The restructuring of unemployment and welfare benefits under Hartz IV hit former East Germans already suffering economically since unification particularly hard, forcing many into a condition of precarity for which the governing ideology held them responsible. Frustrated in her search for suitable work, Ilka Bessin adapted the self-management model advocated by the reforms to transform her story of marginalization and failure into a comedy success as Ossi trash princess Cindy aus Marzahn. Cultivated by commercial television, Bessin's Cindy was a product, purveyor, and critic of Germany's neoliberal economic policies, illustrating the fraught, collusive relationship between politics and popular culture.
CITATION STYLE
Bower, K. (2018, February 1). Slumming with cindy: Class, precarity, and performance in cindy aus Marzahn’s Trash comedy. German Studies Review. Johns Hopkins University Press. https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2018.0006
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