vite proletarian identifications–and do so through from the point of view of a
woman.
Fig..Kuhle Wampe,DVD capture. Male
worker on the train:“And whowill changethe
world?
Fig..Kuhle Wampe,DVD capture. Female
worker on the train:“Those who don’tlike it!”At the end ofKuhleWampe,ayoung working-class woman looks straight
into the cameraasthe low-angle lightingbathesher inahalo of light.Toan
older middle-class man’squestion from offscreen,“Andwho will changethe
world?”she replies:“Those who don’tlike it! (Denen sie nichtgefällt)”(see figure
18.1and 18.2). The tone is assertive and,likethe Ernst Busch songsand Rote
Sprachrohr skits thatprecede her,has apercussive quality that promises more
confrontationalsituations for the future. Thechoice of the intransitive verb
(nicht)gefallen–to (not) like, enjoy,orapprove–suggestsanattitude that,in
the context ofaheated political argument,soundsstrangelyconstrained, espe-
ciallycompared to the more common portrayal of communist workers through
the habitus of aggressivemilitancy.Yet read as an example of Brechtiangestus,
the acting technique that expresses socialrelations through physicalgestures,
the woman’sresponse can be interpreted asareenactment of the film’spolitics
of emotions–thatis, an expressionofdissent that reflects on its own conditions
of enunciation. The connotative meaning of“not liking it”places the speaker in
an enunciatory position of moral or aesthetic judgment–but not necessarilyof
revolutionary action. However,bygiving the last wordtoaconfidentyoung
woman, the film’sfinal scene in fact identifiesthe discursive position from
which the habitus of power can alreadybetested, and this preciselyisthe mean-
ing of operativity.
Kuhle Wampeand“Those Who Don’tLike It” 321