This is a quote from screenwriter Dorothee Schön (-> official website in German), who wrote an internal letter in April to the—male—members of the German Screenwriters’ Association (Deutscher Drehbuch Verband DDV). With her kind permission, I am publishing the letter today—thank you very much!
You’ll find it in the second part of this text. But first, a brief look back at the dire situation regarding the participation of female writers in German film and television.
Where are Male and Female Writers (not) Working?
Eleven years ago, I published an article titled It’s the Men that Write the Scripts, in which I highlighted the strikingly male-dominated distribution of authorship in German film and television, using selected statistics and film categories. I usually focus on the percentage of women, but this time I chose to display the percentage of men—which was quite overwhelming:
One would think—or hope—that figures providing irrefutable evidence of problems would trigger reactions within the industry and help bring about change; but no, that doesn’t seem to be the case, and even when it does, it happens at a snail’s pace.
The translation of this text is still in process and the rest will be published as soon as possibly possible. Sorry about that.
I began this piece today with a reference to Dorothee Schön’s internal open letter, and I’m very pleased to be able to publish it—even if “pleased” might not be the right word.
Dorothee Schön Writes to her Colleagues in the Guild
Dear Male Colleagues,
No, you didn’t misread that. I’m not using gender-neutral language here, because, for once, this letter is addressed only to the men. The women, after all, know what I’m about to discuss from their own experience. What’s this about? The DDV (German Writers’ Guild)’s current fee survey shows a veritable gender pay gap of 15% in my field—90-minute TV programs—which is greater than the gap in the automotive or construction industries.
I’m going to go into a bit more detail. I hope you’ll bear with me, but it’s necessary to make my point.
When I started writing screenplays as an HFF student in the 1980s, it was the heyday of auteur cinema. And anyone who didn’t want to direct their own films was considered an outsider. Back then, there wasn’t a single course at the HFF that dealt with film screenwriting. There were no screenwriting programs or screenwriting workshops anywhere. You had to figure it out on your own.
As a young woman, that was doubly difficult. When, at age 24, I applied for Bavarian film funding for my first feature film screenplay, *Blauäugig* (= Blue-Eyed = naive), a committee member told me to my face: “You, a woman, are not going to write a screenplay about the military dictatorship in Argentina—not with those delicate little hands.” I did it anyway; it was directed by Reinhard Hauff, starring Götz George, and was Germany’s entry for the Venice Film Festival competition.
My second script, *Bumerang, Bumerang*, about the anti-nuclear protests in Wackersdorf (North Germany), was adapted into a film by Hans Geissendörfer, starring Jürgen Vogel in his first role. The TAZ published a review at the time that I only recently came across again:
“…The political action superimposed on teenage romance is pure fabrication. Or is ‘Boomerang, Boomerang’ supposed to be a fairy tale? At any rate, this is how little Erna imagines a hostage situation. But her name isn’t Erna—it’s Dorothee Schön—and she co-wrote the screenplay with Irene Fischer. Dorothee Schön has been known, at the very least, since the no less unsuccessful Reinhard Hauff film *Blauäugig*—she wrote the screenplay for that one, too. Apparently, she’s unwittingly making a name for herself as an expert on plots she knows only from hearsay. At the same time, she’s emphasizing her own personal connection to the subject: as the mother of a young child, she was particularly affected by Chernobyl, as was her co-writer. Perhaps it doesn’t take a major catastrophe to save German cinema, but simply enough young mothers who, on Schwabing’s playgrounds, channel their creative energy not into knitting onesies but into writing screenplays.”
I was 27 years old at the time. Back then, a review like that was tantamount to a public execution, since film criticism took place exclusively in print media. Still, looking back, I consider myself lucky that so-called social media—with its misogynistic shitstorms—didn’t exist back then. I would certainly have been an easy target. Shortly afterward, when I submitted a proposal to Bayerischer Rundfunk / Bavarian Public Broadcasters, for some new “Tatort” coppers, I at least made it to the office of the then-head of television drama, who told me that while he liked my work, he unfortunately had to reject it because I’d conceived of an investigative duo consisting of a man and a woman. A female detective, he said, was simply not something the audience could accept. BR then opted for Batic and Leitmayr (two men)…
And so it went on. As my career progressed, the reservations about me were directed less at me as a person—after all, I had by then proven that I could write—and more at the topics I chose. “Frau Böhm Says No,” the story of an older female accountant during the Mannesmann takeover, was rejected: A woman over 50? No love interest? No happy ending? And something political on top of that?—No, thanks! Without actress Senta Berger’s commitment—based solely on the treatment (!)—the film, which later won a Grimme Prize, would never have been made.
Despite all those frustrating experiences, I never felt that I was at a disadvantage simply because I was a woman, since I had stoically and successfully fought my way to where I was. It wasn’t until Pro Quote collected data in 2014 on the state of contract awards and fees for women at broadcasters and funding committees that I woke up to the reality. In response to the Malisa Foundation’s figures on women’s representation in the media, Bettina Reiz, head of television drama at BR, simply remarked during a panel discussion at the time that she would gladly hire more female writers, but unfortunately they weren’t interested in crime dramas—the genre preferred by German audiences. I, who by then had already written several episodes of *Tatort*, was sitting in the audience, gasping for breath.
(translation to be continued)