Comedian, actor and director Michael Herbig (54) would no longer do the Karl May film parody “Der Schuh des Manitu” like this today. “I made the film 22 years ago and it was a parody of films that were in cinemas 60 years ago,” explained the comedian, often also called “Bully” Herbig, on the Radio Bremen talk show “3 nach 9 ‘ in conversation with Giovanni di Lorenzo. Back then, it had to do with passion, the joy of playing and the realization of dreams.
Today he wouldn’t do it that way anymore, said Herbig. Why? “The comedy police have become so strict.” That takes away a bit of the innocence and freedom, said the comedian, who is directing the film “A Thousand Lines” with Elyas M’Barek and Jonas Nay to the cinema at the end of September, a cinematic approach to the scandal surrounding the “Spiegel” reporter Claas Relotius, who is called Lars Bogenius here.
Herbig said he thinks it’s absolutely right that certain things are no longer talked about in the way they were 20 years ago. There are many loud voices nowadays and everyone is “dissatisfied with the overall situation”, Herbig said a little helplessly that he still has no answer for himself. He was asked about the current raging debate about cultural appropriation and racism.
This came about after the Ravensburger publishing house announced in mid-August that it would stop the delivery of two children’s books for the film of the same name, “The Young Chief Winnetou” and remove them from the program. In an Instagram post, Ravensburger wrote that user feedback showed “that we hurt the feelings of others with the Winnetou titles”.
A number of users of the social media platform accused the company of giving in to criticism. There was also support for the decision.
Herbig became popular in the 90s with the comedy show “Bullyparade”. The film “Der Schuh des Manitu” is about the two blood brothers who are wrongly accused of murder, Abahachi (Herbig) and Ranger (Christian Tramitz). The images of Winnetou and Old Shatterhand speak Bavarian and are looking for a treasure map, crime boss Santa Maria (Sky du Mont) is on their heels.
The film also features the gay Abahachi twin brother Winnetouch, who runs a beauty farm on the “Powder Pink Ranch”. Many like the comedy, which has had millions of cinema viewers, for others it is just a cloak. The queer gay cliché in it has often been criticized.
Herbig said on “3 after 9” that shooting a comedy is much more difficult today: “Because you have the feeling that you step on people’s toes very quickly.”
If someone hurls the argument “You hurt my feelings,” you can’t say, “That’s not true.” He believes that there will soon be fewer people doing comedy because many people think, “That’s up to me hot”.
