Poll Suggestion: Face-Off: Hugo Stiglitz vs. Django Freeman

What bliss it must be to live in a country where Til Schweiger is not too well known.

@albstein I'm trying and failing to comprehend how much sarcasm is in your statement. :)

You mean whether it is a display of my aversion against Til Schweiger? It is.

In Germany, Schweiger is as famous and as dominant in cinema as DiCaprio, Pitt and Clooney combined. He is alright when his limits as an actor are not tested, like in Basterds or his early leading roles. However, he is the star of many dramas, comedies and thrillers, with hardly any talent in any of these genres.

What's worse is that Schweiger suffers from hubris and lacks any sense of self-irony that could elevate his performances. He insists on directing many of his own movies, and despite blatant incompetence in this field, considers himself one of the great auteurs.

Til Schweiger is also the figurehead of a brand of comedies that derive their humor either from 'pipikaka' jokes (I trust you can imagine what that means) or from laughing at those at the bottom, and he's simply an equally obnoxious and ubiquitous public person.

Now having written all of this, maybe I should be glad that Mr. Schweiger doesn't have even higher ambitions...

@albstein Great thanks for a detailed explanation! 

It's a situation very much similar to many Post-Soviet countries, intriguingly. I mean, U.S. obviously have their celebrity culture, but it's mostly different, figures like that are few and far between and the main difference is that a) there is a tons of limitations on the person and b) one is blissfully unaware of it. 

Another similarity is that toilet humor term you dropped. Yep, that is very similar between German and most Slavic languages, so it is instantly understandable by anyone from Post-Soviet countries, I imagine much more so then any English-speaking one, where people would mostly get the first part of the word. :) 

I've heard that German audience is very tolerating towards such kind of humor, but it might be a stereotype and/or generalization. It's not like we don't have it anywhere else, unfortunately. 

I couldn't agree more. Brett, if you need an image, I posted links above in my past from about a year ago. If you don't know how to make an image list, just ask -- it's really easy. You could redo the poll with images of the characters in just a couple of minutes. 

I especially think you need to use images in this poll because Django is better known and certainly Jamie Foxx is but an image would remind people of Stiglitz.