TEDU Department of Sociology Student Rojin Deren Ulutaş's Congress Presentation
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TEDU Department of Sociology student Rojin Deren Ulutaş participated in the International Congress on Women in A Global World IV and presented her abstract titled "A Comparative Analysis of The Representation of Headscarved and Non-Headscarved Women in Turkish Cinema" on May 23, 2024.
Abstract
The conflicts faced by headscarved women, the hierarchy within religiosity and the contact between the secular and religious sectors have become more visible in Turkish cinema in the last 10 years. In this perspective, the aim of this study is to understand the role and representation of headscarved women and women without headscarves in Turkish cinema. For the research, the Turkish Netflix series Bir Başkadır (Oya, 2020) and the movie Toz Bezi (Öztürk, 2015) were analysed and the research was conducted qualitatively through content analysis. The reason for choosing these two films is that both directors successfully reflect a visual analysis of women's roles on the screen. However, for this research, going beyond movie analysis, 81 letters written between 17.09.2023-26.01.2024 on the “Yalnız Yürümeyeceksin” platform, where women who want to remove their headscarves anonymously describe the process of removing their headscarves, were analysed in order to question the reality of representations in cinema. In this framework, the harmony, similarities and differences between what is told in the letters and what is transferred to the cinema in the series Bir Başkadır and the film Toz Bezi are compared. This research questioned the representation of women in Turkish cinema through the concepts of “alienation”, “two poles”, “the other” and aimed to understand the cinematography formed in this context. In addition, it discussed the theme of the contrasts between the secular and religious sectors and the absolute intersection point that exists. The study also questions the political atmosphere in Turkey within the framework of discrimination, contrasts and conflicts within women. This study, which reflects and discusses the reality of production in cinema, can offer different perspectives and new stories to scenario and screen studies. Comparing the letters of the Yalnız Yürümeyeceksin platform with the stories reflected in the cinema can lead the scripts to an independent change and transformation. This study can provide an increased reality practice for filmmakers who want to understand and narrate women's norms in cinema.
Keywords: Bir Başkadır, Toz Bezi, Turkish Cinema, headscarf representation, two poles, alienation, Yalnız Yürümeyeceksin Platform.