The Netflix documentary “Babo – The Arrest Warrant Story” romanticizes Nina Anhan’s ability to suffer as a strength. Why this is dangerous – and what it reveals about our image of women.
“Babo – The Arrest Warrant Story” has been at number one on Netflix’s streaming charts for days, has been watched millions of times and is on everyone’s lips on social media. Raw, unfiltered, real – these are the terms that are used to describe the highly praised documentary. Uncompromising, impressive, legendary – these are the enthusiastic voices that celebrate the documentary not only as a cinematic success, but also as a rarely uncensored retelling of a unique rapper’s life, and that is certainly not without reason. In the middle of it all, less loud, less present, less sensational, there is a crying woman in the film, whose role doesn’t quite fit into the canon of enthusiastic voices that praise the film to heaven.
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Nina Anhan, German influencer and entrepreneur, met Aykut Anhan, the German rap legend better known as arrest warrant, in 2010. The couple married in 2016, followed shortly afterwards by the birth of son Noah and daughter Aliyah. Nina Anhan is the woman who stood by her husband’s side no matter where it took them. The woman who, through abysmal desperation and deep drug addiction, through times in which, as the documentary tells it, her husband shot ten grams of coke through his nose again hours after a drug overdose after being resuscitated, always stood by the arrest warrant and refused to give it up – out of love, as she says.
She loves Aykut Anhan, but not Arrest Warrant
In the documentary, in which Nina Anhan speaks several times, she describes the challenges and pain that the unprocessed trauma and drug addiction of her beloved husband brought to the family – even if he loves his family back just as much, as the documentary shows.
She says in the film that she wants her old life back. That she looks after her children 24/7 and is effectively a single parent. That she tried everything – separation, taking the children away – to force her husband to give up the cocaine – without success. And that she loves Aykut Anhan. But not an arrest warrant.
The reaction to the documentary is widespread: ‘What a strong woman!’ And above all: ‘Every man deserves a woman like this at his side.’ “Such a great woman,” commented one user, for example, on the scenes of a crying Anhan.
The romanticization of a woman’s pain
There is no doubt that Nina Anhan is a woman of remarkable strength. Likewise, the rapper arrest warrant will go down as a legend in the history of German rap. Whether viewers of the documentary enjoy the suffering of a rapper or delight in the tragic existence of their favorite rapper, who they are actually watching die during the film – that is a discussion that can and should legitimately be had. But the romanticization and glorification of a woman’s pain is perhaps the biggest problem that the documentary inadvertently highlights.
Comments are piling up on social media describing Nina Anhan as the perfect wife – a woman who stands by her husband through thick and thin, and through the truly deepest depths. The right to judge whether Ms. Anhan’s decisions regarding her marriage were right or wrong or something in between rests solely with Anhan herself. The question of what is best for her children should also be left to the mother in confidence. But reducing a woman’s strength to her ability to suffer for her husband is devastating from a feminist perspective.
Critical voices are becoming loud
Refreshingly, opinions are slowly being voiced on social media that are critical of the portrayal of Nina Anhan in the documentary and her position in arrest warrant’s life. Unfortunately, so far these seem to come exclusively from women. One user on Instagram commented: “Why is Nina only strong because she stays? She would be just as strong if she decided to leave.” (@sabrina_carpador) Another asks: “Why are women only good women when they can endure things?” And that brings us face to face with an important fundamental question: Are we allowed to give as much space to the perceived romanticization of the emotional burden a woman is put under by her husband as is currently happening? A romanticization that is carried out less by the makers of the documentary than by those who watch it or those who comment on social media?
The fact that little attention was paid to Warrant Officer’s behavior towards his wife in the initial reactions to the film points to a fundamental social problem. It should be undisputed that Aykut Anhan is struggling with the severe consequences of a traumatic childhood and is therefore in the role of victim himself. The fact that women in our society are seemingly expected to accept the consequences of his subsequent negative behavior towards her that is rooted in these traumas is an indictment of the progress in our society’s ability to distribute the burdens of trauma, pain and loss evenly on responsible shoulders. One user commented on Instagram: “Women of every generation regulate, hold, bear the pain of the trauma that men in patriarchal structures do not want to touch or do not want to touch for too long” (@katharinaseckauthor) – and, one might add, can.
It’s less about an arrest warrant and more about a social perspective problem
Following this line of reasoning does not in any way mean assigning sole blame to arrest warrants or positioning them as a scapegoat. Because the documentary shows us conclusively how hard the rapper has to fight with the experiences that he was unable to experience. Also that he strives to do the best possible for his family out of love. What is more problematic is the romanticized view of a gathered audience towards a woman who is primarily a sufferer. A user on Instagram rightly says: “Self-sacrifice is confused with love and suffering with loyalty” (@patrycja.sloniecka). Another just as rightly asks: “Would you celebrate the documentary like that if it were a woman? An artist with a coke problem wouldn’t be a legend, but a badass.” (@tina.mulli)
The reaction to the arrest warrant documentary highlights gender inequalities in a special way that we should address critically. A critical examination that allows us to celebrate a documentary for its honesty and impressive execution and an artist for his unique, incomparable role as a rap genius – and that still asks critical questions about the distribution of responsibility roles. This also includes the important question we ask ourselves about what image we want to convey to young women who find themselves in similar relationships or who may one day find themselves in similar relationships. On the one hand, feminist empowerment includes making it clear that Nina Anhan’s decisions are hers alone and not a marketplace commodity for judgment and bargaining. At the same time, we should consider whether we want to teach young women that their strength lies solely in staying in painful relationships. More generally, it doesn’t just affect young women, but rather all people who are in relationships that cause them suffering.
Female strength – equals ability to suffer?
And that brings us back to the concept of strength. The documentary “Babo – The Arrest Warrant Story” tells the story of a legend, his traumas, abysses and struggles. What she doesn’t tell is his wife’s story. While Arrest Warrant is made a hero by Netflix – a hero that he is for the hip hop world – Nina Anhan is also declared a hero. However, by association, because she endures, because she suffers vicariously, and because she stays. It would be fatal for the image of women if male viewers loved her for an imagined passivity – for being silent, for keeping still. Because do we want to define female strength as the ability to suffer?
Nina Anhan’s strength does not lie in her role as the person who endures arrest warrants, even if her patience, perseverance and uncompromising love of course demand our respect. Nina Anhan’s strength, whatever it may be, should be sought and found in her personality and herself. A strength that, in principle, allows every woman not to stay but to go, to pull the ripcord, to protect herself and her children. And it’s time our society learned to make this distinction. For the purpose of a world in which women like Nina Anhan no longer have to wipe tears from their faces in documentaries – and in which a young Aykut Anhan no longer has to experience the pain that made him suffer so much for so many years.