Dr. A. or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the ‘’Dizi’’

                I’m famous for my eye rolling among friends and family. I roll my eyes at a lot of things on a daily basis.  Turkish dizi talk, to me, undoubtedly was one of thebiggest turn offs in a conversation- avoid the topic if you want to befriend me! I would swiftly and stealthily move away from the conversation soon as someone said something along the lines of ‘’ Have you seen Ezel last night, man it was so good.’’ or ‘’ Hurrem’s neck piece last night was a stunner!’’. I did that a lot.

The first year in the university, -when I was still a sociology student- I shared a flat with two other girlfriends, Duygu and Tuğçe, from high school.  Duygu and I were doing the same major as well. So, it was basically a -together 24/7 situation- with us three girls. I loved them dearly, and they were extremely clever and talented girls who taught me something new every day. They were my event buddies, we’d chase down cheap tickets to jazz concerts and experimental theater shows. We were new in town and we wanted to get our hands on anything and everything we could. Life outside was good.

 At home, we had this 20-year-old tv barely standing on a nightstand, in the middle of our living room. Two couches and the TV was all we had in there. Every afternoon when they came back from class, they would be glued to the screen, watching reruns o Ask-I Memnu for the 100^th time. Their fascination with these shows baffled me. Once the TV lit up, there was no way you could find me in the living room. I’d tease them about their addiction, and Duygu would respond saying,’’I’m doing this for the sake of sociological research!’’. Fast forward 20 minutes, she’d be crying over the female protagonist’ troubles.  It’s still is a running gag between us. She graduated this June as a sociologist. 

After I quit my major and moved out, I didn’t get a TV for my new flat. It’s been 5 years without a TV in the living room. To tell you the truth, it has been a relief. Seeing the news and all the ‘’cheap, meaningless content’’ really worked my nerves up. Being brutally honest and self-critical here - I had an elitist approach to the matter.  On par with the decades old discussion of high and low culture, I deemed them low culture and didn’t bother. As a person who doesn’t even own a TV set at home, I must admit that my dislike of the Turkish dizi genre was uninformed. It was a strong dislike nevertheless, which looks bad on my part. How can you know that you don’t like it, if you’ve never really tried it, right?

  First of all, the most important reason of my aversion came from how it made zombies out of people. They would lose touch with reality. We live in a country of crazy fans that put down obituaries in the newspaper for a fictional character. (See link: http://www.iha.com.tr/haber-kurtlar-vadisinin-cakirina-taziye-ilani-17754/)  As a country, we lack the education that would help us make good choices when it comes to content. These days, they teach kids in elementary school something they call ‘’Media Literacy’’. I suppose that’s step towards aiding the problem. Secondly, it is actively, knowingly used to manipulate and numb people. So, it’s not only on the viewers.  And finally, I didn’t think anyone in the industry was actively working on producing better works. Whatever sells was and has been the motto for a long long time here.  Bad/trash Tv had become a reality of our lives, forcing its way in – just like the atomic bomb. It’s repercussions freak people out. Nor the viewers nor the producers of the content are willing to give up their guns. The rest of us, who find this repulsive, still must live with the fact. It’s always there in the background, literally and figuratively, making itself felt and known deeply.

Despite this, upon taking this class, I realized that there is more than one way of looking at it. Especially since it has become a global phenomenon, I’ve seen how it provides a ground for cultural exchange. And seeing how the global markets work and how other countries do, I cannot get away with putting all the blame on the people of my country anymore.  I also decided to give some credit to producers for their attempts at trying to reconcile the high and low culture. These past 10 years a few of our biggest TV hits have come from direct adaptations of very valuable literary works.

                 I still find their addictive qualities very numbing and dangerous, yet I’m also beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Even though I still find no joy in watching them myself, I understand that if there is anything I could do to improve and/or change them, I need to learn about them first. Get familiar with their ways and tried and true formulas and knock them from the inside is MY motto for now. I’m looking forward to expanding on these ideas with the help of this class, and, I hope to become less of a stranger to a phenomenon that has power over even my closest friends.