Research
Films about ‘gypsies’ have been around since the dawn of cinema – and since then, this leading medium has also played a decisive role in the creation and dissemination of antigypsyist images and stereotypes. Nevertheless, antigypsyism in film has hardly been critically examined to date. The Research Centre on Antigypsyism at Heidelberg University questions the normality of this cliché-driven view of a minority and explores whether the creative potential of film could also be used in an emancipatory way to overcome the prejudices of the majority society.
For more than 120 years, ‘gypsy’ characters and motifs have been an integral part of film language and thus of our cultural heritage. This goes hand in hand with antigypsyist images and thought patterns that are still effective today and have long since become entrenched in our imagination. In this article, we want to show how the medium of film contributes to the exclusion of Sinti and Roma and what functions the antigypsyist gaze has for the majority society. We use the stigmatising term ‘gypsy’ in a critical and informative sense: we want to make it clear that the films discussed in our article reflect a view of Sinti and Roma that is overlaid with stereotypes and, at the same time, a power relationship. These films say far more about the interests and projections of the dominant society (and the filmmakers) than about what they claim to show. But couldn't the creative potential of the medium of film also be used in an emancipatory way to overcome the prejudiced view of minorities?
Research Fields and Topics
Annual focus area: Holocaust-Film
As the leading media of our time, images and films that work through emotionality, comprehensibility and directness are gaining importance in all areas of memory culture and even claiming interpretive authority. The Nazi era and the Holocaust are also the subject and theme of visual formats that reach a wide audience and thus play a central role in the examination of history. According to Frank Reuter, ‘image perception’ is always influenced by historical and social determinants. At the same time, ‘audiovisual film is characterised by images of perception whose immediate sensory power dominates.’ The audience's prior knowledge, but also their prejudices, historical background and reception situation – all of this is already present at the moment of viewing. The theme of the conference presented here on the ‘Visibilities of Memory’ is therefore relevant in many ways: scientifically examining the representation of Sinti and Roma in Holocaust cinema also means questioning the determinants and parameters, the media's inherent logic and the political impact of Nazi memory as it manifests itself anew and takes concrete form in national communication structures.
