Youth of Turkey and Online TV

Netflix Turkey, Puhu TV, Blu TV and even the short series on YouTube.. Traditional Turkish TV has lost the young generations' attention  to these online platforms for alternative TV shows for a wihe ago. There are many reasons for this. 

First of all, turkish series are so exhausting to watch because of the income from the ads. Turkish youth is very much familiar with the conception of TV shows in America, because of the serious extent of internet usage. They get all they want from an American show that is at most an hour long, wheress Turkish shows on TV can last up to four hours, so that's for sure exhausting. 

Secondly, the restrictions that are arranged by the government strangle the producers and the writers for the traditional Turkish TV. TV shows are supposed to reflect the audience's lives, on the streets, they see violence, they hear cursings, they have intimate moments with their dates or even the alcohol and when they watch TV, they ser none of this. So, the restrictions on TV made the characters of TV shows unrelatable and unrealistic for the Turkish youth.

Furhermore, in my opinion, there is a huge gap between the youth and the elders. The TV shows that we watch say something about us or in other words, exposes something in us. Because of the different world views of this different generations, watching TV in a living room is not a comfortable act for a young turkish person who is in conflict with his or her family in many aspects. Though, online TV has privacy and it's somehow exclusive to the owner of the device or at least to his or her consent. 

Last but not least, online TV doesn't have a limiting timing for the shows, you don't need to go back to home when your favorite TV show's new episode is aired, you can watch it whenevef you want. Even you can pause it at the half and watch the other half when domething emergenr happens that obliges you to leave the house. It's also non dependent on the place you watch, you can watch it at home, subway or anywhere you want.

In conclusion, I think the online TV in Turkey will grow in the market share more and more in further or the traditional TV will reform itself and be able to compete with it, at least for yhe young generations.

The Presence of TV in Shows About Past Times

When we talk about the importance of TV in older times (namely, here, the 70's and prior) we are able to comprehend to an extent, but are we really able to grasp the importance of television in the lives of people back then?

Shows such as "That 70s Show" and "F is For Family" are set in the 1970's United States, and they not only provide good comedy, they also bring into view the social aspects, and problems of daily life.

One element that is prominent in these shows (which is still present in some shows today) is the importance of a television set in the house, and the notion of TV itself.

In the latter show that I mentioned, which is an animated series, the main character is a father of 3, who works in a meager job and has a lot of dull and frustrating responsibilities, whose purest pleasure, and best way of letting off some steam is coming home at the end of the day, cracking open a beer, and watching TV.
During the course of the show, he buys a color TV set that he can barely afford (to compete with his neighbor and to host a football party), acts like it is the end of the world when his son breaks the TV...
In an episode he screams at the TV and throws an empty beer can at it, and claims it's his way of relaxing.
There's also a fictional TV show within the show that is the most popular thing on said TV. He places this show over all his other responsibilities, and is reluctant to miss it even in the expense of missing important social obligations.

"That 70s Show" is does not have a fictional realm of TV and thus it reflects the entertainment medium of the time accurately. TV playing a big role in all the characters' lives, and their references to each other being often about 1970's television programming, one can visually get a glimpse of the importance of TV at those times.
In an episode where the television set is demolished by boys being boys with a bowling ball, the father states his desire that the TV be replaced by a much bigger and superior one , with the top qualities of a television in the 70s, with such passion that one emphasizes with the mindset of older times.
They watch reruns, get latest technology (such as Betamax),, and the show really reflects the experience of wathicng television in the 70s, especially with the presence of an incredibly large TV remote bith gigantic, but few, buttons.
The show also has scenes, in which the characters - to explain something - are set in the clothes of, and talk like the TV content that they're parodying. These include a wide range, from 1950's social responsibility ads to shows of that era. The scenes are made masterfully, as the costumes, diction, and even the camera and visual styles are perfectly on point, allowing modern viewers a very true glimpse into now begotten forms of visual content.

All in all, I feel these shows give a very realistic depiction of those times, and just how prominent TV was in the lives of humans back then, and being in an entertaining visual form, I feel it works much better than historic articles referring to those times.
When I watch these show with my parents, I can see the nostalgia in their eyes.

from manhood to warrior character

Söz - Star Tv

Yesterday, i read the article about Turkish dizi and its relationship with the actual politics. Writer is a student of the Ankara University and he mention that the dizis ''Savaşcı'' (warrior)in Fox, ''Söz'' in Star Tv, and ''İsimsiz'' Kanald. Their issues are state- manhood- militarism which are produce the narration about the state is the most blessed thing, in a way. Also, the perception of manhood is produced again again. It makes a definition that manhood is equal to the warrior man, rougly.

İsimsizler- Kanal D

However, it is also interesting to think with the state attitude towards the Kurds. According to writer Another issue is that these series have been circulated before the referendum. It is not surprising that these series have gained a serious rating in the ongoing political atmosphere of anti-Kurdish politics.

Additionally, many recent cases have been reported; Countries that have acquired post-colonial politics have put cinema and television channels at an important point to build the legitimacy of colonial policies. There are many examples of this in history. For example, in the US; Vietnam, Afghanistan and so on. Rambo-type films were put on a market to postpone human rights abuses following the occupations or to keep them from being a subject of debate. 

What a coincidence?

Tv show portrays the family on how it should be?

Love for Rent is a classic TV show in the genre of romantic comedy which stars Elçin
Sangu as “Defne”, Barış Arduç as “Ömer”, Salih Bademci as “Sinan”, Nergis Kumbasar as
“Neriman”, Levent Ülgen as “Necmi” and Onur Büyüktopçu as “Koray”. two different kinds of family types can be seen on this show.

A traditional family model which is Defne’s family, and a modern and wealthy family model which is Ömer’s

family. According to the results of the my observation , several people pointed

out that Defne’s family is in fact resembling a traditional family, whereas the other respondants

stated that the traditional family was put in the show only to make the modern family more

recognizable. Those people who said that it was not very much like a traditional family

pointed out the economical state of the family as a result of their thinking. And some people

thought that the show depicts the modern family model better and it does not reflect traditional

one as good as the modern becuase traditional families are economically weaker that how they

portrayed it on the show.

These comments from the people of the fan of the show that audience seperates the

traditional family from the modern one in their mind acoording to the financial state of the family

and being modern in the way that people dress. This shows us that the traditional family gets out

of the real norms of being a traditional family and adds some elements into that.

The comments who considered themselves more connected to the traditional family

model reflected their thoughts on how they felt the family relationships and connections were

portrayed on the show, and how correct was these portayals. The comment of K. G. is

related to this issue.

The traditional families in the real world have much more connections than the modern

families in a broad sense. The range of the family members is much more extended from the

grandparents’ relatives to the grand children. Thus, this wide range of close people brings

intimacy and powerful emotional bonds between members of the family. There are always some

powerful figures, like a grandfather or the father itself, whose words are the final choice when

there is something to decide on concerning the whole family. Defne’s family on the show fits this

traditional family structure and it is similar in many ways. First of all, the powerful figure in

Defne’s family is her grandmother, who rejects the values that come with a modern family

structure. Also, the close and intimate neighbor relationships on the show matches with the real

world neighbor relationships.

Considering this comment and the other comments that were very much like this one, it is

possible to surmise that the absense of such relationships and the deficits on such relationshps in

the society draw people to watch this kind of tv shows that portrays the traditional family. In a

way, the tv show portrays the family on how it should be, and that attracts people’s attentions

who have similar values of the family that is being portrayed, but not enough. The soap opera

shows us a certain type of family life and structure.

Conservatism and Reality TV

After talking about the rise of reality TV in class today, I was intrigued by the connection between the rise of the trend and conservatism. I know some about how we perceive conservatism different here than they do in the US. Still, on principle it seems to me that they are two irreconcilable concepts and the situation in Turkey proves it. Here, with the rise of conservatism reality TV shows took a big hit. They either disappeared completely or completely changed form and tone. They went undercover, they went incognito. They are still reality shows that are up in everybody’s business but the way they are framed make them more socially acceptable. After all they still fulfill the primitive need for voyeurism.  For example, ‘’Yetenek Sizsiniz’’ has been a big hit for a good couple of years now. But it is ethically acceptable because people display a variety of ‘’skills’’ if you can call them that.

We used to have Big Brother. As it is in anywhere in the world, people would kiss in half visible corners, try to snuggle in bed together when lights go off and la di da… It would be headline news the next day! As conservatism became the trending view people started to question the ethical aspects of these shows from a religious point of view and voices were raised. Slowly the shows became extinct.  Now we straight up have match making programs that raise less eye brows- weirdly enough if you ask me.

Upon realizing this reverse relationship, we have here against what US has against the pond I did some readings and came across very interesting researches that show a strong link between voting tendencies and reality shows. One research done by Experian asserts that in the top 20 programs ‘’super-democrats’’ watch, only 3 of them are reality shows while the number goes up to 9 with conservatives.  This is usually tied to conservative tendency to compete and the ‘’American Dream’’ idea that promises success to hard workers.  This is why ‘’The Apprentice’’ and the ‘’Biggest Loser’’ makes the cut. And I think this is where the difference between US conservative consumer and Turkish conservative consumer; American conservatism is tightly related to economic ideology and has less to do with religion. But in Turkey, conservatism mostly stands for an ethical and religious concern.

 The neo-liberal conservatism in Turkey, in recent years expanded to more capitalist shores as well so we see some exceptions to the rule. The competitive spirit is on the rise and it is leaking into every aspect of life. The most bizarre example to this would be the Quran reciting competition TRT put up during Ramadan. This is a state funded show that combines religion and competition. How odd is that? Even though it was fanatically followed by a few, it also had some backlash from conservatives as well, so I guess Turkey isn’t fully transformed into a warped American capitalist religious craze just yet!

LGBT in Turkish TV

Turkish TV experienced a LGBT bedroom scene in 2010 on the show “Kılıç Günü" by Osman Sınav. This scene was only contains a half naked gay couple lying on the bed, and the scene significantly appeared on the Turkish media after in a few hours it was published. Osman Sınav horribly justified itself by stating that they displayed the immorality of this community while RTUK President wanted to penalise the discussions about the show on TV which denied by the majority of the board of RTUK.    

Even these intolerable comments witnessed by Turkish audiences in 2010s, the LGBT characters have been presented on national TV since 1993. In those years, this phenomena started on the Show TV’s Sevginin Gücü by the actor Volkan Severcan. In following years, the same actor took place on ATV’s Kaldırım Çiçeği as Memoş who is a gay pimp of two prostitute, performed by popular actresses of the era, Sibel Can and Hande Ataizi. Kaldırım Çiçeği was also important for LGBT community due to its trans characters and LGBT clubs. These two shows’ producer Türker İnanoğlu made another show, Yapayanlız that introduced lesbianism to screen in 2001.

Kampüsistan (2003) and Mükemmel Çift (2010) and even one of the important shows of Turkish TV Bir İstanbul Masalı (2003) had also gay characters in recent years. But some of these shows were cencored in some way such as cut scenes on Bir İstanbul Masalı and Kılıç Günü at the revives of the shows or take out parts of Mükemmel Çift despite they were taped or actors performed the scenes were fired from other shows (Mükemmel Çift, Tuğrul Tülek as main character).

The audiences exposed stories, characters, situations, decisions, lives on TV is the society itself, especially in the high rating owner countries such as Turkey. Whatever they see on TV becomes a part of their life as a knowledge or a possible experience. Even refusing the feed served doesn’t block the apparency of it. Today’s media-raised children are growing up with ignorance of this concept. It doesn't mean they wouldn’t be familiar with LGBT community, but obviously the process will be more challenging without the significant force of media. Authorities are also aware of this power of TV, thats why the censorships mentioned above are overlapped with the period where the conservative political party AKP in-charged. And also it explains the attitude of RTUK to these shows, where the global approach is tendency to contain LGBT characters on shows which is a part of real life. 

These concise yet complete moves of Turkish productors show that the audiences haven’t a problem with LGBT characters and it doesn’t effect the ratings. The shows mentioned above were mostly popular and trendy shows of their times. There is no considerable relation between unpopularity and LGBT content. Contrary, the international shows embraced LGBT are also trendy in Turkey and everywhere now. 

To sum, the mentality of political parties should be less reflected on media, cinema and TV; thus the reailty of humanity will be screened freely and seminally.

Related Videos

Sevginin Gücü Episode 1

Intro of Kaldırım Çiçeği

HUMOR FED DRAMA ON TV

It’s been always a controversy to make jokes about some particular issues on TV. However now, on TV, it’s evident that the most successful comedy shows are all going in with these taboos which were seen in red zone. This kind of a process happens step by step and in my opinion, HBO’s Six Feet Under was the one which revolutionized TV, at least the American TV.

The Show was circling around a family that runs a funeral house and every time an episode begins, the audience sees someone die, sometimes in a funny way and sometimes in a very dramatic situation. In five seasons, at some point, the deaths, sometimes more than one in an episode, become something very random for the audience.The show makes you to take your body as something material as it is and I think, for an instance when the family’s daughter Claire puts some corpse’s body part to her ex boy friend’s locker, it’s a very smart thing to do on TV. The whole show is a critic on our rituals towards death and how we take our bodies so serious. And of course, there is humor in it, because from death’s perspective, our lives are joke. Smallest differences in our lives may cause us to die, and after it’s just a corpse. However, the show doesn’t mix drama and humor crudely, it’s not a rough comedy, it also has the most delicate touch on the emotional side of the issue. Until then, 2001, when the first episode aired, death was some kind of a taboo on TV. The show challenged this taboo and succeeded with many positive critics.

After the Six Feet Under’s finale in 2005, The Office and Arrested Development, two situation comedy shows appeared on TV that deal with the most controversial taboos such as racism, terrorism, incest relationships. Or Sarah Silverman Program, in which the comedian Sarah Silverman literally takes a taboo in every episode as a challenge and brings a funny story about them. I think they all became successful, because Six Feet Under cleared the way from taboos by starting with the “death”. Now there are too many shows that mixes humor with drama, such as Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Scmidt or Orange is the New Black. The audience realized that it’s okay to laugh at and get ease with things that we are so afraid of, and maybe deal with them. I think it was a necessary step in the collective consciousness and I hope some day in Turkey, we won't get scared to laugh at anything. I want to put an end to this blog post with a quote by Joan Rivers on CNN when she gets challenged about her offensive jokes: “Life is very tough, and if you can make a joke to make something easier and funny, do it!”.

Sitcom as the Hardest Genre

Among the TV genres, I think hardest genre to create successful products is Sitcoms not only because it is hard to laugh people but also they have to be continuously funny and interesting. It is interesting that Sitcoms are mostly based on pure humor meaning that even the most emotional scenes have some humorous context. For example, I was watching the American version of The Office, which is also my favorite Sitcom, and I’ve realized that I laugh even at the saddest moments of it. Since I get used to laugh at the main character Michael’s gestures and reactions, I couldn’t feel upset when he had to break up with love of his life.

 

(Even he was actually crying because he lost his love of his life, it is obvious that the intention is to make the audience laugh.)

I wonder why there are no sad moments in sitcoms and if the producers make the saddest moments funny on purpose because even the strongest dramas have some humorous context or at least some funny conversations that is included in the scene while sitcoms are completely based on comic events. 

On the other hand, for the dramas, it is usually easy to make people cry with an emotional sound track. I have a Spanish colleague who doesn’t speak Turkish but when we watched the final episode of the first season of Kara Sevda together with her, she was shocked and crying because the main character Nihan was screaming and crying when she heard her brother’s unexpected suicide. The sound track was so strong and Neslihan Atagül's acting was so impressive that my colleague doesn’t need to understand the words to understand what is happening. Anyone who watches that scene would easily cry without knowing the characters and the story. 

(It begins on the fourth minute) 

Based on these two examples, I think that it is really hard to produce sitcoms than to produce dramas. For the sitcoms, audience needs to know the characters and create some connections with them, they are usually local and makes sense only for the people who know the culture. On the other hand, to produce successful dramas seems easier since to make people cry is easier than to make people laugh. 

An Observation on The Seperate Effects of Two Shows on Youth

Reflecting on my earlier school years (namely early high-school and prior) I have realized certain turning points on how my peers behaved, and these turning points were induced by television. (Note that this post is based on the personal observations of my friends and I, so I fear objectivity is out of the question. However, no offence or any attempt at a definition of socially correct behavior is intended.)

One of these turning points is the dawn of Kurtlar Vadisi: The show that suddenly spawned incredible numbers of mafia wannabes. Prior to this show, I recall many boys around my age to have different interests, in their youthful quest to develop a personality. Given the inclination of a certain aspect of Turkish culture, many sought to establish themselves as culturally appropriate badasses, however the traits they displayed, the way they dressed and such were relatively diverse, and many held a variety of interests. It all changed with the popularization of Kurtlar Vadisi - A Mafia Dizi.
All of a sudden, around 80% of the boys in my school, and - based on observations - around 60-70% of boys in Ankara - started to wear black, woolen trenchcoats, started tapping their heads together, instead of the usual kiss on the cheek, were heavily invested in arabesk music.... The most striking aspect of their transformation however was that they actually formed miniature mafia-like communities. They found it offensively odd when someone didn't fit their expectations of a "proper man" (mind you that we were but children), and they mercilessly spurned - and even physically assaulted - their own, had they had done something out of the "ordinary". I remember a boy, who was a fan of a Turkish rock band, that was being chastised by his "gang" for it, and I remember him denying his fascination with the band as if to save his life. This group of would-be mobsters were a friendly bunch just a few years before, who were open to new things, and tolerant towards varieties of ideas. They had suddenly become different people, as if possessed by spirits of the Turkish mafia: Ubi sunt? Many of them, if not all, have still not formed personalities of their truest inner thoughts, because any developing aspect of their youth has been assimilated into a glorified mafia culture. I say this, because I've known the persons that they were, prior to their alteration, I remember how they used to be.

The girls around my age group were similarly effected by a tv show - though not on such a grand scale as the boys - and by a specific character in said tv show, that seemingly altered their personality almost irreversably. This character was Selin Yerebakan from the sitcom Avrupa Yakası. Defined as "Tiki" by society, many girls, who had even a slight inclination, suddenly had a drastic change in the way they dressed, and the way they acted, but above all, the way they talked.
Aspiring to the manner Selin conversed, their speech became the most exaggerated form of articulation possible for the Turkish language. They warped words into forms that sparked an irritatingly unnecassary amount of pink heart shapes floating around a person's mind, their stretched vowels pierced the ears of those that were not too busy trying to "earn their favor".... They were also the epitomy of conformity. They were the ones who'd follow what was supposed to be popular, and behave like popularity was the only virtue a person would need. Like princesses turned queens by Selin's example, they would wear the latest fashion, own the latest mobile phones, and constantly compete in an unforgiving social competition based on superficiality. What seemed interesting however, is that this didn't seem to cost them a single penny. They had mafia money.

A somewhat pleasant side to observe in all this, was that there formed a harmony between the "mafia kids" who had their parents' money in their pockets, and their demanding "Tiki" girlfriends. The boys would have a popular girl around their arm to show off their social status, and to hold as a reason to pick a fight with another potential candidate or rival, and the girls would have a bad boy who'd give them his undivided attention, and buy them an unnecessary amount of expensive things. Some of them even got married.

Luckily -seemingly -, these changes mostly influenced those who were born around 1991-1995. I say luckily because, even though these masses of specific TV incuded personalities are still around, things seem to have levelled off in later born individuals, at least, to my knowledge.

The question that comes to my mind is, what kind of people they'd be today, if not for those two shows? Would they have been the same indiviuals of a herd, but in a less intense level? Would they have diversified, and have learned to independently practice a sort of non-conforming personality?

I at least take comfort in the fact that - as I said in my previous post - some things like Fox Kids still reside in them. Yet it saddens me that, where they would talk of Fox Kids, or video games, or such pleasures prior to their mental takeover when alone, they will deny any knowledge of such things should but a single person from their world be present.

They may have always had inclinations towards becoming the persons that they are today, or perhaps they were just young people going through youth. However, it seems clear to me that TV gave them - at the very least - a truly powerful push.

Problems of duration of Turkish TV Shows

          In Turkey, generally, duration of a Turkish TV show is between 100 and 120 minutes. However in the world, the duration is really different. For example in America, a lot of tv series' durations are between 20 to 40 minutes. Longer durations cause a lot of problems for actresses, actors and for the people working in the Tv set. In Turkey, a lot of protests happened against the durations of Turkish TV shows by the actors and actresses. Because of the durations, they need to work more on their parts in the scenario and they cannot have enough time to relax. A lot of TV show writers protest the durations.* 
         
          In addition to that, one of the reason of the long duration time is trying to raise money by advertising. Because the costs of TV shows are increased and to balance the cost, the writers wrote some parts just to fill in the time and make it longer so that they can get money with advertisement.**          
          
          In my opinion, the duration is really too long and it has an easy way to understand that, a summary of an episode takes, generally, 45 minutes and after we watch a summary of a TV show, we can understand everything and we do not see unnecessary parts in the summary. However, in an American series the summary part is between 30 seconds to 2 minutes. I think that is a good point to understand and compare the duration problem.

*http://www.sozcu.com.tr/hayatim/kultur-sanat-haberleri/dizi-sektorunde-isyan-bayragi-acildi/

**http://www.milliyet.com.tr/dizi-sureleri-niye-cok-uzun-/magazin/ydetay/2198853/default.htm