{"id":92583,"date":"2012-12-07T17:24:33","date_gmt":"2012-12-07T17:24:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uncut.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=8479"},"modified":"2012-12-07T17:24:33","modified_gmt":"2012-12-07T17:24:33","slug":"turkish-prime-minister-takes-on-historical-soap-opera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=92583","title":{"rendered":"Turkish Prime Minister takes on historical soap opera"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Turkey<\/a>, television drama is big business. A handful of big-budget productions attract millions of viewers every week, both at home and abroad. According to Abdullah \u00c7elik, the head of property rights department in the culture ministry, more than 65 million dollars were received from foreign television companies in acquisitions of TV dramas, with more than ten thousand hours of screen time exported overseas. Such costly, and bankable, television productions thrived over the last decade, partly thanks to the entrepreneurial spirit that came with the governing AK Party\u2019s policies of economic liberalisation.<\/p>\n

But according to Turkish prime minister and leader of the AK Party, Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan, the industry’s success story has a sinister undercurrent that needs looking into. Erdo\u011fan believes that one particular show is toying with the national values of Turkey\u2019s Ottoman past. \u201cWe alerted the authorities on this and we are waiting for the judicial decision on it,”\u00a0he said<\/a> during a public speech last month. \u201cThose who toy with these values should be taught a lesson within the premises of law.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nErdogan was referencing The Magnificent Century, a show that is currently the biggest production television drama in Turkey. The latest season of the series had a production budget of over three million liras with an all-star cast featuring some of Turkey\u2019s most famous actors. Last month, the Turkish edition of GQ magazine honoured the show\u2019s producer and two of its leading actors in its Men of the Year event.<\/p>\n

The Magnificent Century, which first aired in January 2011, has long been subject to controversy and Erdogan\u2019s pointed comments about its \u201cfalse depiction\u201d of the private lives of Ottoman rulers was but the latest, and probably the most high-profile, example of complaints about the show. Every episode of the drama series narrates another chapter in the life of Suleiman the Magnificent, the longest reigning sultan and caliph of the Ottoman Empire, acknowledged by historians as one of its most successful rulers.<\/p>\n

Although many people I talked to about the issue seemed to share Erdo\u011fan\u2019s complaints about the show\u2019s historical inaccuracies, none of them agreed with the idea of taking any form of legal action against it. In fact, even the descendants of the Ottoman empire are against such a move. In an interview with Vatan newspaper, Prince \u015eehzade Orhan Osmano\u011flu, a descendant of the last Ottoman sultan Abdul Hamid II, said their family wouldn\u2019t take legal action against the programme because it was not \u201ca documentary but a work of fiction.” However Osmano\u011flu added that his family was very disturbed by scenes which depict the harem, resulting in some of the juiciest moments of the show. Osmano\u011flu said they would go to court if his ancestors were portrayed as figures involved in immoral acts, including having extra-marital affairs and fathering illegitimate children.<\/p>\n

The centerpiece of Erdo\u011fan\u2019s complaint was that while most of Suleiman\u2019s life had been spent on horseback and in battle fields, the show had continually depicted him in the middle of sexual intrigues taking place in the harem. When I asked Sonat Bahar, who writes a weekly column on Turkish television series for the popular Sabah newspaper, about her take on the issue she said production conditions of the show might be dictating this choice.<\/p>\n

\u201cShooting battle scenes is costly, that\u2019s why they can’t do it,\u201d she said. \u201cThe real problem is the discrepancy between the show\u2019s title which claims portraying magnificence and the limited view of the emperor\u2019s life presented to us. I would rather they named the show Roxelana.\u201d Roxelana, H\u00fcrrem Sultan\u2019s name before she married Suleiman, is widely agreed to be the central figure in the series, and it is her charming and often times deceitful depiction that draw many to their television sets.<\/p>\n

Although critics and historians acknowledge problems with the show\u2019s historical approach, more worrying is the preparation of a new bill presented to the parliament last week, introducing fines for television producers who \u201cmisrepresent\u201d historical figures.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis show begins with a disclaimer that says its characters were \u2018inspired\u2019 by historical figures,” a popular television blogger who writes under the pseudonym Ranini told me. She said such bills, if they become law, would ignore the fact that those series were, after all, intended as entertainment. \u201cIf people really want to learn about real lives of Ottoman rulers, then they should read books, instead of watching these soap operas,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

This is a point shared by \u00dcmit \u00dcnal, one of Turkey’s most successful film directors and scriptwriters. “This is just a harmless soap opera, nothing more,” he said. “Like many television series, it intermingles a set of complex love affairs with a faux-historical decor. It is a highly commercial work. I can understand why prime minister is angry about it but I am also at a loss to understand the new standards of censorship in this country.”<\/p>\n

According to \u00dcnal, all Turkish artists are born with the knowledge that their works will be subject to political restrictions, which leads to the graver problem of self-censorship. “If a Turkish artist comes to tell you he doesn’t apply self-censorship in his work, then he is lying,” he said. “When the field of artistic freedoms get even smaller, how can we, as storytellers, produce works without being subject to the wrath of politicians afterwards?”<\/p>\n

Kaya Gen\u00e7\u00a0is a journalist and novelist<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Turkey, television drama is big business. A handful of big-budget productions attract millions of viewers every week, both at home and abroad. According to Abdullah \u00c7elik, the head of property rights department in the culture ministry, more than 65 million dollars were received from foreign television companies in acquisitions of TV dramas, with more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[55],"tags":[13677,571,1053,7355],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92583"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=92583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92583\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=92583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=92583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=92583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}