It’s June, and there are lots and lots of Pride parades coming up in the following weeks. But what is it that we are proud of?
That’s what the ladies over at AfterEllen.com have asked themselves, and Heather Hogan had some very nice words to say about the HaH fandom:
One the big gay things that filled me up with so much Pride was seeing the Hand aufs Herz fandom get born and grow into something remarkable and powerful. It was little-watched, soapy German drama with one of the sweetest, silliest, funnest lesbian storylines I’ve ever seen. And everybody wanted to watch it. So the fandom raised up teams of translators and recappers and video editors who literally invented ways to share the Jemma love. I one time saw in the comments of YouTube a person translating the German dialogue to Spanish so that someone else could translate it to Italian so that someone else could translate it to Portuguese. Just so a lesbian in Brazil could understand what Jenny and Emma were saying in a 90-second clip. The fandom even convinced the network to add every official Jemma clip to their website so the YouTube videos wouldn’t keep getting yanked down. I’d never seen anything like that fandom and it made my heart so proud. “
(Source: AfterEllen.com)
I completely agree with Heather. The HaH fandom was and still is amazing. “Hand aufs Herz” and “Jemma” brought so many people from all over the world together in a way that I never would have expected when I started writing about the storyline. When Rosalie & Co.’s server crashed last May, I received emails from Israel, the UK, the U.S., New Zealand, France and Sweden, just to name a few, with words of encouragement and offers of support. This April, almost 8 months after the show had ended, some people traveled thousands of miles not only to see Lucy Scherer perform on stage in “Rebecca”, but also to meet with other “Jemma” fans and celebrate the fandom. There are groups of fans who watch certain episodes of the show at a certain time and then discuss them on the Sat.1-Forum as if it was a brand-new episode. And there are still so many talented writers out there who produce amazing, wonderful pieces of fan fiction every day.
When it comes to “Hand aufs Herz” and “Jemma”, almost everyone who was involved with this project has every reason to be proud – actors and actresses, writers, producers, the crew, the editorial staff at Sat.1 who decided to get in touch with the fans and eventually get rid of the geoblock, and even the fans who spent so many sleepless nights to write recaps and articles, translate episodes and promote the storyline to media outlets all over the world. The only ones who did not cover themselves in glory were the managers in charge at ProSiebenSat.1 who decided to cancel the show only based on ratings, without realizing what an amazing opportunity this little show had become for them.
Luckily, they couldn’t take away what we already had: The “Hand aufs Herz” fandom, an amazing group of people and something to be proud of.
Did anyone on the show, either the actors or producers, have any clue that Jemma would get so big and what was the general reaction of most people on the show to the phenomenon of Jemma?
Judging from what Kasia, Lucy and especially Petra Bodenbach said in the interviews and what Petra Bodenbach wrote on AE, I don’t think that anyone really expected this and that they were as surprised by Jemma’s success as the fans were, and I think that that’s actually why the storyline worked so well. They didn’t shape it to become a success with the lesbian and gay audience, they wanted to tell a coming-out story and a love story and were themselves surprised when they realized that it was working so well. Luckily, they realized that even before all the hype started and gave the actresses a lot of space to shine.
Of course, a lot of Jemma time meant less time for other storylines. I was always under the impression that there were some storylines that were supposed to be bigger, like, for example, Lara and Bodo and also Luzi and Timo, but when Jemma started to take up more space, they were put on the back burner. I’m just speculating here, but I can imagine that something like that isn’t easy for an actor or actress. But it’s great that still, so many of the other actors supported this storyline and seemed genuinely happy about it’s success.
Yeah, i had noticed in te early episodes that Emma was such a minor character, more as a supporting character than any real storyline. To go from that to one half of the hottest couple on the show must have been amazing. i also noticed that there was a lot more story around characters like Caro, Miriam, Piet and a few others but they became much less forefront as the show went on. I think Jemma became as popular as Ben/ Bea.
More the reason for them to should be considering a Jemma spin-off, like, for example, their college life, or adult life …. I am sure the Jemma fans will swarm around like crazy again …. Just see how both Kasia and Lucy still manage to get into AE HOT 100, and even an improvement on Kasia’s position, even though the show has finished almost a year ago ….
I definitely could not understand the mind of businessmen ….. -sigh-