Immediately following the opening, the audience is introduced to Sunny’s nosy, elderly neighbor, Mrs. Pfeiffer, who yells at Sunny from stories bellow in the apartment’s courtyard to check clean out her window. Mrs. Pfeiffer consistently openly monitors Sunny, judging her windows, looking in her trash, and submitting a heated complaint to the building manager that she is a nuisance to the neighbors for her “loud music,” “entertaining men,” and for the “pigeon nest” under the window that Mrs. Pfeiffer had previously told her to clean. Mrs.
Pfeiffer is a caricature of an older generation of Germans and simultaneously, through her intense surveillance of and attempts at policing Sunny’s lifestyle, represents a feeling of being watched that was likely relatable to many citizens of East Germany. Instead of submitting to the pressure Mrs. Pfeiffer place on her to conform, Sunny acts out towards her. When Mrs. Pfeiffer tries to get her kicked out with the aforementioned complaints, Sunny responds by trying to get her neighbors to sign an agreement that they are not disturbed by her presence in the building.
When this fails, Sunny takes out her frustration in a small act of violence in stepping on the elderly woman hand’s with the heel of her stilettos. It’s worth noting that despite her unpleasantness, Mrs. Pfeiffer is shown (presumably) voluntarily helping the apartment building in ways that benefit all of its tenants through acts like cleaning the staircase and tending to the communal garden. Citizens like her are necessary to uphold a socialist society.
As antiquated and judgmental as the complaints she submitted may be, it is in the best interest in the community as a whole that Sunny would better maintain her unit, keep quiet, and minimize the potential threat of inviting in men. Sunny is often judged for her sexual life in the film, not just her by elderly neighbor Mrs. Pfeiffer, but by many of the people she is close to. Ideally members of a group would act as a support system for each other, as the members within subcultures of punk attempt to, but the members of The Tornadoes only perpetuate the sexist standards she faces.
When Sunny is assaulted by a band member, the others sees her at blame. As they understood she had previously engaged in casual sex with other men, they interpreted her refusal as rude. Even the band’s other female singer, who one may assume would have greater sympathy, never speaks out on Sonny’s behalf. Sonny’s friend Harry similarly believes that unrequested attention and assistance he presents her should amount to her settling down with him, despite the fact that she has clearly expressed she does not have feeling towards him.
Even in the view from her window, a man in the apartment across from her, intentionally exposes his nude body to her, pleasing himself, when he catches her looking outside. Just as she can’t escape surveillance even in her own home, she is unable to escape men blatantly disrespecting her sexual autonomy. Mrs. Pfeiffer’s surveillance of Sunny, while inconsequential in comparison, can be likened to the surveillance punk youths were subjected to. While it could be said that all citizens of the GDR were monitored by the government, the punk movement specifically was targeted by the Ministry for State Security, or Stasi.
Through the Stasi’s secret police forces, the GDR was able to very effectively spy on its citizens. The Stasi initially bribed or threatened punk youths for information, but progressed to infiltrating the music scene with their own undercover agents. Because of surveillance, Sunny did not have the privilege or privacy to live the lifestyle she desired within her own home. Similarly, GDR punks, even in the niche communities they had built for themselves, could not find solace from government surveillance. But also like Sunny, they did not submit to the pressure to conform and continued to act defiantly regardless of being watched.
While Sunny did have to confront judgment and even the possibility of losing her apartment, members of the punk community unfortunately often faced much worse punishments, like jail time for things like the lyrics of their songs. Sunny is deeply concerned with creating a personal identity through the means of exterior changes. She has styled herself very distinctly with bold, metallic eye makeup and thin drawn on eyebrows, which she is shown applying multiple times throughout the film, highlighting the effort involved in creating the image she wants to portray.
The frivolity of Sunny’s makeup and various clothing choices, like brightly colored high heels are a stark contrast between her and the bleakness of her environment. Within her outfits she often contrasts very casual elements with more formal pieces, such as wearing her bright, metallic high heels with a pair of fraying cutoff denim jeans. Pieces like her jeans, a leather jacket and an oversized buttoned down shirt, along with her cropped hair cut add a masculine, or at least androgynous, edge to her persona.
Even in her performance outfits, which tend to contain materials associated with femininity like lace or sequins, she is always wearing pants. While by 1980 a woman wearing pants would not be seen radical, it still adds a sense of modernity to her wardrobe when compared to the other musicians she performs with. This effect is exaggerated when Sunny is engaging with the other female characters in the film, like her other female band mate, who sports long flowing hair and low cut tops or the other female singer they tour with who is shown performing in a long pink gown.
While she styles herself this way during the time-span during which the film takes place, her vanity is surrounded with her own framed beauty shots featuring some very different looks, such as her in a sleek black turtle neck with her hair styles in an afro, or another of her with bleached blonde hair. These snapshots indicate that her style is not a concrete act of self expression but a product of an ongoing struggle to find her identity. Sunny is mocked by characters in the film such as the tour’s host for trying to imitate the American actress and singer Liza Minelli.
While this initially appears as just teasing, Sunny is shown practically costumed as Liza Minelli in a sequined fringe top, her red hair pulled back and obscured in a beaded headpiece and large fake eyelashes. These additional elements make her likeness to the American performer more obvious and also fit perfectly with her already familiar look of drawn on eyebrows and dramatic metallic eyeshadow. The affect is completed when she begins singing the lyrics Ralph wrote her into a dimly lit cabaret. Sunny’s most memorable performances, this one in the cabaret and her one in the opening sequence are of songs written in English.
Even the presumably self given title “Sunny” she requests to be called rather than her birth name Ingrid, and subsequently the tittle of the movie itself, is in English rather than using an equivalent German word like “sonnig. ” By dressing in a way that emulates the American musician Liza Minelli while singing her theme in English, she gives the impression that perhaps her style and music are not just creative forms of self expression but in some ways an intentional separation from and denial of her surroundings.
