I hope this goes to Screen-L. Well, one more word (or two) to Marlene's funeral and Soeren's view that what happened wasn't "too serious" after all. Of course, it depends on one's concept of what's serious. For me it is "serious" business that a public figure like Marlene Dietrich is re-inscribed into these nationalistic sentiments that we (? at least I) thought were something of the past or, better, were finally closed by the 1960ies at the latest. I take all of this as "signs of the time", so to speak. I agree with Cal Pryluck that the similarities between Marlene Dietrich and Paul Robeson are perhaps a little stretched - it might be appropriate to see similarities between this incident and demonstrations in front of some US-American cinemas showing Spike Lee's movie about an interracial relationship (gee, can't think of the name, but you will certainly know what I am talking about). What all of this burns down, I guess, is that we are facing major changes from the eighties to the nineties - and to experience these changes here in this country isn't very funny - I am not saying it's any "better" in the US. It's different struggles about who "we" (the "right" Germans/Americans) are and who the "others" are. In Germany, it is quite obvious who is constructed as "other" (the political refugees, re-named into economic refugees, but also the "traitors", - who's next to be put into that category? Looking at the L.A. upheaval, it isn't hard to see who will be constructed as "other" in the US ... (and hook this up with some of the reactions to Spike Lee ..) Perhaps all of this goes a little too far, con- sidering that we are talking movies and tv on this list, but it is part of the context, part of those cultures that many who subscribe to this list live in. Back to movies: what's also interesting is that the US-American press seems to have made it a point of referring to Marlene Dietrich and the issue of cross-dressing - I haven't found any such reference here (while I haven't done an exhaustive reading). So much for that - gaby