Women as Victims of Violence in German Films

This paper focuses on women as victims of violence as shown in films. Seven German films were selected for the analysis, namely Die Fremde （2010） by Feo Aladag, Die Frau des Polizisten （2013） by Philip Groning, Festung （2011） by Kirsi Liimatainen, Reeperbahn （2016） by Timo Rose, Schneeland （2005） by Hans W. GeiBendorfer, Der Brand （2010） by Brigitte Berteleund and L＇amour （2000） by Philip Groning. There were three main research questions： （1） What kinds of violence against women are represented in selected German films; （2） Why do the women in these films become victims of violence; and （3） How do the women in these films find solutions to the problem？ There are four forms of violence in the analyzed films： physical violence, psychological violence, sexual violence, and witnessed violence. Physical violence is found in all the films, however, witnessed violence appears only in two films with young female characters. The other two kinds of violence are also found in most of the films. The reasons why women become victims of violence are weakness, love, poverty and carelessness. All of these factors appear in different types of women. Furthermore, the female characters in the films react differently to violence. Some women flee from their abusers because they fear or cannot fight with them. In other cases, they accept the violence with patience, or they take revenge on their offenders to get justice or stop the violence.