WHAT WAS INTENDED, WHAT HAS BEEN ACHIEVED? — Turkey Panorama of Bir Başkadır

The Turkish society, which has become more polarized and politically separated with each passing year, is approaching a new political election. In this turbulent process, while the government is trying to protect its own position, the opposition wing resorts to different ways to defeat the government that has been going on for 20 years. One of the most talked about ways was the “helalleşme” step of CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. This step of Kılıçdaroğlu, which stated that they would reconcile with all segments of society and that they would bring peace to this divided and overly polarized state of society, caused great controversy. Some individuals stated that they would not make peace until the offenders were held accountable, while others found this step too meaningful for the welfare of the society. But in Turkey, this discussion was already made on the occasion of an internet series before Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s step. I’m talking about the series Bir Başkadır, written and directed by Berkun Oya, which was released on Netflix at the end of 2020. The series was watched by many people from the first day it was broadcast, causing deep discussions; on the one hand, it was highly appreciated and on the other hand, it was criticized negatively. In the story, which takes place in a universe where the elements/types/poles that make up the Turkish society meet, a conflict is established over the issues with deep cracks in the country, and these conflicts are resolved with the transformation of the characters at the end of the series. But this resolution is not given by the great lessons we are accustomed to from melodramas. Rather, the solution symbolizes a return to the normalcy of everyday life and a position where individuals from different poles become aware of their own reality/emotions and can empathize with each other at some point. So, does this dissolution, this return to normal, find a response in the audience as it is encoded in the series? In this article, I will discuss how a story with predominantly social codes is encoded when it is scripted, how it responds to the audience, as well as what kind of discussions it opens up. In doing this, I will use Stuart Hall’s “encoding-decoding” method.

Stuart Hall, one of the founders of the Birmingham School of Cultural Studies, opposes the Frankfurt School and Adorno’s idea of ​​the “culture industry”. According to Hall, audience is also in an active position in the process of making sense of media texts. That is, Hall examines how texts are read/evaluated by the audience. At this point on, the passive audience model, which “swallows the content like a pill”, is more active and questioning. According to Hall’s article “Encoding/Decoding”[1], which opens a whole new page in the field of media criticism, media text is produced through a series of discursive practices that constitute the “encoding” process. This encoded text is then distributed at the discursive level and is “decoded” by various audiences. Once the discourse is completed, it has to be transformed back into social practices. Thus, the cycle is completed and becomes effective. If there is no meaning, there is no consumption. One of the important issues is that encoding and decoding may not be perfectly symmetrical. To put it more clearly; what is encoded, that is, what is intended, and what is decoded by the audience, that is, perceived, may not be the same. The relations between intentions and the decoding of the code may differ from each other, and the discipline of sociology focuses more on the relations formed at this end. From this point on, I will deal with the Bir Başkadır series with the method Stuart Hall theorized. According to this method, I will discuss the director Berkun Oya’s encoding and intention; despite that how the audience perceives the story. While doing this, I will first focus on the name of the series, Bir Başkadır and English version Ethos, the story structure of the series and then the representation of Turkey through the characters of the series.

The subject of the series is described as follows on Netflix’s official site: Their lives are different, their dreams are different, their fears are different. Although they may seem opposite to each other, when their paths cross, borders will disappear and they will all touch each other’s lives.” When we look at the poster, it highlights the coexistence of these different segments. The inscription Bir Başkadır was created by combining different fabrics. So, what does the name “Bir Başkadır” mean? What does that mean for the audience? At the first moment, it reminds us of a song familiar to Turkish society and telling the story of the country: “Bir Başkadır Benim Memleketim” (which means my country is peerless) by Ayten Alpman. But the lyrics of the song were left unfinished, I kept thinking that this must have some meaning and I realized this: Even though the lyrics were interrupted, my mind can directly complete that sentence. In other words, I am in an active position as an audience and I can solve the codes given to me and complete the unfinished one. The series actually does what it aims to do with its story, thanks to the name of the series. It keeps the audience in an active position and gives the audience the task of completing this half-story. This situation is very compatible with the thesis I defended in this article.

On the other hand, while the Turkish name of the series does this, it is not possible to do this in the English translation. For this, Berkun Oya prefers something different. It broadcasts the series under the name Ethos in countries other than Turkey. “Ethos”, at first, evokes Greek mythology in people’s mind. “Ethos”, which is the root of the word “ethikos” in ancient Greek, means character and moral disposition. Yet, is this name really enough to describe the series? Beraat Gökkuş discusses this in his review on the ArtDog Istanbul platform. He says that a global Netflix viewer will not know the meaning of the concept of “Ethos” in Ancient Greece, so the name should also mean something else. He says that sticking to the dictionary meaning of the word will suffice: “Ethos, depending on the context, means ‘beliefs, worldview, system of values, spirit and environment’.”[2] In this sense, the series tells the audience from the very first moment that it describes the beliefs, value system, spirit and environment of Turkish society.

As the story structure, the series does not fit the simple mythological structure that we are used to in scenario techniques. In this regard, we do not follow the development of a single character in the center, but the development and transformation of almost all the characters. However, these transformations do not end with a great catharsis and a purification/moral as we are accustomed to from the mythological structure. At the end of the story, many characters face their own reality, repressed emotions are revealed; these characters are starting to heal, so to speak. They are now becoming healthier and “normal” individuals who are ready to empathize. This situation is made to be felt by the audience, even if it is not expressed clearly. Nükhet Sirman criticizes this situation in a broadcast she participated in when the series was talked about a lot.[3] Sirman states that she sees the lack of a clear lesson at the end of the series as the biggest failure of the series. “The show didn’t say anything at the end, we could not learn any lessons,” she says. I, on the other hand, believe that the end of the story is left open, to use the phrase we are accustomed to from literary texts. So the director/screenwriter tells the audience: “We are sick, I know. But recovery is not impossible. I’m leaving the story open, how it goes next is up to you.” As a result, what is seen as a shortcoming by some people is not what the series lacks, but what it is trying to do. As a viewer, I can understand Berkun Oya’s intentions. But can all viewers understand this intent?

The series is a superficial reading of Turkish sociology. There are comments that the show talks a little bit about every segment, but actually does not examine any of them in depth. Nükhet Sirman, in the program she participated in, says that the story of the series consists of superficial characters, none of these characters are deep, they are just caricatures. Looking at the general story which is like a superficial panorama of Turkey, it would be unfair to the series to say that the characters do not have depth in the story. It is true that there are certain representatives in the scenario who describe each segment. In fact, it should be said that the more hybrid identities within these segments are not present in the series. However, this does not change the fact that the characters of the series are deep characters. Why am I so focused on this issue? Because stories take their power from the depth of the characters they contain. If the characters of Bir Başkadır were as lacking in depth; this series would not have received such a response in the society, it would not have been watched this much. I believe that the main success of the series is directly related to the depth and realism of the characters. I prefer to deal with the representation of different segments of the society and the situation of the characters in this representation in more detail in order to make these airy sentences more settled. I will basically examine the elements of representation in the series through three main headings. The first is conservatism, the second is secularism, and the third is the story of Kurds. After these, beyond the identities, other element that are widely spoken in the series; I will touch on individual trauma.

While talking about the poles and borders in Turkey, Bir Başkadır focuses on urban distress. The lives of all our characters intersect in Istanbul. We see how intertwined the lives of these people, who spatially meet in a metropolis, but whose classes and identities seem different from each other, are actually intertwined. While the spatial role of class differences makes itself felt cinematographically in the series, we also see the traces of Şerif Mardin’s “center-periphery” conceptualization adapted from Edward Shils to Turkish sociology. “The Center-Periphery model, at the most general level, includes the decision maker, the center, and the groups and institutions that assign it as a model for resolving the sometimes conflict and sometimes cooperative relations between the center and the environmental actors that directly affect the decisions taken by the center.” [4] Şerif Mardin, who brought the center-periphery model to Turkey, proposes to read the Turkish policy through the material and moral differentiation and conflict between the center and the periphery in his article titled “Center-Periphery Relations: A Key to Turkish Politics?” published in 1973. The article has become one of the main works of the field and is frequently referenced. Today, although the deep borders of the tension between the center and the periphery have begun to fade, it would not be wrong to say that this tension is still maintained in the political arena and between the subjects. Therefore, it is possible to read Bir Başkadır through this method.

In the first scene of the series, a young woman wearing a headscarf gets on a bus from a neighborhood outside the city and arrives in the city center. This young woman named Meryem belongs to a family that came from Anatolia and settled in one of the remote neighborhoods of Istanbul. This young woman, who is not educated and belongs to the lower class economically, comes to the center of the city, the metropolis, to clean the houses of rich people every day by taking the same bus. Meryem, the lead role in the series, suddenly faints in the living room of the house she went to clean, and then the story goes back to a year ago. She is referred by the doctor to a psychiatrist to find out the reason for Meryem’s fainting. This is how Meryem, who is seen as conservative and poor, belongs to the periphery, not the center, meets the secular and urban psychiatrist Peri for the first time.

One of the controversies that occurred after the broadcast of the series was about the representation of conservative women wearing headscarves. Many people — especially religious and well-educated women wearing headscarves — said they were not properly represented in the media. These women, fed up with the stereotype that “a woman with a headscarf can only be a cleaner” in a movie or TV show, are, in a way, right. But there is one more thing they ignore. Conservative women who directly connected with the secular world who represent the center, mostly consisted of day laborers until the last 10–15 years. Looking at the recent history of Turkey, the presence of conservatives, especially conservative women, in the secular world of the city is very recent. Therefore, when the media will represent the conservative world, they cannot give up the habit they have brought about over the years, and they cannot yet fully anticipate that there may be new alternatives to the situation they are familiar with. But I believe that Bir Başkadır is trying to break this habit. Especially the character of Imam Ali Sadi’s daughter Hayrunnisa shows us this. Hayrunnisa is an educated young woman who listens to Western music and reads İsmail Cem. Therefore, she is someone who is in direct contact with the secular world. The transformation she went through at the end of the series and her removal of the headscarf as a sign that she no longer prefers a conservative life seems consistent in terms of her character transformation. But it must be said that the series does not fully portray the educated conservative woman who lives in an integrated manner with the secular world. Does this detract from the meaning of the series? I don’t think it’s missing.

Another character that we need to deal with on the subject of conservatism is the imams. First, Imam Ali Sadi was widely discussed after the publication of Bir Başkadır. Society disagreed on this issue. Some people stated that they were happy to see an imam whose humanitarian aspects predominate, apart from the stereotype of the cunning and bigoted imam. Others said that this imam character is a launderer of the political Islam discourse, which makes the country worse every day, increases polarization and is far from solving the problems. Aside from how he is handled by society, Imam Ali Sadi is extremely realistic in terms of character integrity, flaws and weaknesses. Moreover, the metaphor of “artificial flower-natural flower” mentioned in the series is a story known by many people, told by a hoca, Nureddin Yıldız, who already exists. On the other hand, the character of Imam Hilmi, younger than Ali Sadi, trying to improve himself, reading and questioning stands out. Hilmi, who talks about Jung when meeting with young people or even meeting with the girl he loves, is a character Berkun Oya created to break the familiarity again. Thanks to the character of Hilmi, on the one hand, the difference between the generations of the conservative community was revealed, on the other hand, the pluralism within this community was demonstrated.

On the other hand, how valid is this representation of pluralism in the conservative community for the secular world of the show? This is one of the important points discussed. Peri is a well-educated and wealthy psychiatrist. The first conservative person she met in her life was the maid who came to their house years ago. Apart from that, she is a woman who has not connected with the “other” neighborhood in any way, moreover, she grew up in a family where the “others” are portrayed as the freak. But Peri is a person who is not only in her neighborhood anymore, because she works as a doctor in a state hospital, but has to deal with the “other”. The main conflict of the series is established exactly at this point. Peri, who has power in the therapy room, has to be objective and impartial towards her client, but she cannot achieve this and starts to go to supervision. Peri, who aims to do her job well, also admits that this complex situation she is experiencing is hate speech and racism. She is trying to solve it. Here we see Peri’s most important character transformation, in her courage to face herself and her memories.

However, the representation of the secular community is not limited to Peri. When it focuses to Peri’s family, we are faced with the stereotypical “White Turks” model. This family, who watches Halk TV, reads Yılmaz Özdil, accepts the articles sent from Facebook as the most accurate news, lives in the mansion and does not encounter any “other” outside of their own neighborhood; it is portrayed in a highly caricatured way. One of the debates in the society was specific to this family. This family was thought not to reflect the plurality of the secular world. Because secularism was not just about money or good education. The absence of secular people belonging to the lower class in the series showed that a large part of Turkish society was ignored in Bir Başkadır.

Another important point is the character of Gülbin, who Peri goes for supervision, and the story of her family. Peri never thought that Gülbin belonged to another “neighborhood”. She thought that she was brought up just like her, that she had a family like her. At first, the audience perceived it that way. However, it turns out that Gülbin is actually in a very different place from Peri in terms of ethnicity and class. Gülbin, the daughter of a poor family who had to flee to Istanbul after the incidents in the Southeast, is a character who hides her Kurdish identity and lives like a secular White Turk. Although it is not stated exactly for what reason her family came to Istanbul, Gülbin’s brother was born with cerebral palsy when his mother received a blow to the stomach while she was pregnant with her brother. The story of the family, who seems to have escaped to Istanbul after this tragic incident, implicitly refers to one of the greatest traumas of Turkish society. He questions the extent to which a family, who is persecuted and loses the physical health of their sons, can exist in society with its own identity. While Gülbin lives an educated and secular life, her older sister Gülan is conservative and, in Gülbin’s words, she lives a rich life by partnering with the political powerhouse. The fight of the two sisters, on the other hand, tells about the plurality of Kurdish identity in Turkey and the struggle of this plurality within itself. Thanks to this representation, to what extent a collective trauma of Kurds has been revealed; repressed, unspoken things started to be spoken? I think this is the weakest part of the series.

Speaking of trauma, it is impossible not to mention one of the most crucial stories of the series: Ruhiye’s individual trauma. Ruhiye is a young woman who grew up in Çanakkale. After the rape she suffered in her childhood in her village, she suppresses her trauma, gets married and has 2 children. But a tree in front of their house constantly reminds her of her childhood trauma. Day by day, she is trapped in a severe depression. Ruhiye confronts her trauma when she goes to her village with her son. Ruhiye thought that the rapist was dead until that day, but when she goes to the village, she sees that the man is not dead and even married the other woman she raped. Confronting the man, Ruhiye learns that her husband Yasin knew about the rape, so he beat the man in the middle of the village and told Ruhiye that the man was dead. After this confrontation and the revelation of secrets, Ruhiye begins to heal. This was one of the most inexplicable or negatively criticized events among the audience. While one part could not figure out what cured Ruhiye, another part found it too meaningless and malicious that a rapist man being punished by another man would make the woman heal. Here is another situation that is ignored by the audience. A woman who has been raped cannot speak openly about her trauma in a patriarchal society, and she has to suppress her feelings. However, most of the time the perpetrator is not really punished. Especially not punished by society. That person can go on with his life as if nothing had happened. Or he may have died without any accountability. This non-accountability of the rapist, not confronting his sin, is one of the biggest obstacles to the recovery of a raped woman. The same is true for Ruhiye. When she learns that the rapist has died without any accountability, she is trapped in an even more severe depression. But when Ruhiye confronts the man in the village, when she sees that the man is actually punished by the society and cannot lead her life in a healthy way, she begins to heal. Because the unspeakable has been spoken, what has been suppressed has come to light.

Finally, Feyza Akınerdem, in her master’s thesis about Asmalı Konak in 2005, showed how problems that cannot be solved in society can be solved in a simple melodrama scenario.[5] What was described in Asmalı Konak was a conflict that was at the center of the daily concerns of the people. The seemingly insoluble problems of the traditional and modern conflict were resolved with a simple scenario. It’s debatable whether the same thing is true for Bir Başkadır. Because essentially, Bir Başkadır is not a text based on a simple melodrama scenario, it is much more intricate and its borders are less clear. Maybe we should call this the reflection of social complexity in the scenario. Berkun Oya aimed for one thing with this scenario: He wanted unspoken situations to be talked about. Because the traumas that are not talked about and that do not come to light cannot be overcome. He paved the way for this and did not intend to teach anyone a lesson. He wanted that the society see its own poles, its own fights, its partiality, its distance from empathy, its inability to live together and find the solution itself. How effective this attitude has been is debatable. But aside from his influence, I think we owe a debt of gratitude to Berkun Oya for enabling the unspoken to be spoken.

REFERENCES

Akınerdem, F. 2005. Between Desire and Truth: The Narrative Resolution of Modern -Traditional Dichotomy in Asmalı Konak, Master Thesis, Boğaziçi University.

Beraat Gökkuş, “Ethos Bir Başka mıdır?”, ArtDog İstanbul, 1 Aralık 2021, https://artdogistanbul.com/ethos-bir-baska-midir/

Hall, S. 2001. Encoding/Decoding, in: Durham/Kellner (ed.), Media and Cultural studies. Key works, Blackwell, pp. 166–177.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmiPGK-COcs&t=2s

İsmail Çağlar, “Merkez-Çevre Modeli”, Tübitak Bilim ve Toplum Başkalığı Popüler Bilim Yayınları, https://ansiklopedi.tubitak.gov.tr/ansiklopedi/merkez_cevre_modeli#:~:text=%E2%80%9CMerkez%2D%20%C3%87evre%E2%80%9D%20modeli%2C,yap%C4%B1sal%20bir%20model%20olarak%20tan%C4%B1mlanabilir.

[1] Hall, S. 2001. Encoding/Decoding, in: Durham/Kellner (ed.), Media and Cultural studies. Key works, Blackwell, pp. 166–177.

[2] Beraat Gökkuş, “Ethos Bir Başka mıdır?”, ArtDog İstanbul, 1 Aralık 2021, https://artdogistanbul.com/ethos-bir-baska-midir/

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmiPGK-COcs&t=2s

[4] İsmail Çağlar, “Merkez-Çevre Modeli”, Tübitak Bilim ve Toplum Başkalığı Popüler Bilim Yayınları, https://ansiklopedi.tubitak.gov.tr/ansiklopedi/merkez_cevre_modeli#:~:text=%E2%80%9CMerkez%2D%20%C3%87evre%E2%80%9D%20modeli%2C,yap%C4%B1sal%20bir%20model%20olarak%20tan%C4%B1mlanabilir.

[5] Akınerden, F. 2005. Between Desire and Truth: The Narrative Resolution of Modern -Traditional Dichotomy in Asmalı Konak, Master Thesis, Boğaziçi University.