Paula Irmschler about “Saltburn”, charity stars, Ricky Gervais and Torsun.
Yes, it’s true: I’m a synesthete. That means I’m brilliant. No, just kidding, I just have a particularly great relationship with numbers, for example. Which means that when I see the number 2024, I miss one, so to speak. I’m in love! For me it is the most beautiful year that I have experienced so far, i.e. seen and been able to see. For example, 1994, 1999, 2004, 2014 were also beautiful, but none were as beautiful as this one… I have to giggle again! Please leave us alone for a bit now.
Clearing out of the week: Worker cosplay by stars
I’ll start straight away with something that I don’t want to see again in 2024, please. It’s about the worker cosplay of stars, which has gotten out of hand in the past year. Most recently, Chris Martin took on a “shift” at a cafe in London to raise money for the homeless. Dear! Did his shift also begin with a sleepless night because of existential fears because normal café employees can hardly afford to live in London anymore? Then he has to go to his second job and then go home and look after his children and then go back the next day until the café has to close because investors have bought up the whole street and are building some asshole co-working spaces ? Sorry, I jumped in for a moment. But Martin didn’t take on a “shift,” he once played grocery store for a day.
Stars are getting richer and presenting themselves more and more like our dear friends (cough, Taylor Swift, cough). Of course at Christmas and with lots of cameras in your face. And it’s not just Chris Martin who is the norm for charity. Shortly beforehand, people also asked themselves: What is Bradley Cooper doing in a food truck?
What particularly stood out in the summer were the reactions to Lana Del Rey’s “shift” at the Waffle House, which wasn’t even a charity event but just for fun. But freaking out about the absurdity that someone fans adore could work at a Waffle House spoke volumes. Our stars are something better!!!
Please don’t do any of this anymore or stop cheering it on. Stars, pay taxes!
Film of the week: “Saltburn”
I hereby solemnly vow: I will never fall for the hype. Every year a film is promoted as totally polarizing and we all go along with it. Most of the time everything isn’t all that spectacular, which is why you quickly forget the film. I’m not sure that will be the case with “Saltburn” (directed and written by Emerald Fennell, “Promising Young Woman”) – after all, everything has been done to create images that stick in your head. You also remember the peach from “Call Me By Your Name” or all the dramatic make-up scenes in “Euphoria” because that works well: the most impressive snippets possible, suitable for TikTok.
From “Saltburn” will remain: Barry Keoghan drinks cum-filled bath water and fucks a grave. A few shocked boys will also remember the menstrual blood scene. But what’s it about? The memory is still fresh, so: Oliver is a classic nerd like he is in American scripts, comes from a so-called simple background, but got a scholarship to Oxford and tries to get along with the rich and privileged at his university. Of course, as you know from “Gossip Girl”, “Succession”, “The White Lotus” and “Forbidden Love”, they are mega assholes, but they also have interesting sides and are of course totally broken. Oliver then manages to sneak up on the most popular boy, Felix, who takes him to the “Saltburn” family estate. There, Oliver somehow gets after everyone, manipulates wherever he can, and then even worse things happen.
I had only read bad things about the film beforehand, so I was actually afraid to watch it. But then again it was just a normal, entertaining film. He’s quite good! Above all, it is cast quite randomly. Dare.
Cringe of the Week: Ricky Gervais’ “Armageddon”
I did it, I’m halfway through Ricky Gervais’ new Netflix special, as well as the last one. Because as a noob I always have to look at everything that is supposedly polarizing, see above. Netflix, the streaming channel that is often criticized by cool, edgy liberals and conservatives for its supposedly woke orientation, is once again giving the platform and money to one of its most prominent opponents. And what can I say, in the previous special Gervais had at least two jokes in it that I’ve never heard before. This time it wasn’t anyone. Well, I don’t mean that I already knew all the jokes this time, but that there were simply none left. “Armageddon” is just a string of words. Sad somehow. I was more excited about Dieter Nuhr! But Gervais is sure to dry his tears with the millions he gets for saying what he is no longer allowed to say. I think that’s somewhat good news. Those who are stuck really have nothing left to oppose you. Now you just really have to cancel them and not just make them richer and richer.
I’ll leave the floor to two very funny comedians who have also dealt with the Gervais phenomenon:
Farewell to Torsun
I don’t know how to write an obituary and of course Torsun deserves a lot more words, but I’m so glad that other people can and have done it so much better anyway, especially Linus in Kaput-Mag. For me, Torsun (with his band Egotronic) meant the same thing as it did for many leftists of my generation: he was impressive and eye-opening in his radicalism. That something like that was even possible! I could hardly believe it with my Dresden socialization, which was characterized by the fact that at least once a year citizens and right-wingers felt sorry for each other about the bombing of the beautiful city and no longer really wanted to know why it had to happen. And then at a time when we felt so good about cheering on OUR NATIONAL ELF with the German flag. To my knowledge at the time, hardly anyone in pop culture took such a bold stance against Germanism, anti-Semitism and reconciliation. On top of that, Egotronic also provided the soundtrack to the hedonism, which was good for us for a while, and you could even feel melancholic with them. That was all too and especially Torsun. He’s missing like hell.
Today and forever the motto is:
What happened until now? Here is an overview of all the pop column texts.