[UA] Help with Pop Icons

[Frank Lohmann]

"DL" <haroudo at bol.com.br> wrote:

> Can you please, tell me about non-american icons elegible to be worshipped
> by Iconomancers? The american icons are easy to find, and i have as much as
> the doublefrom the ones you get one the Pomoma, and i know UA is
> "americacentric", but i would like to see more icons, from Spain, Finnland,
> Germany, France, Sweden, etc, etc.

Phew - for Germany, that's not too easy, since we have been "mostly drowned by 
american culture" as well... 8) Anyway, here are some suggestions, maybe the 
other Germans on the list (Sonja? Tim? Robin?) could comment:

The very first person to come to my mind was Princess Sissy. She's pretty much 
the German (okay... Austrian) version of Princess Diana, with a host of popular 
movies made of her life. However, she lived sometime in the late 19th century. 
I'm not too rules-firm with iconomancers, but I take Mr. Teapot's suggestions 
that anything before WWII doesn't count... 8)

So, next we have Konrad Adenauer. While hardly a "Pop Icon", he was one of the 
founders of the Cristian Democrats (the German Conservative party), the very 
first Bundeskanzler and the originator of many pact and treaties that allowed 
Germany to recover after the war, and that laid the groundwork for Democracy in 
Germany. While hardly being an icon for Germany's youth of today, he was very 
much a hero for my parent's generation.

Then, there's Rudi Dutschke, who was one of the most prominent leaders of the 
'68 movement in Germany. Very charismatic and very left-winged, he left the 
German Democratic Republik (aka "East Germany") when he was 21, was one of the 
co-founders of the Socialist Student's Union and led most of the protest and 
rallies against government sanctions, the Vietnam war ect. An attempt was made 
on his life in 1968 which he survived, and it was assumed (but to my knowledge 
never proven) that the killer had been contracted by Axel Springer, the most 
influential publisher in Germany at that time, because Dutschke hat repeatedly 
criticised Springer's control of the press and the public opinion. Dutschke 
remains an icon in the young German leftist's patheon, well along with Che 
Guevara and the RAF (the German Terrorist Organisation, not the British Air 
Force, mind you...)

The Terrorists of the RAF, particularly Ulrike Meinhoff, Gudrun Esslin and 
Andreas Bader might be good icons as well...

Germans have the habit of iconizing their great athletes as much as any country, 
but as I remember, icons for iconomancers should better be dead... 8) I fear I'm 
not too much into sports trivia, so I cannot think of any popular dead German 
athletes - maybe one of the other Germans can help you out... 8)

Music-wise, most influences come from the UK or US, but there might be Bluemchen 
(something like a German proto-Britney Spears), who is not entirely dead as far 
as I know, but totally out of showbiz, or Wolf Biermann, who is in many ways the 
archetypical German protest singer. Oh, and also, Milli Vanilli were a German 
band - you should never forget Milli Vanilli... 8)

As actors or actresses go, you simply cannot beat Romy Schneider and Hans Albers 
(the former for her roles in the above mentioned "Sissy"-movies, the latter for 
his blonde, buff & handsome north-german sailor archetype). Also, the Director 
Rainer Maria Fassbinder, who was a genius but also had some serious issues. And 
don't forget Marlene Dietrich, who even managed to rise to fame in Hollywood!

Most of these are rather "local" celebrities and wouldn't mean much to someone 
outside of Germany, so they're probably not too useful, I fear...
	Frank
-- 
Frank Cord Lohmann           
GEOMAR - Forschungszentrum fuer marine Geowissenschaften 
Wischhofstr. 1-3   24148 Kiel   Germany 
Phone : +49 431 600 2336



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