Love as Anathema: Social Constraints and the Demise of Desire in Fatih Akin's Gegen die Wand

Summary

AN IDEA OF LOVE as a power that conquers all prevails in cinematic narratives of romance. Such a representation taps into popular fantasies, yet it is utopian insofar as it overlooks the rigid social boundaries that constrain romantic desires. This article explores the representation of love in Fatih Akin's Gegen die Wand (Head On, 2004), which I argue reinforces the inescapable nature of certain norms that are set in place to regulate gender and sexuality, and thereby desire. Despite, or perhaps because of its pessimistic perspective regarding the possibility of transgressing boundaries, which ultimately reaffirms the moral imperatives that govern emotional lives, the film contests some of the most prevalent mythologies of love articulated by popular culture. Specifically, it lays bare how conforming to normative categories, compulsory as it may be, can be compromising and therefore not always conducive to happiness.

The meanings attached to the notion of love and the nature of intimacy have undergone a transformation in contemporary societies. Notwithstanding the dramatic changes that have taken place in the structure of interpersonal relationships, cultural representations of love remain rather narrow, largely defined by classic notions of romance, as Stacey and Pearce point out. Illouz demonstrates how social and cultural developments articulate a new utopia of romance, arguing that the prominence of love narratives in mass culture turned love into one of the most pervasive mythologies of contemporary life. This idea is also asserted by Evans, who argues that “the expectations of romance and sexual pleasure within intimacy are the subject matter of various dream factories of the West which endlessly threaten the fragile possibilities of human happiness.” Because love is so widely narrativized through certain conventions, these conventions have come to shape how it is experienced. As Illouz puts it, “culture operates as a frame within which emotional experience is organized, labeled, classified and interpreted. Cultural frames name and define the emotion, set the limits of its intensity, specify the norms and values attached to it and provide symbols and cultural scenarios that make it socially communicative.” Her observation exemplifies that love is not just an emotion but in fact a cultural practice and, as Jackson too asserts, it is socially constructed.