Stefan Raab is “back in town”: How the show master is shaking up the media landscape

Stefan Raab is back – and with him his mocking, cheeky humor. While critics dismiss him as “eternal yesterday”, fans celebrate him as a “redeemer” from the corset of what comedy is (still) allowed to do today. This time the celebrity column is about a man who could be the best ratings Jesus of all time in our RTL's “Passion”!

Nobody can get past him these days. He's back – Stefan Raab, the merciless careerist with the broad, infectious grin. The man who just punched the former professional boxer in the face and then wrote a hit song with the lyrics. The man who now jokes ironically and cheekily that he's “the new boss of RTL.”

A lot has been written about the TV mastermind in recent days. Of course, the great media interest was initially accompanied by curiosity about what the 57-year-old would look like after leaving the TV business in 2015. Then he climbed down an oversized staircase into a boxing ring like a god, got beaten up and celebrated his third lost boxing match like a victory. And the ratings proved him right.

Now Raab is back on the big stage, not on linear TV, but “only” on the streaming platform RTL+, but it is certainly only a matter of time before the “new boss of RTL” will be seen on regular TV again.

Raab's new show: provocative, musical – familiar!

This Wednesday, after his big TV comeback, his new, much-heralded show “Du gewinnst hier nicht die Million” followed – a mixture of “TV-Total” and “Schlag den Raab”, combined with interludes that once again show his exceptional musical talent. Time will tell whether that really achieved everything in the end to get people to tune in long-term. You don't have to like the butcher's son with the broad smile, but his ability to polarize people in a way that drives them is perhaps one of his greatest strengths.

Because in a time when many artists and presenters are subordinating themselves to “wokeness,” Raab seems like an unbridled anachronism, someone who doesn’t bend and, in defiance of everything, “raabs” as he pleases.

While some see him as a backwards provocateur who calls women “chicks with hairspray,” others celebrate him for his ruthless art and his very own “dirty humor.” The funny loudmouth can be sure of a conscientious gasp of gasps in media houses with political correctness and patronizing views on what humor is these days. Mimimi, Stefan Raab made a nasty joke. Was it perhaps misogynistic?

Or is it perhaps even age-shaming when he makes fun of the pop titan? You can get worked up about it and write long treatises about decency and morality or simply say: It's good that someone is finally saying what many people are thinking. Dieter Bohlen's soft-focus TV portrait looks a bit ridiculous for a 70-year-old. But here too: The composer will certainly take it with humor. After all, he warmly recommended Raab to RTL.

Disrespectful and successful: Raab's proven formula

Moralizing? Doesn't work with someone like Raab. His success is the best proof that people are fed up of being told what to laugh at and what not. Raab makes fun of everything and everyone. No one is safe from him. And anyone who thinks that just because he's now “at home at RTL” he'll spare the new family members is wrong. Because Raab has stayed true to himself. And so it suits his new station in particular to allow him, for example when he ironically pokes fun at the in-house reality staff. Who is Calvin Kleinen, please? Do we need to know that? Is he famous?

Raab's dig at reality TV and its protagonists is nothing more than clever media criticism wrapped up in a joke. The new Bachelor? Why not Stefan Raab? He's finally an “influencer” too! Jokes about Natascha Ochsenknecht and her sons “Judas” and “Speedy Gonzales”? Of course! Especially when the presenter himself ironically flirts with the idea of ​​playing Jesus in “The Passion” soon. Yes, you're laughing! But no one would be surprised if it actually happened that way and the musician Joey Kelly played the Virgin Mary at the new Savior's side.

Critics say that our RTL is desperate to let a provocateur from yesterday help shape the station's future. But the quotes tell a completely different story. It's a bit like: The prodigal son has come home and is dismantling dusty inventory. But we also live in a world where people no longer just throw everything away without thinking. The motto is: upcycling. Raab has shown that he can put old and new together well with the start of his new show.

To do this, he doesn't even stop at public broadcasting and takes on one of its most famous faces. The undisputed pop singer and dream ship captain Florian Silbereisen, one of the worst actors ever, is a constant victim of Raab's merciless laughter.

One may find fault with his dogged ambition, with his disrespect for any authority or even with his ignorance of those who want to dictate what humor should look like today. None of this changes the fact that we urgently need someone like him, who enjoys peeing into the pool of our heated debate culture.

To all those who are bothered by the word “chicks”: Maybe you should just listen to a few “a***f*** songs” every now and then! Raab polarizes and provokes as ever. His return shows that he still knows how to hit the nerve of the audience.