Bavarian porn > soccer

Sometimes I get asked to write weird articles. Still, I wasn’t expecting this one.

With the European soccer championship coming up, the University of Amsterdam’s weekly magazine, Folia Civitatis, decided to make a soccer-themed issue. As I’m their regular film journo, they asked me to write something film-related. Of all things they could’ve come up with, they chose Bavarian porn.

‘Bavarian porn?’ some of you might think? Well, it was a highly successful 70’s softporn/comedy genre from the Bavaria/Tirol regions of Germany and Austria (there’s your link with soccer; Austria is one of the hosts of the championship). It’s infamous for its combination of heimat nostalgia and silly sex and nudity. In a sense a bizarre subgenre of sexploitation. The genre is known as Lederhosenfilm in German speaking territories, and as Tiroler seksfilm in the Netherlands. It’s cheap, dumb and degrading to women and/or humankind in general. But in its stupidity and offensiveness it’s also very, very funny.

Really, track one down if you’ve never seen one, they are hilarious.

I actually had the dvd of Ach Jodel Mir Noch Einen (1974) lying around the house (don’t ask) and revisiting it was a blast. It’s better (un)known as 2069: A Sex Odyssey in English, a title which should be telling enough; it actually combines all that is worst/best of Bavarian Porn with sci-fi!

Naturally, I had a lot of fun writing the piece, especially as it needed to be a bit tongue-in-cheek (it’s pretty hard to write anything serious on this stuff anyway). I’ll provide a link when it’s published. The conclusion was that if you don’t give a crap about soccer (like I do by the way), watching Bavarian porn this summer is the next best thing to do to cleanse your thirst for stupid fun in the Alps.