RTL is entering the third season of its nude dating show "Adam sucht Eva" – apparently with success. Media expert Brother Paulus Terwitte states that many people obviously feel entertained. However, he himself finds it "under all sow.
Interviewer: The concept of the dating show "Adam sucht Eva" is simple: people get to know each other naked, are shipped from island to island, and then decide whether they also like each other in clothes. What do you think of this show with naked people??
Brother Paulus Terwitte (Capuchin priest and media expert): There you can see that the people who are looking for and want to make such quotas can't think of much anymore. Apart from the old concept of showing naked skin for a change. In times when the Internet offers so many opportunities to surf for oneself, one is surprised that such shows still work and have ratings. But television legitimizes many things. If it's on TV, then it must be good.
Interviewer: Is it perhaps also the case that the banalization of the creation story, this playing with the image of Adam and Eve, also triggers this??
Terwitte: Yes, I think so, because there is an ancient longing for paradise. And an ancient longing for purity and, above all, an ancient longing to experience something original, pristine, pure, sacred. I don't want to comment on the fact that such a joke is made out of it, but I always find it interesting how all kinds of people of all colors have to come back to the original biblical languages. There is a primal longing for paradise, that an Adam finds his Eve and that then everything will be fine. That is something quite biblical, as I think.
Interviewer: Do people on television actually realize that they are naked??
Terwitte: Above all, the question remains whether the people on television actually realize that one must be ashamed to do this in front of the whole public. Because that's what it's all about in the end. You sell your skin, and at this point you can already say that it can never become a real relationship. The point is that a game is being played, and there one can also ask the question: is it permissible to play with the saint in this way?? But we as Christians are used to that, when people can't think of anything else to say, they start playing with the saint. And at this point the sanctity of the body, the sanctity of sexuality and the sanctity of paradise is played with. People play along with that, and we simply have to take note of it.
Interviewer: Besides the concept of people walking undressed in front of the camera, there are also elements of the jungle camp. So in front of the camera sexist stuff is being said. For example, one man says that "dark-skinned women generally have too fat a box". What does something like that do to people?
Terwitte: This is simply the language of a certain stratum of the population that is watching and being addressed. We have to realize that not all people are opera-goers, but that many people also enjoy themselves in other ways. You look at our site down on the Domplatte, we as the German people also have to take a look at ourselves. What do we actually do with the people, if we let such transmissions run in our country over the airwaves?? Are people, who come from other cultures, in which the bare skin of a woman and also of a man, actually so not to the cultural property belong, there not also wrongly turned on?
Interviewer: The question is also whether eroticism, which we like to show in occidental culture, whether this complete nudity is so much..?
Terwitte: No! There is nothing more boring than a naked human being. Interesting, yes, when he's not completely naked. The great artists have always played with this. Theaters also play with it. It is always a big question, what can be achieved in the end with it? Here money is to be made, here quota is to be made, here attention is to be attracted. In the end, no contribution is made to culture, but people are made fun of, down to the lowest drawer. In this respect, it is all below the belt and therefore beneath contempt!
The interview was conducted by Uta Vorbrodt