity to bring back the exiled emperor. At most, they were merely willing to keep his seat warm for him.

The Ständestaat failed in its mission to save Austrian sovereignty because of its inability to successfully engage with the realities of modern mass politics. Rather than win the hearts and minds of the working class, the Austrian regime became fixated with combating those to its left. Instead of effectively reacting to the economic realities, Vienna chose to oversee the strangulation of growth by corporatism and fiscal orthodoxy. Finally, instead of presenting a unique and persuasive vision of the future, Vienna allowed itself to be boxed into an ideological corner by its more nimble Nazi opponents.

Ironically, some of these issues were raised in a report by the Fatherland Front itself in late 1934: “The supporters of the government complained … that its enemies, the capitalists, were not tackled more energetically, that the workers were much too exploited, [and] that the leftwing opponents were punished much more harshly that the ‘brown terrorists.’” [43]

The fact that such a frank and sweeping criticism could be levelled within the governing party itself was a sign of the mildness that defined the regime in contrast to other interwar authoritarian states. But the fact that little to nothing was done to address these concerns during the remaining years of the regime indicates how incapable the Ständestaat was of making the bold decisions necessary to secure its own existence in an age of political flux.

The tragedy of Austria is a microcosm of the fate of Central Europe during the 1930s. It is the story of the inability of both liberalism and the remnants of the ancien regime, of Social Democracy and of the Church, of the intellectuals and the working masses to resist the march of Nazism. When push came to shove, with honorable exceptions, both major Austrian social factions capitulated to the advent of Hitler. It would take the victory of Moscow and Washington to force the various elements of Mitteleuropa to commit to a democratic order.

Bibliography

Secondary Sources

Bischof, Günter, Anton Pelinka, and Alexander Lassner, ed. The Dollfuss/Schuschnigg Era in Austria: A Reassessment (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 2003).

Boyer, John W. Culture and Political Crisis in Vienna: Christian Socialism in Power, 1897-1918 (Chicago, 1996).

Brook-Shepard, Gordon. The Anschluss (Philadelphia, 1963).

Burkey, Evan Burr. Hitler’s Austria: Popular Sentiment in the Nazi Era: 1938-1945 (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 2000).

Burns, Gene. The Frontiers of Catholicism: The Politics of Ideology in a Liberal World (Berkeley, California, 1994).

Bushell, Anthony. Polemical Austria The Rhetoric of National Identity from Empire to the Second Republic (Cardiff, Wales, 2013).

Carsten, F. L. Fascist Movements in Austria: From Schönerer to Hitler (London, 1977).

Gehl, Jürgen. Austria, Germany, and The Anschluss 1931-1938 (London, 1963).

Klausinger, Hansjörg. “How Far Was Vienna from Chicago in the 1930s? The Economists and the Depression”, Gunter in Bischof, Anton Pelinka, and Alexander Lassner, ed., The Dollfuss/Schuschnigg Era in Austria in Austria: A Reassessment (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 2003).

Hochman, Erin R. Imagining a Greater German: Republican Nationalism and the Idea of Anschluss (Ithaca, 2016).

Kindermann, Gottfried Karl. Hitler’s Defeat in Austria 1933-1934: Europe’s First Containment of Nazi Expansionism, Sonia Brough trans. (London, 1984).

Kirk, Tim. “Fascism and Austrofascism”, in Günter Bischof, Anton Pelinka, and Alexander Lassner, ed., The Dollfuss/Schuschnigg Era in Austria: A Reassessment (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 2003).

Liungman, Carl G. Symbols: Encyclopedia of Western Signs and Ideograms (Stockholm, Sweden, 1995).

Pauley, Bruce F. "Fascism and the Führerprinzip: The Austrian Example." Central European History 12, no. 3, 1979.

Pauley, Bruce F. From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1992).

Senft, Gerhard. “Economic Development Policies in the Ständestaat Era”, in Gunter Bischof, Pelinka, and Lassner, ed., The Dollfuss/Schuschnigg Era in Austria: A Reassessment (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 2003).

Theweleit, Klaus. Male Fantasies Volume 1: Women, Floods, Bodies, History, Stephen Conway trans. (Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1987).

[1] Günter Bischof, Anton Pelinka, and Alexander Lassner, ed. The Dollfuss/Schuschnigg Era in Austria: A Reassessment (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 2003), p.1.

[2] Tim Kirk, “Fascism and Austrofascism”, in Günter Bischof, Anton Pelinka, and Alexander Lassner, ed., The Dollfuss/Schuschnigg Era in Austria: A Reassessment (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 2003), p. 26.

[3] Jürgen Gehl, Austria, Germany, and The Anschluss 1931-1938 (London, 1963), p. 114.

[4] Gordon Brook-Shepherd, The Anschluss (Philadelphia, 1963), p. 152.

[5] Gehl, Austria, Germany, and The Anschluss, p. 153.

[6] Anthony Bushell, Polemical Austria: The Rhetoric of National Identity from Empire to the Second Republic (Cardiff, Wales, 2013), pp. 143-144.

[7] Brook-Shepherd, The Anschluss, p. xviii.

[8] Tim Kirk, “Fascism and Austrofascism”, p. 20.

[9] Erin R. Hochman, Imagining a Greater German: Republican Nationalism and the Idea of Anschluss (Ithaca, 2016), p.234.

[10] Ibid., p. 234.

[11] Gehl, Austria, Germany, and The Anschluss, p. 143.

[12]Ibid,. p. 152.

[13] Ibid., p.144.

[14] Ibid., p. 66.

[15]Ibid., p.83.

[16] Ibid., pp. 124-125.

[17] Ibid., p.124.

[18] Ibid., p.82.

[19] Evan Burr Burkey, Hitler’s Austria: Popular Sentiment in the Nazi Era: 1938-1945 (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 2000), p. 36.

[20] Gerhard Senft, “Economic Development Policies in the Ständestaat Era”, in Bischof, Pelinka, and Lassner, ed., Dollfuss/Schuschnigg Era in Austria, pp. 47-48.

[21] Gene Burns, The Frontiers of Catholicism: The Politics of Ideology in a Liberal World (Berkeley, California, 1994) p. 92.

[22] Hansjörg Klausinger, “How Far Was Vienna from Chicago in the 1930s? The Economists and the Depression”, in Bischof, Pelinka, and Lassner, ed., Dollfuss/Schuschnigg Era in Austria, p. 67.

[23] Senft, “Economic Development Policies in the Ständestaat Era”, p. 36.

[24] Ibid., p.37.

[25]Ibid., p. 34.

[26] Gottfried Karl Kindermann, Hitler’s Defeat in Austria 1933-1934: Europe’s First Containment of Nazi Expansionism, Sonia Brough trans., (London, 1984), pp 166

[27] Bushell, Polemical Austria, p.165.

[28] Brook-Shepherd, The Anschluss. p. 152.

[29]Ibid., p. 111.

[30] Gehl, Austria, Germany, and The Anschluss, p.177.

[31] Gottfried Karl Kindermann, Hitler’s Defeat in Austria 1933-1934: Europe’s First Containment of Nazi Expansionism, Sonia Brough trans., (London, 1984), pp. 164-165.

[32] Bushell, Polemical Austria, p. 139.

[33] Bruce F. Pauley, From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1992), p.172.

[34]Senft, “Economic Development Policies in the Ständestaat Era”, p.49.

[35] Eric Voeligan The Authoritarian State: An Essay on the Problem of the Austrian State, Ruth Hein trans., (Columbia, Missouri, 1999), p. 252.

[36] Ibid., p. 253.

[37] Kindermann, Hitler’s Defeat in Austria, p.20.

[38] Hochman, Imagining a Greater German: Republican Nationalism and the Idea of Anschluss, pp.2-4.

[39] Bruce F Pauley, "Fascism and the Führerprinzip: The Austrian Example." Central European History 12, no. 3, 1979, p. 281.

[40] Ibid,. p. 285.

[41]Carl G. Liungman, Symbols: Encyclopedia of Western Signs and Ideograms (Stockholm, Sweden, 1995), p. 587.

[42]Klaus Theweleit, Male Fantasies Volume 1: Women, Floods, Bodies, History, Stephen Conway, trans.,(Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1987), p. 108.

[43] F. L. Carsten, Fascist Movements in Austria: From Schönerer to Hitler (London, 1977), p. 272.

#austria #fascism #nazism #history #liberalism #communism #socialism #politics #Central Europe #Europe

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gldngrl7 · 7 years

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Casting is only skin deep

It’s totally possible I missed something in a line of dialogue or perhaps a scene where Maggie Sawyer was pontificating on the wonders of her grandmother’s Ropa Vieja recipe. But why do people assume that Maggie Sawyer is supposed to be Latina? It seems like they believed (in the first place) that she’s supposed to be Latina because of her dark(ish) skin and because she’s played by Floriana Lima, and then got all pissed when they found out Floriana (despite her name) is mostly European. But still...

MAGGIE SAWYER -- that’s a foine Irish name....

Acting auditions aren’t like job interviews where you may or may not fill out information about your ethnicity for the HR department during the process. As an actor, you provide that information to your agent and they are under no obligation to share it. In fact, since they only get paid if you work, they are incentivized to send you out to audition even if you only barely match the call sheet. Casting Directors don’t typically ask an actor their cultural background in an audition. There isn’t that kind of time (you get a minute, maybe two to make an impression in your reading after which, if you’re lucky, you get a callback). FYI. If they were intentionally trying to hire someone ethic then all they can go by is how the actor looks and the name on the head shot. They can however request a certain look in the audition call sheet that goes out to the local talent agents

Ex: Female, 25-30, slight body type, Latina, Arabic or Asian-Pac ethnicity, Penelope Cruz “type”. Tough as nails outside with a soft, chewy inside.

And then they’ll get a wide range of actors show up at the audition who aren’t any of those ethnicities but can “pass”, either because the luck of genetics, because they’ve change their names to sound ‘more ethnic’, or because their name is legitimately ethnic but they don’t genetically look it (think: Cameron Diaz).

The irony here is that if you aren’t a US citizen or have a green card to work in US productions than you must receive a waiver from the acting unions to work (SAG/Equity/AFTRA) and in order to receive that, they have to present a compelling reason why only this specific actor will suffice for the role, and that final decision on whether to issue the waiver often comes down to one thing -- actual ethnicity.

Bit of a history lesson:

This was seen most famously in 1990-1991, when Cameron Macintosh planned to bring his international blockbuster hit “Miss Saigon” to the New York stage. Jonathan Pryce, an internationally renowned (white) British actor, had created the Eurasian character “The Engineer” to great success on the London stage. But Equity forbade him from performing in the US, calling this an example of “yellowface”. Eventually, Macintosh was able to present his compelling case based on the fact that JP had played an intrinsic role in turning the play into the success that it was. So, Equity came up with a compromise, JP would be allowed to play “The Engineer” on Broadway for a period of six months, after which the production would need to be prepared to pass the role to an American actor of Asian or Eurasian descent. Which they did.

At the time Equity already had Committee for Racial Equality, but this casting case shone a light on the lack of diversity in New York stage casting (And British tbh) not to mention the casting process. In the beginning, CM and company spent more than year scouring Asia for their female lead, finally locating the sublime Lea Salonga in the Philippines, a country with a rich musical tradition. At the time, I don’t think the role of The Engineer was envisioned to be quite the polarizing character that he became -- it could be argued that he only did so because of the life Jonathan Pryce breathed into him.

I’ve seen the play multiple times and sometimes The Engineer is brilliant and magnetic and sometimes he’s just not. It’s all in the performance which, in the end, is all in the hands of the actor they cast.

But I digress:

Hollywood and New York are, by all appearances, working to improve diversity in casting, but this is a business where people are often required to change their names to be a part of the unions -- since it’s like choosing an email address -- your name has to be unique.

Imagine a scenario where there can only be one “Mary Fallon” in SAG, but she’s got dark hair and dark eyes, so maybe she makes the savvy move and changes her name to Maria Fuentes, since it’s available -- that way she can play either white OR Latina characters. That’s the name of the game for an actor -- fit into as many molds as you possibly can.

Also, people go through a lot of trouble to change their look so they fit into certain molds. Casting diversity is a constantly shifting concept these days. How far we’ve come from the time when Margarita Carmen Cansino became Rita Hayworth because she had to be more white, remains to be seen. But in the wake of changes in casting traditions the acting business has become a place where no one can be trusted to be who they say they are or appear to be anymore.

And when it comes to casting diversity...where does the line get drawn? Shall we begin requesting family trees two generations back like Nazi Germany did when trying to determine just how Jewish someone was. Benjamin Bratt frequently plays Latino characters but only his mother is Peruvian, his father is Austrian and German. Oded Fehr frequently plays Jews and Arabics, but in reality only his mother is Israeli and his dad is German. Does their European halves negate their South American/Israeli halves? Should BB not be allowed to play a Latino because he’s half European, or should he be allowed to play a Latino just because he presents the right image? Should Oded be prevented from playing Jafar on Once Upon a Time because he doesn’t have a drop of Arabic blood-- even though he couldn’t look more the part if he tried??

Once that decision is made...how long before a Mexican-descent character can only be played by a Mexican-descent actor or Cuban played by a Cuban. Make no mistake, that will seriously limit everyone’s ability to get employed -- except for the same two guys who always play the Mexican descent and Cuban characters. That’s job security and a big fat target on their backs. But...nice work if you can get it, I suppose.

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celticnoise · 4 years

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DAVIE HAY is unique in Celtic football history as a player, team boss, chief scout, assistant general manager and now an ambassador of the club.

Even the 72-year-old Hoops icon has never experienced the remarkable and unprecedented events unfolding in football at the moment due to the coronavirus pandemic.

However, Hay remembers the explosive nights in Europe that led to the club playing behind closed doors at what he termed “a freaky Celtic Park” in 1985 when Atletico Madrid were the visitors to a deserted ground.

CQN today presents an exclusive extract from Hay’s autobiography, ‘The Quiet Assassin’, co-authored by Alex Gordon, where the legend turns back the clock on some astonishing and unwelcome experiences.

WHAT is it about European competition that can transform apparently normal, sane individuals into a bunch of lying, cheating cretins? I will never in my life be able to recover from the recollection of the outrageous antics of Vienna Rapid when they played at Parkhead in the second leg of our European Cup-Winners’ Cup second round tie back on October 24 1984.

Who could forget that night? The warning signs were flashing in the first game in Vienna two weeks beforehand. They had a particularly vicious midfielder called Reinhard Kienast and he was doing his best to get sent off with his wild lunges. Frank McGarvey and Alan McInally took a couple of dull ones, but the referee, a Bulgarian named Yordan Zhezkov, didn’t want to know. McGarvey, in fact, went off injured after another reckless lunge from Kienast.

Shortly after the restart they went ahead, but Brian McClair equalised. Then they got another before their most famous player, Hans Krankl, completed the scoring three minutes from time. In between those goals, McInally was ordered off for a challenge that was nowhere near any of the continual assaults perpetrated by the Viennese throughout the game. Would they resort to these underhand tactics in front of a packed house in Glasgow? It got even worse.

PARADISE DESERTED…Celtic players go through the pre-match routine at an empty Celtic Park against Atletico Madrid in 1985.

We were 2-0 up by the interval with goals from McClair and Murdo MacLeod and were coasting. Krankl was never far from the Swedish match official, Kjell Johansson, during most of the game, moaning about this, that and the next thing. He did not enhance his reputation as a world-class striker in the eyes of anyone who witnessed this primadonna performance. We got a third goal when their keeper fumbled a shot from McGarvey and Tommy Burns slid in to toe-poke the ball over the line.

The shotstopper rolled around in ‘agony’ while his team-mates went through their routine of having a go at the ref. The goal was perfectly good and, of course, it stood. At last justice caught of up with Kienast when he was spotted punching Tommy on the back of the head and off he went. Not before time.

It was real powderkeg stuff now and the mood of the Austrians didn’t get better when we were awarded a penalty-kick after poor Tommy was booted by their keeper. Vienna Rapid’s version of the Elephant Walk, led by Krankl, descended once more on the beleagured official. They surrounded him and pleaded with him to consult his linesman.

Johansson, probably fed up with the constant bickering from their players, booked Krankl before agreeing to go over to the touchline beside the old Jungle, the area that housed the more boisterous among the Celtic support. There was the usual pushing, shoving and jostling and, in the midst of all this, one of their players, a substitute called Rudi Weinhofer, suddenly collapsed to the ground holding his head.

He lay prone on the turf for almost ten minutes. He was holding his head and eventually he came off, swathed in bandages, claiming to have been struck by a bottle. It was all nonsense, of course. The game restarted with the penalty-kick being given and Peter Grant smashed it past the post! Television pictures later showed that Weinhofer hadn’t been hit by a bottle or anything else for that matter. It was all a phoney act in an effort to get the game abandoned.

At one stage it looked as though Krankl was going to lead his players off the pitch which would have brought automatic expulsion by UEFA from the competition. He thought better of it and played on. Unfortunately, someone in the crowd had thrown a bottle, but it was at least 20 yards away from Weinhofer or any other Austrian player. UEFA’s official observer was a West German named Dr Hubert Claessen and he said in his report that he had seen a bottle come on to the pitch, but it had not hit any of the Vienna Rapid players.

ECHOES OF THE PAST…Tommy Burns swings in a left-wing cross against the Spanish opponents – with an ironic advertising hoarding in the background.

I didn’t believe for a second that would be the end of the matter. I was proved right. Celtic were fined £4,000 and the Austrians £5,000. Kienast was suspended for four games and their vociferous coach, Otto Baric, was banned from the touchline for three matches. Vienna Rapid immediately appealed, changing their story to say that Weinhofer had been struck by a coin and not a bottle. By the way, the Austrian was examined by an ambulanceman in Glasgow and, needless to say, there were no signs of a cut.

The committee that sat on the appeal didn’t check any television evidence for reasons known only to themselves. They doubled Vienna Rapid’s fine, but, in a remarkable u-turn that suspended belief, they ordered a replay which had to be 100 kilometres away from Celtic Park. How they reached such a diabolical decision is anyone’s guess. Rapid were delighted, as you might expect. They had been fined a total of £10,000 and they would receive half the gate receipts when the match took place at Manchester United’s Old Trafford. They would actually be ‘punished’ by making a profit.

We were angry at being ordered to play that third game. We had won fair and square only to have it binned because some moron threw a missile on to the pitch. I was interviewed on TV later that night and I tried to play down the entire situation. I said, ‘That might turn out to be the most expensive half-bottle of vodka in history.’

I didn’t realise how apt those words would turn out to be. We made our way to Manchester on December 12 and I think we had 40,000 fans inside the ground long before the kick-off. The mood was grim. The supporters, like everyone at the club, were convinced they had been robbed. I was angry, too, for we had played very well against Vienna Rapid, almost as good as the 5-0 romp against Sporting Lisbon the previous year. We never did get the praise we deserved for overturning the Austrians.

The Celtic party stayed at a hotel at Haydock near the racecourse as we didn’t want to get caught up with the emotions of our huge following in Manchester city centre. Old Trafford was heaving with seething Celtic fans by the time the kick-off arrived . There was a lot of venom and poison about. It was an extremely tense occasion, a highly-charged evening, to say the least. We were not fated to book our place in the quarter-final that season.

We came out the traps at a fair old toot and we were so unlucky when Roy Aitken struck the post in the seventeenth minute. We had been attacking en masse and they hit us with a classic sucker-punch. They raced straight upfield with my team disorganised and their centre-forward, Peter Pacult, swept an effort wide of Pat Bonner.

We were now 4-1 down on aggregate and we would have to claim three goals to push the game into extra-time. We tried. Oh, how, we tried, but it wasn’t to be. It ended 1-0 for them and cheats had been allowed to prosper. There were another couple of incidents as two fans wearing Celtic colours got on the pitch and one of them got involved in a tangle with their goalkeeper. The other had a go at their goalscorer Pacult as he overdid the celebrations at the final whistle.

GOAL IN A GHOST TOWN…Roy Aitken scores Celtic’s consolation with no-one around to cheer.

The police lifted them both and I knew we would be in line for some more punitive action from Europe’s governing body. The offenders were both from England, but they had turned up to support us. We had no jurisdiction over them, but once more we were in the firing line. We travelled home in silence and I bought the first edition of the Daily Record. The back page headline screamed, ‘NO JUSTICE!’. That just about summed up the entire sad episode.

UEFA acted once again to put the boot into us. We were ordered to play our home European Cup-Winners’ Cup first round tie in 1985 against Atletico Madrid behind closed doors. We got an excellent 1-1 draw in Madrid with Mo Johnston scoring with a typical header, but the second game on October 2 was simply surreal. As you might have gathered by now, I believe Celtic Park is built for big European occasions. An empty Celtic Park is fairly freakish.

We also had to kick off in the afternoon and it all had the element of a training session kickabout. Officials of both clubs and UEFA, journalists, stewards, ambulancemen and some ballboys – with our own Derek Whyte among them! – were the only people allowed in the ground at the kick-off. It was an impossible task to lift the spirits of the players in such eerie surroundings.

It was a bit different from the last time Atletico Madrid were in town in 1974! We just couldn’t adapt to an empty Celtic Park. Whoever said silence is golden, certainly got that wrong! We could not galvanise ourselves and it was bizarre to hear the players talking to each other.

The Spaniards relished the thought of not having to face our marvellous and eardrum-rattling support and they reacted in such a manner. Murdo MacLeod hit their bar and they ran up the park to open the scoring. You’ll have to take my word for it!

They scored a second before Roy Aitken pulled one back, but Europe was a dead end for another year.

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lifedefused · 6 years

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New Post has been published on Life Defused

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Week 1 on the Camino

Day 1: So today started out at 7am. At least the walking. I started by myself but quickly had someone on my heels. He stayed there till I sat to switch shoes. A German guy who asked if everything was ok. I started out in hiking shoes today and about 1 hour in, realized I needed to switch to runners. I skipped breakfast where I was staying because it was bread and jam. My attempt to be “healthy”. So I stopped at the first store and grabbed and apple, cheese, and corn-nuts. The last two items I never did eat. Yet. As I came out of the store, another pilgrim was approaching but I stopped to wash my apple and fill my water bottle. He stopped to have a chat and we ended up walking for miles and miles together. I learned about Ian. A guy in his 60’s (this is important later) who was from Scotland but lived in New Zealand for 26 years. His wife was a professor so we had a bit to chat about. A lot actually. We talked and the time went by so fast. Ian almost missed the signs a few times but luckily he had me to correct him. First clue. Anyway, we got to a village called Valcarlos which could have been a stopping point almost half way but it was only 10 and we felt so good. We didn’t even stop for a drink. Wrong choice. Ian didn’t bring water and I had my bottle so I shared with him over the next few miles. We chatted and everything was great. Till the 4.8km left mark. It started to get muddy and I was in my runners. Ian decided my caution of slipping was too slow for his taste. Which honestly I couldn’t blame him. So he went on ahead. Yes, I got left in the dust by someone twice my age. He was killing it. I decided to switch back into my hiking shoes but with no where to sit, I plopped myself on a cold wet stone. It was plenty of snow and mud at this point and I feared my runners just weren’t good for the job. I passed through the mud. Quickly to learn that was the easy part. All while thinking how crazy the amount of mud there was and how my shoes were so heavy. Little niave to what was ahead. When the sign said 4.8km I was expecting just over 1 hour and I would be to my resting spot by noon. Perfect for lunch. Boy was I wrong. Snow is the culprit. As I climbed, the deeper the snow got. At some points as high as my knees. I made pace with a Korean family where they would pass me and me them but eventually they would leave me behind. My lower back was on fire. Surely it was the 2lbs extra I decided to pack last minute. Not to mention I was walking through ankle high snow and eventually I couldn’t walk 25 yards. I ended up being passed 2 more times. At one point 3 American ladies hollered at me from the road asking if I wanted to join them. My stubbornness prevented me from doing the better thing. I kept going through the snow and slowed to a snail’s pace. I was born to do the Camino though. Never can I take the high road. My feet soaked and pissed at myself I thought about what if I just sit in the snow? Would someone walk past and help carry my bag? At this point it was no longer a walk but a march, lifting my knees high trying to step where previous pilgrims had gone. I eventually made it to a point that turned left to stay on the route or right to go to the road. So in all of this what did I learn? Stubbornness took me left. Again!!! I got 100 yards and realized I would soon be hip deep in snow. So I turned back around and took the road the last 15 minutes to the town where I would be staying. First stop, a beer. Before finding my final rest place I needed calories and water. Beer was perfect. Once here the lady tried to overcharge me by 2 euro for dinner but got that worked out. The place is nice and my bunk-mate is American. You don’t get to pick your bed, it is all how your arrive. I thought for sure I was near the back of the pack but more like the middle. I did my chores which is shower and hand washing my clothes. I then decided to go for wine and invited my new friend Ian and 2 other guys he was chatting with. We went for a bottle and dinner. I lasted through the meal but left abruptly because all I really wanted after wine and food was a bed. It was a day that I am not sure how I did it. Also not sure why because today was insane. However the hard part they say is over. Yet today was great weather and tomorrow the prediction is rain. I don’t have blisters. I swore I would because my feet got so wet. I climbed a mountain today!!! So all is good with a good night rest, I hope. Walked- 17.7 miles (over the mountain) Total time walking: 8 hours Spent- 28.50euro

Day 2: Woke up at 3am but around 4 I fell back asleep. My sleeping is horrible. I left at 7am again today. With a blister unfortunately. I was quick to judge last night because I woke up with a blister this morning. A beautiful sunrise as you will see in the photos. I walked and walked with no breakfast. I did watch a lady fall on the ice behind me as I changed shoes. The first 3 miles was so much snow and ice. Another morning of marching, if you can call it that. If you have ever walked in sand, this is that times 1000x. So much ice too. So the first bit was no fun. Ian went for breakfast and caught up to me. At his pace we caught up to another group. That was of course after watching a fox in the snow. I ended up at the back of the group with a Brazilian. Ramon (pronounced with an H not R) is his name and he is an environmental engineer. Our group walked together to the “midway” point. I say that because we ended up having to walk our happy asses onward later. When we got to our stopping point for the day, we found the alburgue (pilgrim hostel) was closed. Fortunately my little Camino family, because that is what we are to this point and have gathered for dinner each night, also decided to move forward. It was Ramon and I and he was so patient. I ended up with a crazy blister so I limped. Changing shoes from my runners to my hikers. Always at the wrong point. After we got to what we thought would be our stopping, we walked on another 4 miles almost. It was so worth it. We met the most amazing shop owner. The kind of place you get a cup of wine as soon as you enter. Then food after being there for 2 minutes. You can see the festive moments in the pics. So we celebrated in good fashion. After returning to where we would stay for the night, I somehow talked the guys into stretching. They were good sports. Out of the 14 people staying here I am 1 of 2 girls. The pilgrim meal was good. First time for vegetables in a minestrone soup. I am not eating bread or pasta nor sweets. Beer and wine are the bad things I am not giving up. We get wine with all of our meals so a plus for sure. One of the guys played music and sang after dinner. Minus the brutal morning and the blister, today was great. Off to Pamplona tomorrow…. Probably taking a rest day the following day. Not sure how I can walk tomorrow. Total distance: 21.4 miles Total spent: 33:50 euro Time walking: 7 hours Gentle reminder: Fight all the hatred in the world with love.

Day 3: Today I didn’t wake up till close to 7. Ramon and I agreed to walk at 7:30. Perfect. I don’t have an alarm and as pilgrims we know if we don’t make it, that is ok. But made it. Today Ramon and I got joined by Martin (Austrian) and Eric (Netherlands). It was an easy walk. On a scale, day 1 is 5 of 5, day 2 is 3 of 5 and today was 1 of 5. However, I ended up with my second blister. Martin and Eric were on mission for breakfast and coffee. Eventually they gave in and ate what I had bought the previous day. Banana, raisins, yogurt, cornnuts (from day 1), and cheese (also day 1). Eventually we did find coffee but it was sclose to 11. It was a short and easy day but the blisters are a real thing. A force I struggle with. See, out here you walk with people for so many hours, you form a bond. They call it the Camino family. I am scared that tomorrow I can not walk because of my feet but my family goes on… So, I have a choice to make in the AM. We will save that for tomorrow. Tonight we are staying in a German albergue. Upon arrival I learned that there is an American here who is hurt. I guess the snow put some people down. An Italian guy also arrived and is hurt. They have tendonitis which thankfully I am not dealing with. Yet. So of course I ended up at dinner with a Texan, Italian, 2 Germans and me. I again have only seen 1 other girl staying here. One interesting observation I have made is 90% of the people walking, have significant others. Some with children back home. Today was my first time seeing a couple team which is the only female I have seen here today. The injuries are setting back some people for days. Makes me sad to think the people I have shared dinner or time with, no matter how brief, might be gone tomorrow if I stay behind. As you will see in the pics, we help each other. The German (Dominic) offered to walk with me and carry me if needed because he is well…”German” and he said that is what Germans do. They get the job done. Pretty sure he is my favorite German to this point. He speaks very little English but he always listens and I think he knows more than he leads on. Plus he said f@&k Germany after 2 glasses of wine and not because I was complaining about them (which I have been know to do). I equate them to east coast, cold and rude at times. Not always but most of the time. Give them alcohol and they party. They are the best at that! Anyway, I am broken now due to good sized blisters one on each foot. The weather is in my favor as I walked through little rain today. The people are the best. My kind of people. I belong here. I have told my story a few times in hopes to inspire and people have so many questions. Some hard to answer. Today Martin asked about siblings and how many I have and if I am close to them. That broke out my background and it the first time I had someone try to dig deep. We also learned over lunch he is a type A. So tomorrow I want to keep walking but for now I sleep. Tonight we got in trouble thanks to the time changing because there is a 10pm curfew. The time shouldn’t change technically change till midnight but I am at a German albergue and we know how Germans are… hehe…. Go KSU!!!! Total distance: 14.5 Money spent: 22 euro Time walking: 5 hours or so…

Day 4: Good News… I walked today. Last night my fear was I would not be able to move forward today. However, when I woke up I felt good enough so I left Pamplona. Today we set off about 7:30am. Yesterday there was 4 of us but we grew by 1 as one of the Germans decided to join us Philip. Plip was the German that asked me on day one if I was ok while I changed my shoes. Today was a big climb and going down was tough on my blisters. Great weather though! Little rain and just some mud so we are out of the snow. As you will see from my coffee shop picture on breaks, we tend to our feet. It is normal here and even had to help Martin (Austrian) to put on his blister cover. If you hate feet, this is not the place for you. People flash them everywhere and obsessively talk about them. They are the key to survival. I have no more blisters today. Thankfully!! The nice thing about the group is the rotation. You will walk with 1 person for a bit, then someone else, then maybe alone, then a group. It was constantly changing and makes for interesting conversation and the time goes by quick. Today while I walked alone I listened to the book “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a f#&k”. I highly recommend it and I am only 4 chapters in. We reached a famous spot today that shows the pilgrims walking. If you have ever seen the movie “The Way” you will know the spot. If not, check the pics I will post. The views from the top were worth the climb. It feels nice to have a tribe where we look after each other. Share stories, share Band-Aids, muscle cream, water, food, and the sorts. When we got to the place we are staying, then 5 of us take up a room of 8 people. The other 3 are individuals and 2 are girls! Finally more girls. My guys are pretty cool. We started together and ended the day together. Although my body hates me, my heart is full. My stomach, not so much. We went to restaurant and was served frozen meals. We watched the lady carry the food frozen and watched her pop it into the oven/microwave. Such a disappointment but now a running joke between us. To top it off, a friend back in Italy sent me pics of Bansko playing with her dogs. First update we have had on him in 6+ months. So glad to see the pup we rescued happy and that we have good friends to share the update with us of tons of pics. Total time: 8 hours Total distance: 17 miles Money spent: $30

Day 5: We got up pretty late today and didn’t hit the road till around 8am. Man down!!! We had to leave Martin behind. Due to injury of blisters and knee hurting, he opted for a rest day. We started out walking in some rain but the weather got better as we went on. It is now the 4 of us, Ramon (Brazilian), Eric (Netherlands), Philip (German) and Me. Funny thing, Philip is the first guy I met on the first day that asked me if I was ok while changing my shoes. At the time, I didn’t know how to respond or what so I didn’t even try to talk to him. We walked through what I would call rolling hills, not really mountains like day 1. My blisters are ok but my feet feel like they are on fire at times, at least on the ball where the blister is located) I had to stop at the pharmacy and get some supplies. My objective is to try to walk normal so that I don’t hurt myself more. So I take plenty of ibuprofen. Every day I have been playing the 500 mile song. It has become a tradition and even got the guys singing along. I ran into the American girl I had met on night 1 with like 10 blisters. She was still making it along. For lunch we stopped and had some soup and met a girl from Sweden who recommended a alburgue that offered yoga and massages. The guys were sold! I was sold too because it was closer and my blisters are killer. However, day by day they are getting better and better. When I first start walking I want to scream so loud! The whole stop go thing isn’t so great for my feet. I keep truckin’ though and having a great time. We met an Australian family (mom, dad, daughter) and told them about the alburgue. They showed up at the place where we are staying also. I had to get some work done so I hid away in the room for the afternoon. Philip shared with us an amazing story about why he was doing the trip. His best friend passed away 10 years ago and his friend really wanted to walk the Camino, so he is doing this in memory of him. Such a special story. The dinner was amazing. Paella and chorizo was so amazing. Best meal we have had to this point.

Total time: 6 1/2 hours Total distance: 12 miles Money spent: 54 euro (pharmacy supplies were 25)

Day 6: We hit the road at 7:30am. Again it was the four of us. Ramon calls us the wolf pack. A few miles in, we stopped at a store and grabbed stuff for a picnic. We knew that today was the day of the wine fountain so we wanted to come prepared. Yes, you read that right. A wine fountain and the best part?! It was free. To be honest though, it wasn’t that great. However, we had our picnic with a bottle of wine that we brought from the night before that we didn’t finish. So we made a small breakfast spread of wine, cheese, and chorizo. Nothing like getting a party started at 10am. Today I put in my earbuds and was set to just walk alone. That I did. One of the parts of the Camino is a reflection. I listened to my book and some music. However, I spent my day walking in reflection. The rest of the group seemed to do the same. Philip walked ahead most of the day and then we would find him waiting for us. On our stops we would interact but the walking part was done mostly alone today. Matty received some information from his job pressuring him to sign a new contract so I could tell he was struggling. So during one of our breaks, I called him to encourage him. Shortly after, I received news that our apartment would no longer be available past our May contract. So we will be moving apartments again soon. We stopped at a bar food truck area made for pilgrims and had the best orange juice of my life! Upon arrival to the place we are staying, I took off my compeed from my blisters. It was the first time I have uncovered them since getting them. The guys were blown away that I walked. You will see in the pics of why. Philip said that they aren’t even blisters, they deserve a category of their own. Ramon said anytime something happens, like losing a finger, he will remember me and carry on and that I impress him more and more every day. Eric called me iron woman and they all agreed to carry my bag tomorrow. Of course my stubbornness won’t let that happen. They are clean and no infection so that is a huge plus. Every day we meet people who can’t carry on or they are recovering so they can, so I am so thankful.

Total time: 7 hours Total distance: 16 miles Money spent: 39 euro

Day 7: We reached the one week mark today! Left at 7:30 with beautiful weather and a great forecast. Today we were much more interactive. Met up with the Australians multiple times who have earned the name boomerang for the reason you can imagine. Claire (daughter) ended up having to take a bus forward. We walked far today. The road felt like it keep going forever. My bag felt like someone was pushing down on it once we got closer to the end. We have the same distance tomorrow. In fact, I was so into the process today, I didn’t take but 1 picture before getting to the city. I can finally walk without feeling so much physical pain that it is all I can focus on. So today I enjoyed the walk. I walked with Philip mostly today and we had wonderful conversations about life. Everyone is here on the Camino for their reasons and sometimes it is nice to just have a real conversation about it all. Eric is full of great advice too. He overheard some and put in his bits of wisdom. To put a cherry on top of our day, it was amazing food. Matty asked the other day why I don’t talk about food. I haven’t had much of a reason till now. As you will see from the photos, we are all considering skipping the rest and staying here to get fat. I only kid. Somewhat… It was a great day for food and friends. And some walking. Only for the distance I am not look forward to tomorrow.

Time walking: 8 1/2 hours Total distance: 19.23 Total spent: 48 euro (but I owe 10 more to the group)

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La Times: Jack Nicholson as ‘Toni Erdmann’: When right-minded ideas come out wrong

Maybe it was just coincidence that I was sitting in intermission of Glenn Close‘s revived “Sunset Boulevard” when this news of the Jack Nicholson “Toni Erdmann” remake came through. It sure felt like fate though.

There I was Tuesday night, watching Close as Norma Desmond. There are good reasons to stage theater revivals and bad reasons to stage theater revivals (and, these days on Broadway, really bad, cynical, money-grubbing reasons to stage theater revivals). I won’t offer a thought on what animates the new Andrew Lloyd Webber production; you could make various cases. But Close — who also played the part in the earlier Broadway production — is indisputably a good reason to see it.

Of course, the actress didn’t have the original role: Patti LuPone did. LuPone was the one ready for her close-up when the show opened in London in 1993. And she was set to reprise the part on Broadway — so set that when she didn’t get it, she successfully sued Lloyd Webber. None of that mattered to audiences who saw Close tackle the part on Broadway. Nor will it matter to those seeing it now. This is Glenn Close’s role. Whatever LuPone did on the West End, Close does it just as well; in fact, she does it better. You can’t imagine anyone else doing Desmond. Nor, with apologies to Broadway’s original Eva Peron, should you.

Which brings me to Nicholson. It is great — unquestionably beautiful and great — that Nicholson is returning to the screen. He hasn’t been there in seven years (James L. Brooks’ “How Do You Know?”) and, if we’re being honest, really hasn’t been there in a decade (Rob Reiner’s “The Bucket List”). At 79, he’s been in a kind of unofficial state of retirement.

But is it great he’s doing it this way?

“Toni Erdmann,” in case you’re not down with the foreign scene, is the German-language, largely Romania-shot movie that tackles big issues like globalism and feminism in the context of one of the most complex, human and funny parent-offspring relationships in recent film memory. Nominated for the foreign-language Oscar (and in theaters currently), it explores the dynamic of a goofy-but-vulnerable older dad, Winfried, who adopts the titular alter ego as a way of connecting with his progeny, his uptight and barely indulgent corporate daughter, Ines. The movie manages to make these people come alive — it manages to make our own relationships come alive, if that doesn’t sound too hyperbolic.

A great sophomore director, Maren Ade, made it, and she assembled both a terrific cast of people with great theater backgrounds — the Austrian stage great Peter Simonischek plays Winfried and East German-born star Sandra Hüller is Ines. (Here’s more on what’s in “Toni Erdmann,” and the incredibly handmade process that went into creating it.) I think it’s the best movie of the year. I’m far from alone.

Nicholson apparently loved the movie too. Per the Variety story that broke the news, he adored it — so much so that he persuaded Paramount to buy the English-language remake rights as a starring vehicle for him, with the project attracting Adam McKay to produce and Kristen Wiig to star as the Ines character.

The idea of liking “Toni Erdmann” is good. The idea of more people becoming familiar with “Toni Erdmann” is good. But this remake is a bad idea‎.

It’s not that remakes of foreign-language film can’t work, though I can’t think of many recent ones that did. (Scorsese’s “The Departed” is one of the few that comes to mind.) It’s that this particular foreign-language remake can’t work.

Right off the bat, the setting is a problem. The sub-surface tension of “Toni” concerns Western Europeans working in Eastern Europe (Ines is involved a Romanian deal for her multinational); it’s a plot line that illuminates so much about modern European capitalism; when Ines comments on a giant mall built for no one, it hits home with anyone who’s ever witnessed the false promise of globalism across the Continent. Sure, you can imagine Nicholson’s version as some American bigwig in a hardscrabble foreign place too. But it loses that specificity.

The tone is a bigger problem. There’s a kind of absurdist, at times even gleefully nihilist, spirit to “Toni Erdmann.” And it’s not just Winfried — Ines at one point throws a “naked party,” and at another sings karaoke Whitney Houston, in two of the wildest scenes you’ll see on screen this year. And let’s face it: Absurdism and gleeful nihilism are modes that Americans just don’t do particularly well. (We do a lot of modes well. Those just aren’t among them.)

Maybe the biggest problem, though, is the people making this movie. Which director can ably take on such a mix of tones; who can find slapstick comedy and poignant humanism in the same film, sometimes even in the same scene? Jim Brooks in his heyday, maybe. Lawrence Kasdan, possibly. But who actively working today? David O. Russell is the closest name I can come up with. And I’m not even sure about him. (Another remote possibility, someone with an outside shot of pulling it off, is McKay himself. Perhaps knowing the foolishness of the errand, he’s keeping a producerial arm’s length, at least for the moment.)

And then you get to Nicholson. Part of the joy of the “Toni” character is that even though he’s a fundamentally silly figure, he’s also at heart a rather sad one. This is a man who puts on false teeth and pretends to be a life coach while simultaneously mourning the loss of his dog. Ade called what Simonischek was doing as Toni was “making it so that you can see past the jokes into his soul.” And I’m just not convinced you get that with Nicholson. I think what you’d get if you looked past the jokes with Nicholson was more Nicholson. (And yep, that takes into account “About Schmidt,” maybe the closest thing to this role he’s done.)

It would be unfair to beat up on the resident of ol’ Bad Boy Drive though. It’s not his fault. We just don’t have actors who can do that antic-but-heartfelt thing. Run down mentally the American actors of that generation who might fit the bill. Steve Martin? Too glib. Bill Murray? Too dark. John Malkovich? Too emotionally inaccessible. Some British actors come to mind — particularly those with Monty Python-esque backgrounds. Even they seem like stretches. The American actor who actually most comes to mind is sadly someone no longer around: Robin Williams.

The truth is “Toni Erdmann” shouldn’t be remade not because it’s too sacred, or because remakes are inherently bad, or because any of a dozen cliches you read in curmudgeonly posts when these things like this are announced. It’s because to do it as an American “Toni Erdmann” is to erode much of what made the movie so special in the first place.

Basically, this isn’t a Glenn Close situation. In fact, it’s the opposite of a Glenn Close situation. You can’t imagine someone else taking on the part and running with it because you can’t see a single flaw in the original performance, and you can’t see a single conceivable improvement made by someone else.

But there is good news. The announcement of the “Toni Erdmann” remake comes at a propitious time. Final Oscar voting begins Monday. And “Erdmann” — which was criminally shut out of a prize at Cannes, not to mention Ade ignored entirely for best director — could use a boost. Voters, many of whom no doubt haven’t seen the film, will be sitting down to fill out their ballots. They may not know Toni Erdmann from Tony Dorsett. But they know Nicholson liked it. And that may be enough to get them to vote for it and spur it to Oscar victory. Sometimes it can be good to be ready for your close-up.

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The long, strange odyssey of bringing Oscar fave ‘Toni Erdmann’ to the screen

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‘Toni Erdmann’ is in a sense autobiographical, except for that naked party

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