Cinema of Reflexivity: Hegemonic Masculinity and the Logic of Terror in Haneke’s The White Ribbon

Das Weisse Band – Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte (The White Ribbon, A German Children’s Tale, Michael Haneke, 2009) is set in the fictional village of Eichenwald in pre-World War I Germany. The now elderly school teacher (Ernst Jacobi) narrates in a reflective yet uncertain tone, recounting the “strange events” in his village as a way to shed light on what later happened in his country (alluding to Nazi Germany). He admits his account may not be accurate, relying on memory and hearsay, but feels compelled to make sense of those occurrences. The film fades in as the voice of the school teacher recalls the first strange event when the village doctor (Rainer Bock), riding home on horseback, is violently tripped by an invisible wire and breaks his collarbone. The narrator notes that when news of the accident spreads, instead of going home after school, the village children gather around Klara (Maria-Victoria Dragus), the dominant girl, and head off in the direction of the doctor’s home. 

Haneke asserts that the film is not solely about the origins of German Fascism, but rather an exploration of “…the roots of all kinds of terrorism – whether politically right, politically left or religious.”¹ His framing of violence as universal and recurring opens the door for readings of the film beyond historical accounts. Magdalena Zolkos builds on Haneke’s assertion, offering that The White Ribbon also moves beyond the usual psycho-historical reading of authoritarianism as generational and transmitted through repressive child-rearing. Instead, she suggests that the children internalise the rigid morality and logic of the dominant male figures in the village. If the children are at the root of the terror, as the school teacher suggests, their violent acts do not resist patriarchal rule but instead mutate and turn back on themselves, becoming something more terrifying.²

 Adding to Haneke’s and Zolkos’ interpretations, I argue that The White Ribbon also exposes how hegemonic masculinity – a dominant configuration of gender practices that legitimises male authority through subordination, complicity, and marginalisation³ – sustains authoritarian violence as a recurring structure. The children’s behaviors are not just learned but enact a broader system that reinforces itself through subjugation, complicity, and marginalisation. This is evident in how the children experience and internalise violence. Klara and her brother Martin (Leonard Proxauf)’s experiences of violence are shaped by their father, the village pastor (Burghart Klaussner). After the doctor’s accident, Klara, Martin, and the other children head off to the doctor’s house under the guise of care and support for their classmate. The visit makes them late for dinner, and the pastor sees their tardiness as an extreme act of disrespect to God and his authority. 

However, we don’t see the punishment enacted immediately. Instead, Haneke delays the causal act, creating the illusion that the children’s tardiness has already been dealt with – they go to bed without dinner, and life moves on. Later, the film abruptly cuts to an unsettling sequence in a dim hallway lined with doors that open into darkened rooms. Klara and Martin are summoned by their mother, who was previously seen preparing white ribbons, as if preparing instruments for a surgical procedure. (Klara and Martin are later branded with these white ribbons, which come to symbolise a conflicting message of moral purity, subservience, and public humiliation.) Martin is sent to another shadowed room, moments later emerging and holding a leather strap before disappearing into the darkened central doorway. Haneke never shows the pastor, but his presence behind the door is palpable as we hear Martin’s muffled cries with each strike. Here, Haneke replaces cause and effect with ambiguity. Is this punishment for their lateness, or for something else? The pastor’s authority is absolute, requiring no justification, and in the absence of explanation, punishment becomes an irrational, autonomous act of violence. 

Haneke states, “Children tend to take what they are told seriously, and that can become dangerous.”⁴ In Klara’s case, this danger manifests when she enacts her father’s authority in unexpected ways. After the youngest son is given permission to care for a wounded bird, Klara is seen much later in the narrative entering her father’s study and removing his beloved pet bird from its cage, with scissors in hand. We cut away, denied the closure of seeing Klara commit the mutilation or the pastor discovering it. Instead, the narrative moves on to the children’s communion. When the pastor administers the sacrament to Klara, he takes a long uncomfortable pause before proceeding. In this moment, Haneke denies resolution, forcing us to interpret why the crime is ignored.

In moments like the bird killing, Haneke refuses to engage in a “narcotized” and “anti-reflexive” representation of violence, where audiences passively consume violent imagery without questioning its origins or implications.⁵ Instead, he constructs a space of ambiguity, which Catherine Wheatley has identified as “moral reflexivity.” This mode of spectatorship resists passive consumption, especially of violence, and is central to Haneke’s cinematic ethics.⁶ This ambiguity mirrors how power operates in the village – not just through explicit enforcement, but through silent complicity and selective recognition. The pastor ignores Klara’s violent act, reinforcing a system where certain transgressions are overlooked while others are met with extreme discipline, therefore reinforcing the argument that children do not simply resist authority but repurpose its logic in unpredictable and terrifying ways.

If authoritarian violence is recursive, as Haneke suggests, what social mechanisms allow it to persist? Raewyn Connell theorises that hegemonic masculinity is not a fixed identity but a system of power maintained through social practices specific to time and place, subject to challenge. It is conditioned by three reinforcing mechanisms: subordination of those assigned lower status such as women and children; complicity – silent participation or passive acceptance by those who either benefit from aligning with power or fear to challenge it; and marginalisation, which excludes those who do not conform to its norms, regardless of class or status.⁷ The pastor, baron (Ulrich Tukur), and doctor are not simply authoritarian figures; each embodies hegemonic masculinity enacted through social practices which reinforce control and dominance within his domain of power. The pastor enforces absolute discipline, where any deviation incurs severe illogical punishment. His moral authority extends beyond his household to subordinate the school teacher (Christian Friedel), who raises suspicions about Klara and the children’s involvement in the violent occurrences, only to be silenced. Subsequently, Klara evolves into her father’s proxy, enforcing the same logic of violence in the marginalisation of Karli, the midwife (Susanne Lothar)’s son (Eddy Grahl), a young boy with Down syndrome. The children sneer at him behind the adults’ backs, and later, in an elliptical moment, he is found in a field with his eyes gouged out. Though the narrative never directly implicates Klara and the children, the school teacher’s suspicions and the film’s logic suggest their culpability, revealing how their violence extends to those deemed imperfect.

Likewise, the Baron’s authority is upheld through a practice of economic subjugation and neglect of his tenant farmers, withholding their pay, and ignoring workplace deaths. When a farmer’s wife is killed due to unsafe working conditions, her husband, fearing reprisal, remains complicit, saying nothing. The doctor, despite his outward persona as a learned man and caregiver, exploits the midwife’s labor while devaluing her for being old, unattractive, and insufficient to meet his base needs. She in turn revisits violence on the children and especially the boys in her care. The doctor ultimately discards the midwife, turning instead to molesting his own daughter. His performative façade cracks when he treats Karli’s wounds, only to recoil with indifference as the boy, now blind, cries out in fear of the darkness.

Together, the repetition of the mechanisms of hegemonic masculinity – subordination, complicity, and marginalisation – ensures authoritarian power’s survival. The White Ribbon ultimately argues that power is not simply wielded through personalities, but sustained through a network of social practices, recursively reshaping itself rather than vanishing into history. Such power hides in plain sight where hegemonic masculinity is both the engine that drives its perpetuation and the ideology that instructs each new generation in its logic. If being complicit feeds and nurtures this system, and speaking out – as in the case of the school teacher – results in banishment and erasure, then resistance becomes a dangerous act. The White Ribbon refuses to resolve the violent acts, instead leaving us with the question: If violence mutates rather than disappearing into history, how do we break the cycle of terror?

Das Weisse Band – Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte/The White Ribbon (2009 Italy/Germany/Austria/France 144 mins)

Prod Co: Wega Film, X Filme Creative Pool Prod: Stefan Arndt, Veit Heiduschka, Michael Katz, Margaret Ménégoz, Andrea Occhipinti Dir, Scr: Michael Haneke Phot: Christian Berger Ed: Monika Willi Prod Des: Christoph Kanter Cos Des: Moidele Bickel

Cast: Christian Friedel, Ernst Jacobi, Rainer Bock, Burghart Klaussner, Maria-Victoria Dragus, Susanne Lothar, Eddy Grahl, Leonie Benesch, Ulrich Tukur, Ursina Lardi, Fion Mutert, Michael Kranz, Steffi Kühnert, Leonard Proxauf

Endnotes