Women and Turkish Cinema

This is a significant book and deserves a high degree of circulation.Turkish cinema has come a long way since Turist Ömer Uzay Yolu’nda (1973) and Supermen dönüyor (1979) and modern Turkish movies are watched and appreciated throughout the world. Women and Turkish Cinema; Gender Politics, Cultural Identity and Representation is a remarkable work of scholarship by Atil Eylem Atakav, Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at the University of East Anglia. Part of the Routledge Studies in Middle East Film and Media, this systematic tome is also evidence of the growing importance and contribution of the University of East Anglia in studies related to various Islamic societies across the globe. Educated in Ankara and England Atakav herself is part of a growing coterie of scholars scrutinising Muslim popular culture as much as religion. The central thesis of the book under review is that the depoliticization measures imposed following the 1980 military coup d’état in Turkey served to draw together Turkish feminists and film makers over the subsequent decade. The feminist movement was able to thrive in this medium specifically because it was not seen as a political challenge to the authorities or, indeed, to the “unitary patriarchal logic” (p. 113) and Turkish cinema fostered women’s stories and perspectives to avoid censure from the coup’s leadership.