The Weimar Republic (1918-1933) is marked by a
change in the image of womanhood. During WWI, women had gained some economic independence (due to the
absence of men, and them having to inhabit male social roles) and in then gained the right to vote in November 1918.
In this general context, the work of some important female cabaret artists is important and their works' political edge becomes salient. Claire Waldoff was a central figure in the Berlin cabaret scene, a famous singer and openly lesbian. Thinking about the political context of women's liberation post WWI in Germany, makes her song "Raus mit den Männern aus dem Reichstag" ("Chuck out the Men" written by Friedrich Holländer) even more powerful. For me this song continues to be politically relevant (if one changes a few words/terminologies) -- a song with a feminist drive I miss to this day.
Lyrics:
The battle for emancipation's been raging since history began
Yes, feminists of every nation want to chuck off the chains made by man
Hula girls and housemaids and wives in Maribou
hear all our voices thunder in protest
Anything that men do women can do too
and more that that we women do it best
CHORUS: Chuck all the men out of the Reichstag
and chuck all the men out of the courthouse
Men are the problem with humanity
they're blinded by their vanity
Women have passively embraced them
when we could have easily outpaced them
Yes we should have long ago replaced them
or better yet erased them
If we haven't made our feelings clear
we women have had it up to here
As babies men all howl and bluster they cry through the night and the day
perfecting the techniques they'll muster for the times when they don't get their way
Nursie holds the monster and feeds him from her breast
and baby is contented for a bit
But when he sees his nurse is trying to get some rest
the little man decides to have a fit
CHORUS
The men get their pick of professions they're policemen or scholars or clerks
They get rich and acquire possessions like we wives who keep house for these jerks
They're ruining the country while we mop up the floor
They're flushing this whole nation down the drain
Sisters stand together, let's show these men the door
before they drive us totally insane
CHORUS
After WWI, during Weimar Republic, with the removal of
censorship laws, Berlin emerged into a center for sexual liberation and
experimentation, where over time, an “anything goes” approach to sexuality and
also the performance of a variety of gendered identities developed.
Berlin attracted tourists as well as artists and thinkers
because of its liberalism and – shall we say- hedonism?
Berlin also emerged – according to the documentary film—Weimar Berlin: Metropolis of Vices (see link below)– as the most gay friendly/openly
gay city of the world in that time, which significantly also had a large
lesbian subculture and sported around 160 (!!!!!) gay/lesbian clubs/bars
catering to all sorts of tastes, social classes and other interests.
Weimar Berlin: Metropolis of Vice
This atmosphere of sexual openness and liberation was the
space in which research on sexuality began to take place (
Magnus Hirschfeld) and the first feature film sympathetically and at length portraying
homosexuality was created.
Anders als die Andern
This is also in the environment in which political cabaret flourished in Berlin. Anita Berber, Valeska Gert, Claire Waldoff, Marlene Dietrich all were protagonists of the politically resistive and sexually liberated artistic subculture in Berlin. The film “Different from the Others” is particularly interesting, because these streams come together here: Cabaret dancer/actress Anita Berber and sexual scientist Magnus Hirschfeld both appear in the film-
What fascinates me most about the work during that time is
the way in which affirmation and expansion of desire and pleasure intersect
with articulating critical, resistive, and even anarchic political stances.
Sexuality/and playing with gendered identities are here central to an
articulation of politics, not merely inferred, and certainly or indirectly
addressed, while simultaneously played down. It is certainly quite opposite to
how we think of cabaret today, particularly when we think of female dancers in
a cabaret setting (the notion of political cabaret is there present in Germany,
but strangely divorced from the pleasure affirming sexual and erotic dimensions
of the 1920s and early 1930s).
Sexual liberation seems to have taken a back seat today,
maybe because one can too easily be swayed by the assumption that indeed
anything goes today (which of course is not true, but the illusion persists).
At the same time I wonder, what kind of content would offer the kind of urgency
and drive that sexuality, eroticism and anti-bourgeois political articulations had then, today. Where is the energy today? Where is the urgency? What do we feel
compelled to speak out about with that much force, fun and finesse?
It seems to me that this is where our project of finding
transnational and transcultural connections in the history of the cabaret can
provide invigorating insights and stimulations for our trajectory.
