From Home to Destitution: Deprived and Ignored Children in Yusuf ile Kenan (1979) and Masumiyet (1997)

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2024.592

Keywords:

displaced children, ignored children, Turkish cinema, destitution, child in cinema

Abstract

Yusuf ile Kenan (1979) and Masumiyet (1997) portray realistic ignored, neglected and deprived childhood in Turkish cinema. This article sets out to analyse the realistic depictions of child image focusing on displacement and destitute. Although displacement is dealt with broader senses of war and its consequences, this article, adapting an alternative discourse sets out to analyse the displacement in terms of family and homely atmosphere. First, I will present the odyssey of child image during the course of Turkish cinema. I aim to position elusive depiction of child image in Yusuf ile Kenan (1979) and Masumiyet (1997). Following spatial and narrative analysis in two steps, I will discuss the realistic destitute child images in these films in two parts: (a) spatial analysis focusing loss of home and (b) agency of child characters in narrative. I propose that realistic child image in these two films were constructed through delinquency and aphasia.

References

Abisel, N. (2005). Türk Sineması Üzerine Yazılar. Phoenix.

Akdağ, M., Yetimova, S., & Eser, H. (2022). Children’s victimization in Turkish cinema between the 1970s and the 1980s. Galactica Media: Journal of Media Studies, 4(4), 189-209.

Akser, M. & Bayrakdar, D. (2014). Introduction: Ten propositions on the possibility of a new cinema. In Akser, M. & Bayrakdar, D. (Ed.), New cinema, new media reinventing Turkish cinema (pp. xi-xxii). Cambridge Scholars.

Akser, M. (2015). Turkish independent cinema: Between bourgeois auteurism and political radicalism. In D. Baltruschat, & M. P. Erickson (Eds.), Independent Filmmaking Around the Globe (pp. 131-148). Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press.

Akser, M. (2018). Locating Turkish Cinema Between Populist Tendencies and Art Cinema. In: Magnan-Park, A., Marchetti, G., Tan, S. (Eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Asian Cinema (pp.151-170) Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Allison, S. T., & Goethals, G. R. (2017). The hero’s transformation. In S. T. Allison, G. R. Goethals, & R. M. Kramer (Eds.), Handbook of heroism and heroic leadership (pp. 379-400). Routledge.

Arslan, S. (2011). Cinema in Turkey: A New Critical History. New York: Oxford University Press.

Bayrakdar, D. & Akser, M. (2014). Ten Propositions on the Possibility of a New Cinema. In Bayrakdar, D. & Akser, M. (Eds.), New Cinema, New Media: Reinventing Turkish Cinema, (pp.xi- xxii). New Castle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Bilgen-Susanlı, Z., İnanç-Tuncer, Ö., Koloğlugil, S. (2016). Child domestic labour and mothers’ employment in turkey, Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja, 29:1, 967-979.

Becerikli, R. (2018). Çocuk yıldız filmleri ile canım kardeşim filminin anlatı ve karakter özellikleri bakımından karşılaştırılması. Selçuk İletişim, 11(2), 321-346

Bushati, A. (2018). Children and cinema: moving images of childhood. European Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 3(3): 34-39.

Butler, J. (2004). Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. London: Verso.

Campbell, J. (2008). The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton University Press.

Çiçekoğlu, F. (2007). Vesikalı Şehir. İstanbul: Metis.

Deleuze, G. (1989). Cinema 2 The Movement-Image. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam (Trans.). University of Minnesota Press.

Doğan, E. (2019). Türk sinemasında 1960-1970 yılları arasında çocukluk: iki farklı Ayşecik filminde çocukluk temsiliyeti. Turkish Studies, 14(2): 313-323.

Dönmez-Colin, D. (2008a). The Routledge Dictionary of Turkish Cinema. New York: Routledge.

Dönmez-Colin, D. (2008b). Turkish Cinema: Identity, Distance and Belonging. London. Reaktion Books.

Erdoğan, N. (2003). Powerless Signs: Hybridity and the Logic of Excess of Turkish Trash. In K. Ross & D. Derman. Creskill (Eds.), Mapping the Margins: Identity, Politics and the Media, (pp. 163-167). Cresskill, New Jersey: Hampton Press.

Fisher, J. (2007). On the ruins of masculinity: The figure of the child in Italian Neo-realism and the German rubble film. In Roberto, L. E. & Wilson, K. M (Eds.), Italian Neo-realism and Global Cinema. Detroit: Wayne State UP.

Freud, S. (1953). The Uncanny. James Strachey (Trans.). In Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works (pp. 217-252). London: The Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1919).

Fuchs, T. (2019). The Uncanny as Atmosphere. In G. Francesetti &T. Griffero (Eds.), Psychopathology and Atmospheres. Neither Inside nor Outside (pp. 101-118). Cambridge: Cambridge Scholar Publishing.

Giroux, H. (1998). Stealing Innocence: The Politics of Child Beauty Pageants. In Henry Jenkins (Eds.) The Children’s Culture Reader (pp. 265-282). New York: New York University Press.

Gaudin, A. (2018). The Viewer’s Embodiment into Cinematic Space. In Rosario, F. Villarmae, (Eds.), New Approaches to Cinematic Space (pp. 193-205). Routledge.

Gürata, A. (2006). Translating Modernity: Remakes in Turkish Cinema. In D. Eleftheriotis & G. Needham (Eds.), Asian Cinemas: A Reader and Guide (pp. 242-254). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Gürbilek, N. (2020). Vitrinde Yaşamak: 1980’lerin Kültürel İklimi. İstanbul: Metis.

Güven, Z.C.& Can, A. (2022). Sinemada Normatif Çocuklardan Aykırı Çocuklara Doğru: 1990 Sonrası Türk Sinemasında Monitör/Yansıtıcı ve Sessiz Çocuklar. In Can, A., Aytaş, M. &Aker, H. (Eds.), Sinema ve Çocuk I: Türk ve Dünya Sinemasında Çocuk İmgesi ve Çocukluk

Halleri (pp. 71-105). Konya: Tablet.

Hynam, M., & Mosley, J. (2016, April). Filmic Space: Parallels between transitions in film and architecture. [Paper presentation]. AMPS Digital Cultural Ecology and the Medium Sized City, Bristol, UK.

Jenkins, H. (1998). Childhood Innocence and Other Modern Myths. In Henry Jenkins (Eds.) The Children’s Culture Reader, (1-40). New York: New York University Press.

Marx, K. (1990) Capital, Volume 1. Ben Fowkes (Trans.). London: Penguin Classics. (Original work published 1867).

Smith, M. (2022). The Child in British Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan.

Suner, A. (2015). Hayalet Ev / Yeni Türk Sinemasında Aidiyet, Kimlik ve Bellek. İstanbul: Metis.

Turhan, E. H. (2022). Türk sinemasında çocuk yoksulluğu: Zıkkımın Kökü filmi örneği. Türkiye Film Araştırmaları Dergisi 2(2). 97-108.

Downloads

Published

2024-09-12

How to Cite

Güven, Z. C. (2024). From Home to Destitution: Deprived and Ignored Children in Yusuf ile Kenan (1979) and Masumiyet (1997). CINEJ Cinema Journal, 12(1), 140–181. https://doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2024.592

Issue

Section

Articles