The Party That Out-Obscened Itself
Die Partei—Martin Sonneborn’s satirical political operation in Germany, the one that somehow landed him a seat in the European Parliament in 2014—ran a campaign ad for the September 2017 federal election that was essentially a porn short. Tits, implied golden showers, Serdar Somuncu cast as the party’s proposed Chancellor. Sonneborn has always treated electoral politics as a prolonged piece of performance art, but this was a new gear.
Somuncu, for context, is the German-Turkish comedian best known internationally for staging theatrical readings of Hitler’s Mein Kampf as a way of disarming the text—a deeply uncomfortable act that somehow worked. Putting him at the center of a sex-forward election ad produces the specific kind of discomfort that tips into genuine laughter, which is the Die Partei formula in miniature.
What stays with me is their stated reasoning. They wanted to out-obscene the actual German political situation—specifically the emissions scandal and the grotesque closeness between the automotive industry and the political establishment—and they admitted, cleanly and without visible irony, that they’d failed. We wanted to surpass the obscenity with which politics and the automotive industry are currently operating in Germany,
they said, and we failed magnificently.
The best satire lands when the satirist concedes defeat. Reality is always more scandalous than all the naked flesh, lascivious movement, and golden bodily fluid you can stage. Unfortunately.