https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaZDiKRT1is

In his essay “Cabaret,” Hollaender notes that the seemingly innocuous show tune often contains latent social or political critiques. He writes, “Under the cover of an evening’s relaxing entertainment, cabaret, like nothing else, suddenly dispenses a poison cookie. Suggestively administered and hastily swallowed, its effect reaches far beyond the harmless evening to make otherwise placid blood boil and inspire a sluggish brain to think. Music as seductress – it always succeeds whenever it has magic in its gut…” (357).

Hollaender penned the song “Falling in Love Again (Can’t Help It),” which Lola sings to Professor Rath and the audience of young men at the Blue Angel. The song is certainly powerful as a seductive force; Rath looks foolishly giddy as he first watches Lola perform from the balcony (51:00). His marriage to Lola culminates with a role reversal, as he is objectified on the stage and, as a result, descends into a state of hysteria. The depiction of bourgeois male humiliation reveals a great deal about the gender politics of the Weimar Republic. The Blue Angel (and Hollaender’s song in particular) depicts a similar kind of masculine anxiety addressed in Berg’s Lulu: the downfall of the bourgeois man due to the powerful sexuality of the New Woman. The lyrics of Hollaender’s song affirm Kraus’s earlier idea that women are fundamentally unable to control their sexual nature. Lulu sings, “Love’s always been my game, play it how I may. I was made that way, can’t help it.” The cabaret performer threatens her lovers with emasculation; a working woman, she is the seductress who is also a slave to her sexuality. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts about the film’s depiction of masculinity, as well as how the sexually free woman was represented in Lulu and The Blue Angel.