The Rise of the Nostalgic Spy Thriller: Globalizing the Neo-Cold War Narrative of Totalitarian State Socialism in the TV Series Deutschland (2015–2020)

IF 0.4 3区文学 0 LITERATURE COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES Pub Date : 2022-08-01 DOI:10.5325/complitstudies.59.3.0590

Claudia Sadowski-Smith

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引用次数: 1

Abstract

abstract:This article examines the portrayal of German Democratic Republic (GDR) socialism in the TV series Deutschland, the first foreign-language show to premiere on a U.S. network. Paving the way for the globalization of Germany's TV industry, the series exemplifies the rise of the nostalgic spy thriller. It employs the aesthetic and ideological codes of a genre rooted in the 1960s to evoke the time period and ideological certainties of the Cold War from a contemporary perspective. Deutschland focuses on the Stasi's division of counterintelligence to portray the GDR as a totalitarian regime, run by corrupt elites, which subjugated its population and supported terrorism and illegal arms trading. The series employs the conventions of "historical event TV" and re-created historical settings to claim veracity and authenticity for plotlines that invoke sensationalized coverage of Cold War conflicts and distorted allegations against the GDR. Deutschland dismisses GDR efforts to create and globalize an alternative system, based on principles of anti-imperialist solidarity with the global South, and caricatures postsocialist nostalgia as an elite sentiment for the re-creation of totalitarianism. The series contributes to neo-Cold War imageries that evoke a past of Western superiority over European state socialism, which has little to offer to a future post-neoliberal world.

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怀旧间谍惊悚片的崛起：电视剧《德意志》中极权主义国家社会主义的新冷战叙事全球化（2015-2020）

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COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES LITERATURE-

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期刊介绍： Comparative Literature Studies publishes comparative articles in literature and culture, critical theory, and cultural and literary relations within and beyond the Western tradition. It brings you the work of eminent critics, scholars, theorists, and literary historians, whose essays range across the rich traditions of Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. One of its regular issues every two years concerns East-West literary and cultural relations and is edited in conjunction with members of the College of International Relations at Nihon University. Each issue includes reviews of significant books by prominent comparatists.