On Media Literacy
I had a conversation with some friends recently. German friends, who like me went to German school, and like a lot of people in Germany had been made - by the curriculum - to read "The Reader". A book, that I assume, a lot of people outside of Germany will not be aware of, even though there technically was a Hollywood movie adaption of it in 2007. (Fun fact: the only reason I remember the year of the adaption is that I watched the opening number of the 2008 Oscars way too many times.)
For those who do not know the book: it is written from the perspective of a then adult man, who as a teenager met an older woman and started an affair with her. She would have sex with him, and he would read to her. Eventually he found out that during WW2 she had been an overseer at a concentration camp, and that for most of her life she had been hiding her illiteracy by making others read to her and frame it as kindness.
Our conversation on the book got started because we talked about how rarely age gap relationships in media feature an older woman with a younger man. And I remembered the book.
To this one of my friends said: "Wow, it is kinda messed up what they make us read for German class, right? I mean, that shit outright romanticizes the abuse!"
And I sat there: "Wait, what?"
Because here is the thing: The book technically leaves very little doubt on the unhealthiness and abusiveness of the situation. Or about the fact that Hanna - the woman in the book - had been praying on younger people for most of her life. It is somewhat implied that she is bisexual, by the way, and has preyed on both boys and girls at the concentration camp. But that she is a predator in this is never in doubt.
The book is completely written in first person from the perspective of the boy, later man, who in the 60s is used by her. And, well, here is the thing: Michael, the boy, obviously experiences the relationship, when he is a teenager, in the way a lot of younger people who are preyed upon by older people experience those relationships: he is kinda proud of it. He sees himself as more mature. He is horny. He is in love. The moments of manipulation and abuse do not register to him as such.
But, and this is important: the book is fairly explicit in that it was abusive and had negative consequences for him. We learn about how his life goes afterwards, and in this we see a bunch of things that are fairly common for victims of such abuse. Issues with relationships, and family life. Just what you expect. The thing is just: the book never fully names it, because we are stuck in Michael's POV, and Michael struggles to see himself as a victim.
Hanna herself is a complicated character - and there is a lot of narrator related unreliability in regards to her as well. Because we do know what she did, we have some inkling why she did it, and we get some narrations of conflicting sources about her past. But it is quite clear still, that she is an abuser. She is a fucking Nazi after all. A Nazi who does regret the things she did to a degree, but still a Nazi.
I guess I do have to hand it to my German teacher under whom I read the book back in the day that I actually did well remember a good chunk of the details. As someone managed to produce the book in question, looked up the chapters, and indeed found what I described.
And it also reminded me of another German class book that when I was a teen I was fucking obsessed with: Homo Faber, by Max Frisch. Which I assume nobody outside of Germany has ever heard about?
That book is in some ways even more messed up. It is written from the perspective of an engineer who is kinda just a shitty guy, who treats women shittily, and non-white people shittily, and through circumstance ends up having an affair with a much younger woman he meets on a ship, only for her to die in an accident. And then he meets her mother and, plot twist, it is his ex. He had an affair with his own daughter.
And I freaking loved this book as a teen. Because I was so utterly fascinated with the use of the unreliable narrator in this book. Again, this is a first person book. And Walter, our main character, obviously sees himself as the good guy. He is the good guy in his narration. OBVIOUSLY. But the book makes it very, very clear, that he is not. You just, you know, need to think critically about the text, rather than taking the POV of "I did nothing wrong ever and also she totally came onto me and I never instigated anything ever because I am such a good guy actually" as gospel.
And the last book from school that I freaking loved was The Parfum by Patrick Süsskind, likely the only book of the list that you might have heard of. While technically all three books I mention here have had a movie adaption, the Parfum adaption was definitely the one that most people saw. (I mean, heck, the running joke at that Oscar ceremony had been kinda how The Reader was kinda engineered as the perfect Oscar movie - an adaption of a literary novel featuring messed up relationships and also Nazi history - but nobody actually watched that movie.) The Parfum, obviously, is a story about an arguably neurodivergent serial killer from the POV of that serial killer. It features a bunch messed up stuff, including weird sexual stuff, cannibalism, and of course the serial killing. But also, from all the novels we had to read in school, it was to me by far the one written in a prose that I enjoyed a lot out of. I would argue partially, also, because the main character and his narration read so neurodivergent.
The reason - of course - why I bring this up, is, because it really ties to the entire censorship and media literacy thing.
Partially because the friends of mine where so "OMG, this is so messed up", when the entire point of the books in question was that they are messed up. The messed up stuff happening was what the books where critiquing. And in terms of censorship, of course, those books tend to not be brought up, because they were serious literature written by white cis men. Like, sure, of those cis men, at least two were not straight, from all I know, but they were still white cis men writing serious literature. But the way my friends critiqued the books - at least The Reader and Homo Faber (as people somehow are more able to see "serial killer book from serial killer POV" and go "yeah, this is not inspirational" than when they read "sexual abuser story from sexual abuser POV") - is very reminiscent of how people here talk about other messed up media, and especially fanfics. Because here is the thing: while I do think literary curriculi in schools are way too heavy on white cis dudes, I do generally think those three books are valuable to read and learn to analyze. Partially because of the way they teach you about how to interact with morally complex stuff and unreliable narrators.
But I am also thinking about how, while my friends first derided the first two books, generally society will be more likely to look at them and go: "Okay, these are artfully literary books about complex themes", because they are fairly old (well, not that old actually - I was surprised to realize how recent The Reader is), and were written by white dudes. A lot of writers who are not white dudes are not being met with the same assumption. Especially queer writers writing about topics such as this often are met with the base assumption that they are some sick freaks that get off on it.
And mind you: I am very much of the opinion that it is totally fine to get off on it. But I just also have to say: you can have a story that within the text is saying something along the lines of "oh yes, I had this loving great relationship with my own daughter that was totally on her terms and that makes me not a bad guy for this, you hear?" and the book actually being about how the person saying this is actually a bad guy. Because unrealiable narrators exist, and it is just important to realize that, fuck god's sake.
