{"id":12199,"date":"2021-03-21T15:56:32","date_gmt":"2021-03-21T15:56:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/schspin.stieve.com\/?p=12199"},"modified":"2021-03-22T14:37:38","modified_gmt":"2021-03-22T14:37:38","slug":"bekommen-die-tatorte-ein-quotenproblem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/schspin.stieve.com\/gb\/2021\/03\/21\/bekommen-die-tatorte-ein-quotenproblem\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Germany’s Top Cop Drama Getting into Trouble about Quotas?"},"content":{"rendered":"

TATORTs. TV Ratings. Quota for Women Off-Screen.<\/span><\/h1>\n

Today I am looking at the 36 new episodes of German Top Cop Drama TATORT in 2020, comparing the shares of men and women in the 6-departments-check (direction, screenplay, camera, sound, editing and music), and analyzing the development from 2011 to 20. In addition, I will check how these films fare under the “2 from 6” departments rule. Finally, I will discuss the TATORTs in respect to the TV ratings and a female quota, with a short detour to the demands set up by Pro Quote B\u00fchne (Pro Quota Stage).<\/span><\/p>\n

The 6-Departments-Check 2020 <\/span><\/h2>\n

It was already apparent during the summer break that 2020 was going to be a very good year for female TATORT directors, with a total of 16 of the 36 TATORTs coming in at 44.4 %<\/span><\/strong>. At the other end are the female sound recordists, or not, they were not engaged for TATORTs for the third year in a row. Whereby this is not quite true, the highest proportion of women is once again achieved in the average, this time with 77.3 %<\/span><\/strong> female editors. For comparison: Alumni 51<\/span><\/strong>:49<\/span>, Crew United database 35.5<\/span><\/strong> : 64.5<\/span>.
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\"6<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

What about the problem child scriptwriting<\/strong>? <\/span><\/p>\n

Has the\u00a0 women writers’ initiative <\/span>Tatort: Drehbuch<\/a> – which called for a 50 %<\/span><\/strong> quota of women writers by 2021 – brought about a turnaround, away from the stifling male bias? I’m afraid it hasn’t. In 2020, women make up 17%<\/span><\/strong> of the 36 TATORT scripts. This figure means that among all the authors of the 36 scripts, 17 %<\/span><\/strong> are women. (See also “Why aren’t you working with female scriptwriters?”<\/a>).<\/span><\/p>\n

Incidentally, the proportion of women screenwriters (17%<\/span><\/strong>) is at a similar level to that of women cinematographers in TATORTs (16.2%)<\/span><\/strong>, and this despite the fact that the proportion of women graduates in screenwriting (48%) is almost twice as high as that in cinematography (25%<\/span><\/strong>). Similarly, if the Crew United database is any measure, the proportion of women screenwriters working professionally (42.8%<\/span><\/strong>) is almost four times that of women cinematographers (11.2%<\/strong><\/span>) (as of 23.10.20, many thanks to Vincent Lutz). How much Female Gaze is possible when more than 80 %<\/span> of the scripts are written by men and more than 80 %<\/span> of the filminig is done by men?
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The next figure shows the gender composition of the authors in 2020:<\/span><\/p>\n


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There was only one<\/span> TATORT in 2020 that was not (co-)written by a man<\/strong>: the Black Forest crime scene REBLAND, directed by Nicole Armbruster<\/span><\/strong>. In addition, there were 7 TATORTs that were written by man-woman or woman-man teams. Consequently, of all the scripts in which a woman was involved, 12.5 %<\/span><\/strong> were written only by women (or in this case by a woman). The situation is different for men: 80 %<\/span> of the scripts with male participation were written by men only: 15<\/span> by one author, 1<\/span> by a duo: Z\u00dcRI BR\u00c4NNT, written by Lorenz Langenegger<\/span> and Stefan Brunner<\/span>. This TATORT is he first case of the new Zurich team with two female investigators, Isabelle Grandjean<\/span><\/strong> and Tessa Ott<\/span><\/strong>. It seems an opportunity missed when the characters and their entire environment were created without the involvement of a female writer, but that is a topic for another day.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Why are so many male-written crime stories still being filmed, why so few by female authors?<\/strong> Scriptwriter and co-signatory of the Tatort:Drehbuch Open Letter, Meike Hauck<\/strong> <\/span>tried to explain the behaviour of those responsible for this disparity with the term “risk aversion” (source DLF Kultur interview), who say it is partly due to quality – but perhaps it is also a question of secret female author aversion<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why are so many women allowed to edit TATORTs but not to write or film it? Are women better at editing, or are the wages significantly lower than for feature films – where the proportion of male editors is much higher – are there stricter guidelines, or what might be the reasons?<\/span><\/p>\n

Polizeiruf 110 (the other top cop drama on Sunday nights)<\/span><\/h3>\n

For the sake of completeness regarding the Sunday evening 8.15 p.m. slot, I would like to mention the POLIZEIRUF films. Six were broadcast in 2020, three from Magdeburg, two from Rostock and one from the German-Polish border area. One was directed<\/strong> by a woman, Brigitte Maria Bertele<\/span><\/strong>: DER VERURTEILTE, she worked with one (the only) female DoP<\/strong>, Jana L\u00e4mmerer<\/span><\/strong>. All six scripts<\/strong> were written by men – 4 times alone, once in pairs, once it were three. There were only male composers and sound mixers. Only in editing<\/strong> do we find a female majority, five women<\/span><\/strong> and one man<\/span> (Horst Reiter<\/span>, TOTES RENNEN) edited the six films.
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Development of Six TATORT Departments 2011 to 2020<\/span><\/h2>\n

Here are the 10 years figures\u00a0 for the six departments:
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\"Tatorts<\/a><\/p>\n

Since the 10-year overview is a bit crowded, I have shown the development of the six trades individually below. We see the increase in the proportion of female directors, presumably triggered by the targets (Degeto originally specified 20%<\/span><\/strong>, which has been achieved since 2018), the high proportion of female editors over the years and, well, the values for the other four department. Just as a reminder, the alumni female percentages: Women directors 44%<\/span><\/strong>, women scriptwriters 48%<\/span><\/strong>, women cinematographers 25%<\/span><\/strong>, women sound engineers 11%<\/span><\/strong>, women editors 51%<\/span><\/strong>, women composers n\/a.<\/span><\/p>\n