Soccer and Social Identity in Contemporary German Film and Media

This dissertation analyzes a selection of German soccer films that construct imaginations of German social identity through the populism and simplicity of soccer. These expressions of German identity do not revert to nostalgic, static social identities based on the exclusivity of national or ethnic heritage. Instead, these films frame German identity in the 21st century circumstances of transcultural exchange, cosmopolitan empathy, and pan-European social movements. I argue that examining the social theories and movements of multiculturalism, feminism, and soccer subcultures provides for a more contemporarily informed reading of the connection between soccer-related media and social identity than reverting back to historical forms of German social identity and misreading German soccer fandom as the reemergence of xenophobic nationalism. \ud The intersection of soccer and film produces a particular sort of social commentary. Soccer functions as a filmic narrative tool that guides social commentary to a simplified world of dualities: winners vs. losers, us vs. them, or the political right vs. the left. I describe the narrative structure of soccer, film, and social commentary with statement theory: a structuralist method of examining “statements,” which are the culmination of the filmic form, socio-cultural context, and utopic or dystopic visions of society. I argue that the filmic soccer narrative dictates social commentary into utopic or dystopic statements; statements of idealism that necessarily project a social wish or fear into the future, even if that utopia or dystopia is cinematically depicted in an imagined now. The multicultural, post-multicultural, dystopic, and post-dystopic statements are short forms of narratively and visually mediating social identity. \u