The trained man
A taboo-free comedy: female cunning meets male machismo — all role clichés are turned upside down — a barrage of punchlines.
"When is a man a man?" Herbert Grönemeyer sang with his rock voice over 30 years ago. At least as exciting is the question: When is a woman a woman?
Bastian and Helen figured this out a long time ago—they're a modern couple. The capable stay-at-home dad and the energetic businesswoman seem to be a perfect match; they both work at a bank.
But the marriage proposal during an atmospheric candlelight dinner falls through at the last moment because Helen gets a high-paying executive job. The prospect of his future wife earning ten times as much as he does is a blow to Bastian's male ego. The dream couple would be on the brink of breaking up if it weren't for two shrewd mothers. Mrs. Schröder-Röder raised her Bastian in a feminist women's commune. And Helen's mother Konstanze seeks the highest level of fulfillment in shopping at the expense of her dentist husband. As contrary as the two women's basic positions are, they clearly agree on one point: only in the role of the trained provider can a man find his true calling, because "marriage is an invention of women to subjugate men." What else could go wrong when the basis for a happy life together is so simple?
Long before the gender and MeToo debates, Esther Vilar's 1971 book "The Manipulated Man" sparked a heated debate on the eternal question of equality. John von Düffel developed this into a taboo-free comedy: female cunning meets male machismo — all the familiar role clichés are turned upside down — a fireworks display of punchlines.
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