The War Court and Lap Pillow, Austria's Mandate of Heaven

Chapter 1821 Austrian Screenwriters

After Franz finished watching the plays, he handed the list to the secret police without hesitation. The plays were very suggestive, and most importantly, few people watched them; even the actors seemed listless.

The public dislikes it, the theater is on edge, and the playwrights don't profit.

Such plays always seem to get sponsorship and be shown, leading Franz to wonder if someone was pulling the strings behind the scenes.

Franz admitted that these plays were indeed of a certain quality and showed some understanding of the Austrian Empire's national conditions; otherwise, the theater would not have staged them and ruined its own reputation.

However, it's not easy to be a pioneer, especially to find a mentor who is willing to support you.

Franz was eager to meet those so-called mentors and prophets, but after some investigation, he discovered that most of them were using false identities.

There is indeed a small group of people who have this idea, but most of them are survivors left over from Franz's sweep, and they have some connection with those once glorious families.

As for the so-called university students, they were not very interested in these things. This may be because Franz's personal brilliance was too strong, or it may be a problem with the education system of the Austrian Empire.

In the Austrian Empire, at least among the university students in Vienna, such plays were mostly met with disdain.

Franz specifically commissioned a survey of a group of university students, and he also personally interviewed several students who were working part-time as assistants at the Royal Academy of Sciences.

The answers from these people were remarkably consistent and simple: they preferred to side with the winner. Another reason was the abundance of entertainment options in Vienna.

They disliked this kind of didacticism, and compared to those serious dramas that had been polished for hundreds of years, these solemn and rigid plays were hard to watch.

Furthermore, these plays are actually quite different from the style of Vienna, a city that exudes an elegant and languid atmosphere, where people value a relaxed yet rational lifestyle.

However, these propaganda performances were filled with tension and pressure, as well as extremely emotional expressions. The numerous preachings and grand principles made Viennese people feel as if they were being criticized.

Franz then had someone investigate the people who came to see the show, and found that they were either fans of a particular actor, or there were people who came to kill time because the tickets were cheap, and some couples were simply looking for a place to strengthen their relationship.

Franz's highly anticipated play was a complete failure in Vienna and throughout Austria, not because theatrical performance was a bad art form.

Rather, the play broke some of the established rules of the Austrian Empire, and in this multilingual and multicultural country, the threshold for the play was actually quite high.

Indeed, what would be the most accessible art form in other countries became a form of entertainment for the elite in the Austrian Empire.

On the contrary, light opera became the mainstream, mainly consisting of songs and dances, with simple, colloquial dialogue, light and humorous, and it could also criticize current affairs.

Overall, these operettas met Franz's expectations: light, elegant, mostly comedies, with some satire but not intense.

At this time, these operettas mainly satirized bureaucrats, nobles, merchants, social elites, swindlers, university students, petty citizens, foreigners (mainly from the states of Germany and Italy), foreigners (from countries such as England, France, and Russia), and the emperor's private moral issues.

Because Franz loosened his control over the works of art, virtually every writer in this group was criticized.

In their eyes, the nobility are a group of fools who combine biological degeneration with sociological arrogance, lacking the most basic self-care abilities, yet looking down on everyone else.

The so-called social elites are just a group of nouveau riche who want to buy everything with money, enjoy mocking the poor, and are pretentious.

Those swindlers are the only ones who "honestly" exploit greed in this crazy era.

The Viennese commoners are a bunch of good-for-nothings who spend their days indulging in beer, fish balls, and fried pork chops. They are content with their comfortable lives, fearing both officials and rebels, and indifferent to everything else. The Viennese university students, on the other hand, are full of maxims, dreams, and reason, each wanting to conquer the world, but often can't even wash their own clothes properly.

He constantly talks about unifying Germany and liberating Europe, yet he's jealous of the living expenses sent by his parents in the countryside.

University students in the Austrian Empire despised the powerful and wealthy, yet longed to join them immediately. They cherished freedom, but enforced the strictest hierarchical rules within the student council.

The satire of the German states is rather stereotypical:
“Prussians need to wind up their clocks before going out.”

"The Bavarians are all good-for-nothings."

"The Saxons are a bunch of opportunistic merchants who have never eaten fish."

"Hanoverians like to steal."

"No one can find the capital of Liechtenstein on a map."

"The Swiss love meetings."

"The Dutch wanted to be the England within the Confederation."

"Danish people don't speak German."

"There is no Pope in Rome."

"I've heard that the most greedy people are Jews, but I've seen the most greedy people are Italians. I've heard that the most despicable people are Gypsies, but I've seen the most despicable people are Italians."

We Venetians are not Italians. Lombardy is Lombardy, and Italy is Italy.

The British are a bunch of unscrupulous merchants who love to peddle outdated junk, a bunch of pirates who frequently break agreements, and a perverted nation where men wear skirts. They like black people and claim monkeys as their ancestors.

The British love to pursue hegemony, interfere in the internal affairs and wars of other countries, frequently incite rebellions, have bizarre thought processes, always steal other countries' patents, aspire to be the leader yet are stingy, are poor and demoralized, and spend their days spreading rumors in the newspapers.
Of course, Franz set up a large part of the British rhythm, but we can't blame him, after all, the British weren't idle either.

The French are morally corrupt, politically corrupt, and change governments more frequently than women change clothes. They have even changed countries several times, faster than kings: the Bourbon dynasty, the Orleans dynasty, the Second French Republic, and the Second French Empire.

French love is cheap, like fast food; even if they want to maintain it, someone will force them out to keep the turnover rate.

Russians are synonymous with being simple-minded, crude, foolish, blind, and barbaric. They are the poor relatives of His Majesty the Emperor, but while others want money, they want lives.

These plays satirized almost everyone, and of course, the Viennese wouldn't let themselves off the hook either.

For example, Viennese people must add a phrase or two of a foreign language when speaking German to show their identity; it might be Latin, French, Czech, or some less common language within the empire.

They like to speak Italian to Germans, German to Italians, Gypsy to Jews, and Yiddish to Gypsies.

On the one hand, they mock the powerful and wealthy, on the other hand, they are terrified when they hear courtly German, and they worship uniforms, flags, medals and the like.

Overall, it was mostly humorous, but the writers' satire of Viennese bureaucrats and police caught Franz's attention.