Germany is looking for the superstar will continue after all – with Dieter Bohlen. As long as he’s around, misogyny and the devaluation of weaker people are the norm on the show
On Saturday, Dieter Bohlen announced the “good news” during the live show: Deutschland sucht den Superstar will continue in 2024. The show aired on 1 April and many viewers initially thought the announcement was an April Fool’s joke. No wonder, because this decision is not a roll backwards, but a whole somersault. Last summer, RTL had announced the end of the casting show after its 20th anniversary season. The acclaimed promise did not even last 9 months.
Dieter Bohlen may, of course, be part of the new star search in 2024. The jury boss was sacked before the penultimate season when RTL wanted to adopt a fundamentally more positive image – to which the obscene and riotous Bohlen did not fit. He was only supposed to return for what was supposed to be the last season in the show’s history. Now everything is back to the way it was and all positive intentions have been thrown overboard. What’s the point? We’ve been through all this before …
Dieter Bohlen brought ratings and sexism back to DSDS
Big News! In the first live show of DS our pop titan Dieter Bohlen has now announced the good news: It will continue in 2024 And as if that alone wasn’t mega news, there’s another one on top: the age limit is dropping! pic.twitter.com/NVFsRcLd24
– RTL (@RTL_com) April 1, 2023
And the ratings, they brought Dieter Bohlen back. The channel now blatantly capitulates to the jury boss and everything he embodies. On the one hand, that’s reach. When RTL tried it two years ago without Bohlen in the DSDS jury and with a softer approach, the viewer figures plummeted. With his return, the ratings rose again – along with the usual humiliation of contestants and sometimes gross sexism. In the current season, for example, Bohlen threw at contestant Jill Lange: “Have you done anything normal? Or did you just graduate from high school and let yourself get sucked off?” Fellow jury member Katja Krasavice countered, and soon a heated argument broke out between the two.
The broadcaster initially defended Bohlen’s behaviour. Rather reluctantly, RTL cut the sentence from the free TV version, and the complete scene was only shown on the streaming service RTL+. RTL later admitted the “mistake”. But behaviour of this kind is obviously desired.
In retrospect, Dieter Bohlen’s return action seems like a Trojan horse: RTL smuggled the “pop titan” back into the show under the pretext that it was only for the last season. What one doesn’t do under the influence of sentimentality. Now he’s back. But for good.
In the DSDS future, the absolute Bohlen jester freedom looms
Bohlen, who was once hounded from the court, could hardly have wished for a better confirmation than the extension of the show. He can now boast of being the saviour of DSDS. The sequence of events also consolidates the fool’s freedom of the man RTL was desperate to get rid of two years ago. And quite rightly so!
Bohlen has not changed and will not change. How will RTL put a stop to him in future if the show’s existence is so tied to his involvement and ultimately his toxic behaviour? How will the broadcaster put the brakes on him and credibly distance itself in the future if it is apparently willing to tolerate Bohlen’s behaviour for a few crumbs of ratings? Will RTL intervene when the next Jill Lange stands in front of Bohlen in 2024 and has to listen to comments about her sex life? Hard to imagine. As long as Dieter Bohlen is there, misogyny and the devaluation of weaker people will remain the norm on DSDS. By continuing the show in this form, RTL is sending an appalling signal.
