Film project about discriminated Kevins – Panorama

It’s not as if some first names weren’t somehow conspicuous beforehand. The name Helga, for example, became a real problem in Germany after Oswalt Kolle’s sex education films, and Detlev was also known in the late 1960s, first through a radio play about a travesty bar and then through a singer of the same name (“No man can be that gay” ) almost finished off. But Uschis, Ronnys, Mannis and, yes, also Martins, have recently been made fun of in the worst possible way. There is a lot of talk about discrimination these days, but the large field of first name discrimination has hardly found any space in the large arts pages so far.

That could now change with a documentary that 35-year-old Frenchman Kevin Fafournoux is kindly planning. Fafournoux, who of course suffers from his first name, has found that exclusionary Kevinism is slowly becoming a problem. His film project “Rettet die Kevins” has brought in more than double the 8,000 euros he originally hoped for on a crowdfunding platform. Hundreds of Kevins are said to have already contacted Fafournoux, who is not only a filmmaker but also a graphic designer – ready to tell their sad everyday stories.

Two Kevins in the French House of Commons

Bad school grades, lower chances of an application or a date – in fact, the first name seems to be stigmatized like no other. So found, for example, the left-wing French weekly L’Obs Recently, it was even worth reporting that two Kevins made it into the 577 members of the National Assembly – both from Marine Le Pen’s party. The reader immediately asked himself: Are all the other Kevins perhaps also right-wing extremists? Éric Zemmour, even more right-wing than right-wing, called the name a “symptom of the de-Frenchization and Americanization” of his country.

In the case of Kevin Fafournoux, however, it wasn’t politics, but the reaction of a normal wedding party that made the camel’s back the last straw, as the filmmaker now reports to the Guardians. When a mayor mentioned his friend’s middle name (Kevin) at the wedding, the whole hall in the registry office burst out laughing. It can’t go on like this, Fafournoux decided, and called for donations for his film project. That was on June 3rd. Kevin’s name day.

With his project, Fafournoux now wants, he explained, to encourage people to think about “how to deconstruct stereotypes and give all Kevins a voice again”. One would like to wish him the best of luck, it won’t be easy. The motivation for the allocation of the five-letter first name (which was booming between 1957 and 1979 in the USA and between 1989 and 1994 also in Central Europe) is by no means always clear. The Celtic term, meaning “beautiful birth,” has had many attributions from James Joyce to the Power Rangers. Successful athletes such as Kevin Keegan and Kevin-Prince Boateng served as role models for parents, as did actor Kevin Costner and the film character “Home Alone”. But now there is even an app in Germany that is not only supposed to help Kevin to somehow make it in life.

The fact that Kevin of all people has to come to terms with the suffering of his namesakes, who are occasionally decried as stupid and proletarian in jokes and films, is of course very significant. Because dealing with discrimination, the intellectual classification of a mass of widespread prejudice garbage – society likes to leave all that to the discriminated against themselves: “Tell me, how do you actually feel, Mr. Kühnert?”

It’s good if at least they bring a good dose of self-mockery and haven’t thrown themselves into the arms of some extremist long ago.

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