As if International Women’s Day: Bettina Böttinger has invited a lot of so-called “strong women” to her “Kölner Treff”, a nice talk about female restraint, male self-confidence and the crux with gender in the German language unfolds. But in the collective memory, probably only what Willi Weitzel blurts out gets stuck.
“I love television”, confesses Michael Mittermeier, comedian and self-proclaimed “TV native”, and right at the beginning of the “Kölner Treff” takes the group on a journey through his teleaffine childhood and youth: “Bonanza”, “Dies Drombuschs”, “Star Trek”, oh yes, a long time ago. Mittermeier tried to watch all these highlights from the past with his now 14-year-old daughter, but he admits that it didn’t end well. In the meantime, “GNTM” has been agreed as a cross-generational TV drama.
Similar to “Die Drombuschs” or “Bonanza”, Birgit Schrowange had long been part of the interior of the German television landscape; She moderated the infotainment show “Extra” from 1994 to 2019. Then she stopped because: “The drop was sucked”, as she confesses at the “Kölner Treff”. She wanted to be a private woman from there, but then Sat.1 came up with three new offers. One of them is called “Birgit’s strong women” and is Schrowange’s comeback – a Sat.1 format that she is allowed to advertise on WDR. TV is so nice in 2022.
Starting as a secretary at WDR, she always actively helped her luck and picked up every opportunity, says Schrowange looking back on her career. Luck? Carolin Kebekus intervenes, saying that this is a typically female line of argument. Luck? “It’s an awful lot of work,” says Kebekus. And confirms Schrowange: “You’re just incredibly good at your job.”
Kebekus himself was socialized as a comedy at a time when comedy shows were cast by exactly one woman – a quota woman. “There can only be one” is the logical title of one of her books, because from Smurfette to comedy queen to supervisory board member, even today, a woman often ticks the box behind the topic of diversity.
Carolin Kebekus now wants to counteract this with the all-female DCKS Festival: June 6th in Cologne. There will not be a quota man on stage, but men are very welcome in the audience. Kebekus also promises cool beer and short toilet queues. When the latter comes true at a female festival, it’s like a miracle. But if one can do it, it’s probably Carolin Kebekus. And why? Simply because she is incredibly good at her job.
Kübra Sekin would also be one of the women one would like to see on Schrowange’s new show. Suffering from brittle bone disease, she has been in a wheelchair since she was six years old. And despite a lot of opposition, she became an actress, presenter, comedian and even a dancer. In addition, she proves to 70-year-old Bernhard Brink that you can casually change the flow of words without necessarily following up with a few conservative old man jokes. “You see, Bernhard!” Bettina Böttinger triumphed.
Willi “wants to know” Weitzel, once the star of the children, knows how it works with self-confidence. When asked about his secret of how he managed to keep his childlike spirit over the decades, he only says: “It’s difficult. Not everyone can do that.” Luck? Has nothing to do with it, even the preservation of the inner child is apparently a male contribution. “For me you were a mixture of the mouse and MacGyver”, Michael Mittermeier seconded. There is probably no greater praise from his mouth.
Willi has meanwhile decided to go from explaining the world to children to becoming an adventurer. Spent a night in the forest without a cell phone, made a pilgrimage from Nazareth to Bethlehem on a donkey. But then he turned down the ultimate adventure. Willi chats at the “Kölner Treff”: RTL knocked on him, they wanted to send him to the jungle camp. “Dear colleagues, I’m not coming,” says Weitzel into the camera: “I’ve already been to Panama.”
