Female Characters in Turkish German Cinematic Space: an Analysis with Examples of Three Recent Films
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Female characters in Turkish German cinematic space: an analysis with examples of three recent films Michelle Robertson Bachelor of Arts (Hons) Macquarie University Department of International Studies, Faculty of Arts 20th December 2012 This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Contents 1. Introduction 1 2. Immigration and multiculturalism in Germany 5 2.1 From ―kein Einwanderungsland‖ to the ‗Multi-Kulti-Gesellschaft‘ 5 2.2 Reassessing immigration and the nation: the path to citizenship in Germany 24 2.3 Everyday multiculturalism in Germany 36 3 Nation and gender in German cinema 61 3.1 Building the nation: depicting the German man and woman 61 3.2 Gendered nation and gendered immigration: a brief history of post-war German cinema 72 3.3 ‗Turkish-German cinema‘ and after: at home in transnational space 86 4. Analysing transnationalism in film: theoretical frameworks 120 4.1 Concepts of national cinema 120 4.2 Terminological considerations 130 4.3 Feminist perspectives and film analysis 143 4.4 Film selection 146 5. Film analyses 154 5.1 Head-On/Gegen die Wand (dir. Fatih Akın, 2004) 154 5.2 The Edge of Heaven/Auf der anderen Seite (dir. Fatih Akın, 2007) 180 5.3 When We Leave/Die Fremde (dir. Feo Aladağ, 2010) 202 6. Turkish-German female identities in transnational cinematic space 225 7. Conclusion 241 Bibliography 244 Filmography 260 ii Abstract This thesis shows how the female characters of recent ‗Turkish-German‘ films are situated in transnational, frequently transcultural space, in which they have greater self-determination and individuation compared to characters in earlier films. These cinematic developments reflect changing discourses around integration and multiculturalism in Germany. Three films have been chosen for close analysis. They exemplify the development of a Turkish German cinematic space, and add new migratory patterns to the history of Turkish-German interaction. By the late 20th Century, discourses of multiculturalism had found their way into mainstream media and politics in Germany, in spite of successive governments‘ statements that Germany was not a country of immigration. In the early 21st Century, changes were made to the historically restrictive German citizenship and immigration laws. The concept of integration remains a highly contested one, and as in many other countries, there has been something of a ‗crisis of multiculturalism‘ in Germany. The internal diversity of nation-states, and the external forces of globalisation and transnational ties, constantly draw attention to the difficulty of national identity as a category. Gender plays a central role in nation-building, and in how the state interacts both with its existing population and with immigrants. In cinema, too, anxieties around social change, or of promoting or reinstating certain values, were frequently expressed through gender roles. Relational gender constructions are also employed to uphold relational cultural identities and perceptions of the ethnic other. Turkish immigrants to Germany were frequently constructed as being from a ‗backward‘ tradition, and patriarchal norms viewed as evidence of a resistance to integration in German society. This centrality of gender to the ‗othering‘ of immigrant minorities has been seen in many films portraying Turkish immigrants, or their descendants, in Germany. The three films analysed here illustrate the heterogeneity of Germany‘s Turkish minority, and the impossibility of speaking of a monolithic ‗Turkish culture‘. In their content and their reception, these films are embedded in multiple ways in transnational Turkish German networks of connectivity, mobility and belonging. iii Statement of Candidate I certify that the work in this thesis entitled ―Female characters in Turkish German cinematic space: an analysis with examples of three recent films‖ has not previously been submitted for a degree nor has it been submitted as part of requirements for a degree to any other university or institution other than Macquarie University. I also certify that the thesis is an original piece of research and it has been written by me. Any help and assistance that I have received in my research work and the preparation of the thesis itself have been appropriately acknowledged. In addition, I certify that all information sources and literature used are indicated in the thesis. Michelle Leigh Robertson 16th July 2013 iv Acknowledgements My sincere thanks to my two thesis supervisors at Macquarie University, Professor Martina Möllering and Dr Ulrike Garde, for their guidance and encouragement through all stages of my PhD candidature, and for their mentorship to me as an early-career academic. I also wish to thank Professor Dr Ortrud Gutjahr at the Universität Hamburg, for our many fruitful discussions during my two months spent there in 2007, with the funding support of a Macquarie University travel grant and from the Faculty of Arts. I have been glad to have my academic home in the Department of International Studies at Macquarie University, and I thank the staff and my fellow postgraduate students for the collegial atmosphere. My heartfelt thanks to Robyn and Neil, Steven and Mel, for their boundless love and support. v 1. Introduction This thesis is concerned with the portrayal of Turkish-German female identities in German cinema, with a focus on the characters in three recent films. The changing faces of Turkish-German women in film bear witness to the transformation of German political and public discourse on immigration, integration and multiculturalism, and the lived reality of a significant minority within the German population. It is argued that the current reality is best reflected through the increased range of characters, the greater complexity and agency of some key figures, and the depiction of transnationally-linked and internally-diverse urban spaces. Tendentially, and in particular in the case of the three films analysed in depth in this thesis, German cinema is reflecting the shift from notions of ‗life between two cultures‘ towards the construction of personal identities incorporating two or more cultural spheres as a matter of course, and the ready negotiation of this cultural mix. At the same time, the journeys of characters back and forth can be viewed as a restlessness expressing a search for belonging and for a homeplace. In the three films analysed in depth, this restlessness is embodied by the protagonists, and countered by the experiences of other characters around them. These dramatic narratives, by their nature, rely on people in conflict with each other, themselves, and the world around them. In these films there is an evident tension between the portrayal of long- established Turkish communities within Germany, and main characters whose outsider status has to do with more than an ethnocultural identity. In order to fully elaborate on this argument, the three film case studies are preceded in this thesis by German socio- historical context and German cinematic context, as well as a discussion of the terminological and methodological framework for the analyses. The argument opens in Chapter 2 with an overview of the history of immigration in Germany and the attendant changes in discourse and terminology around migration and national identity. This is followed by an account of how formalised belonging, in the form of citizenship laws has changed. Chapter 2 closes with an exploration of the informal and less tangible elements of belonging and cultural identities, and a discussion of the ongoing anxieties about multiculturalism and integration in Germany. Although Germany‘s role as a destination for immigrants has become widely acknowledged and accepted, and immigration and citizenship laws reflect this, there is 1 still rigorous debate about what the responsibilities of immigrants and their new home country should be with respect to social cohesion — debate that frequently focuses on the treatment and status of women, and the beliefs and behaviour of men. Further context is provided in Chapter 3 with an historical overview of German cinema, with particular attention given to the role of gendered representations. The chapter begins with a discussion of the long-recognised relationship between cinema and national identity. The argument continues with a history of German cinema and its nation-building implications — in parallel with the vicissitudes of Germany‘s history, German cinema has experienced varied and quite distinct chapters with clear implications with respect to national identity — albeit sometimes at the risk of essentialising and over-generalising. At various junctures, cinema has also been a site for expressing and processing anxieties about social change and shifting gender roles as they pertain to the stability of the nation. This discussion is divided broadly into two sections: Chapter 3.1 deals with the early decades of German cinema up to and including the films of the Weimar and Nazi eras and Chapter 3.2 explores the post-war decades of great social change, including the assertion of ‗women‘s cinema‘ and cinema‘s reaction to Germany‘s great waves of 20th Century immigration. Chapter 3.3 offers an account of the late-1990s emergence and development of the so-called ‗Turkish-German cinema‘. It will be argued that this very category has now been, or is in the process of being, incorporated fully into the notion of a German national cinema, albeit with permeable and malleable borders. The term ‗Turkish- German cinema‘ was useful as a means of drawing attention to a number of filmmakers at a time when many of their films dealt with similar themes or milieus. From the 1 beginning, it was clear that directors as stylistically diverse as Fatih Akın and Kutluğ Ataman could not readily be regarded as belonging to a common tradition of filmmaking. Furthermore, the motivation of helping to bring more stories of Turks to German screens was given varying priority and was politicised to varying degrees. Much like the New German Cinema of the 1970s, ‗Turkish-German cinema‘ can be understood as describing a chapter in the history of cinema, rather than as a category that continues to the present day.