“THE RICH GIRL AND THE POOR BOY”: BINARY OPPOSITIONS IN YEŞİLÇAM MELODRAMAS A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES OF MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY BY BAŞAK YEŞİL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION MAY 2004 Approval of the Graduate School of Social Sciences ________________ Prof. Dr. Sencer Ayata Director I certify that this thesis satisfies all the requirements as a thesis for the degree of Master of Science ________________ Prof. Dr. Feride Acar Head of Department This is to certify that we have read this thesis and that in our opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Science ________________ Assist. Prof. Dr. Necmi Erdoğan Supervisor Examining Committee Members Assist. Prof. Dr. Necmi Erdoğan ________________ Instructor Dr. Barış Çakmur ________________ Instructor Dr. Adnan Akçay ________________ ABSTRACT “THE RICH GIRL AND THE POOR BOY”: BINARY OPPOSITIONS IN YEŞİLÇAM MELODRAMAS Yeşil, Başak M.S., Department of Political Science and Public Administration Supervisor: Assist. Prof. Dr. Necmi Erdoğan May 2004, 114 pages This thesis is an attempt to analyze the binary oppositions between the “rich” and the “poor” as well as the “good” and the “evil” in the 1960s’ Yeşilçam melodramas. It analyzes the narrative structure of Yeşilçam melodramas which interweave fiction with certain embedded social values and argues that a number of cooperating and contending discourses interanimate each other in the form of binary oppositions in Yeşilçam narratives. The cinematic representation of the lower and upper class is analyzed, underlining how the relation between the two was constructed by Yeşilçam melodramas. The study focuses on the symbolic world established by Yeşilçam narratives through the use of common meanings attributed to characters (e.g. delikanlı and züppe), values (e.g. honesty, modesty, ostentation and artificialness) and places (e.g. meyhane and coffeehouse). Keywords: Yeşilçam melodramas, representation, binary oppositions, social hierarchies, the good, the evil, the rich, the poor. iii ÖZ “ZENGİN KIZ VE FAKİR OĞLAN”: YEŞİLÇAM MELODRAMLARINDA İKİLİ KARŞITLIKLAR Yeşil, Başak Yüksek Lisans, Siyaset Bilimi ve Kamu Yönetimi Tez Yöneticisi: Yrd. Doç. Dr. Necmi Erdoğan Mayıs 2004, 114 sayfa Bu çalışma 1960’larda çekilmiş Yeşilçam melodramlarındaki “zengin” ve “yoksul” ile “iyi” ve “kötü” arasındaki ikili karşıtlıkları analiz etmeye yöneliktir. Burada, Yeşilçam melodramlarının kurgu ile yerleşik sosyal değerleri örerek oluşturdukları anlatısal yapı analiz edilmiştir ve Yeşilçam anlatıları tarafından ikili karşıtlıklar şeklinde kurulmuş, birbirleriyle işbirliği ve çatışma içinde yer alan bir dizi söylem ortaya konmuştur. Bu çalışma, 1960’ların Yeşilçam melodramlarının, karakterlere (delikanlı ve züppe gibi), değerlere (dürüstlük, alçakgönüllülük, gösteriş ve yapaylık gibi) ve mekanlara (meyhane ve kahvehane gibi) ortak anlamlar yükleyerek oluşturduğu sembolik dünya üzerine odaklanmıştır. Anahtar kelimeler: Yeşilçam melodramları, temsil, ikili karşıtlıklar, sosyal hiyerarşiler, iyi, kötü, zengin, yoksul iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my sincere appreciation to Assist. Prof. Dr. Necmi Erdoğan not only for his patience and guidance but also for the inspiring discussions we had throughout this study. Thanks also go to the examining committee members, Instructor Dr. Adnan Akçay and Instructor Dr. Barış Çakmur for their enriching contributions. I owe a lot to my family since this study would not have been completed without their support and understanding. I offer sincere thanks to lovely Berna Akkıyal for her willingness to help me throughout this study. To lovely Esra Yüksel, I owe her a lot since she has exerted great effort to help me throughout the vicissitudes of my endeavors. I also thank my companions in Ankara, Hülya Gönültaş and Tennur Baş for their patience during the depression I suffered. And finally, to beloved Yusuf Demirkol, who has made Ankara much more bearable by offering me both love and challenge. Without his presence in my life, this thesis would have never been written. v I hereby declare that all information in this document has been obtained and presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical conduct. I also declare that, as required by these rules and conduct, I have fully cited and referenced all material and results that are not original to this work. Date: 04/30/2004 Signature vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………….. iii ÖZ ……………………………………………………………………….. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS …………………………………………….. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ………………………………………………. vii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………… 1 2. MELODRAMA AS A GENRE ………………………………….. 8 2.1 The Definition of Melodrama As a Genre ………………… 8 2.2 Historicizing Melodrama ……………………………………. 9 2.3 General Narrative Characteristics of Hollywood Melodramas …………………………………. 12 3. YEŞİLÇAM MELODRAMA IN ITS HISTORICAL CONTEXT ………………………………. 19 3.1 A Succinct History of the Turkish Popular Cinema ………. 19 3.2 The Place of Yeşilçam Melodramas in the Genre ……….. 22 3.2.1 Similarities and differences ……………………………. 22 3.2 Reading the Historicity of Yeşilçam in the Turkish Modernization Process ……………………. 26 3.3.1 Cultural Tension Caused by the Turkish Modernization Process ………………………. 28 3.4 The Place of Social/Class Hierarchies in Yeşilçam Melodramas ……………………………………. 30 vii 3. GENERAL TENDENCIES IN THE NARRATIVE STRUCTURE OF YEŞİLÇAM MELODRAMAS ……………………………………. 43 4.1 General Narrative Characteristics of Yeşilçam Melodramas ………………………………… 43 4.1.1 Simplicity and Clarity …………………………………. 43 4.1.2 Fixed Signification …………………………………….. 46 4.1.3 The Dominant Role of Obstacles and Coincidences …………………….. 49 4.1.4 The Dominance of Vocal Narrative …………………. 50 4.1.5 The Body as a Site of Excessive Signification ……………………………… 51 4.1.6 The Domesticity of the Narrative ……………………. 56 4.1.7 The Use of Stereotypes ……………………………… 56 4.1.8 The personification of the social conflicts ………….. 58 4.1.9 Favorite Plotting ………………………………………. 59 4. THE DICHOTOMIZED WORLD OF YEŞİLÇAM MELODRAMAS: BINARY OPPOSITIONS …………………………………….. 61 5.1 The Good versus The Evil ………………………………… 62 5.1.1 The Goodness ………………………………………… 64 5.1.2 The Evil ………………………………………………… 73 5.2 The Poor versus the Rich …………………………………. 79 5.2.1 Delikanlı versus züppe ……………………………….. 81 5.2.2 Villa versus squatter ………………………………….. 84 5.2.3 Rakı versus champagne and whisky ……………….. 85 5.2.4 Home party versus coffeehouse ……………………. 87 viii 5.2.5 Language of the upper and lower class ……………. 90 5.3. Is Class Mobility Possible in Yeşilçam melodramas? ………………………………… 93 3.3 CONCLUSIONS ………………………………………… .. 95 REFERENCES ……………………………………………………… 108 APPENDIX A: LIST OF THE FILMS ……………………………… 112 ix CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This thesis is an attempt to analyze the narrative structure of 1960s’ Yeşilçam1 melodramas so as to show that there is a social value in these movies although they have usually been regarded as an intellectually unproductive territory. This study will argue that Yeşilçam melodrama is heteroglot2 and that, in the symbolic world created by these movies, different discourses interanimate each other in the form of binary oppositions and also interweave fiction with certain embedded social values. This thesis will focus on the cinematic representation of lower and upper class, underlining how the relation between the two was constructed by Yeşilçam melodramas. It will be argued that Yeşilçam’s representation of the poor and the rich reversed the order between the “high” and the “low” embedded in the class society. Here the primary aim is to analyze two basic and interrelated oppositions between “the rich” and “the poor” and “the good” and “the evil” represented by the Yeşilçam melodramas. I will try to examine these oppositions via a number of sub-oppositions. My aim is to analyze the symbolic world 1 Yeşilçam (literally means green pine) is the name of a street in Beyoğlu, Istanbul, where the majority of the film production companies gathered. However, the name Yeşilçam has been used in a broader sense, representing the Turkish popular cinema in general. It also refers to a specific system of production and distribution of the commercial movies, which dominated the Turkish cinema sector especially between the 1950s and 1980s. Yeşilçam was at the center of the discussions on the issues of national cinema and identity for its mimicry, plagiarism and so-called underdevelopment comparing to the Western cinema. 2 This issue will be taken up with reference to Bakthin’s conceptualization of heteroglossia. Bakthin argues for novel that it is a system of languages that mutually interanimate each other (1990). I will try to adapt his claim to Yeşilçam melodramas in the sense that there are different contending and cooperating discourses within these movies. 1 established by Yeşilçam narratives through the use of common signification by attributing agreed meanings to certain characters such as “delikanlı,” and “züppe,” values such as “honesty,” “modesty,” “ostentation,” and “artificialness,” and places such as “meyhane,” and “coffeehouse.” This study focuses on the 1960s, which was the heyday of Yeşilçam melodramas. 13 movies3 are selected, the list of which can be found in the Appendix. The movies selected for analysis represents the relation and opposition between the upper and lower class with different stories. I have randomly selected 30 movies from the archive