The Political Potential of Popular Culture in Turkey: The Reading of Three TV Series: Leyla ile Mecnun, Ben de Özledim and Beş Kardeş

• Main Author: Demet Lüküslü
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Groupe de Recherche Identités et Cultures 2018-07-01
• Series: TV Series
• Subjects: TV series; popular culture; political opposition; Turkey; sociology of education; social movements
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/tvseries/2608

Inspired by Fiske’s argument about the political potential of popular culture, this article reads three Turkish television series Leyla ile Mecnun [Leyla and Mecnun], Ben de Özledim [I Missed You Too], and Beş Kardeş [Five Brothers] and discusses their political potential. These three TV series, directed by the same director and featuring the same main cast, can also be read as “one” TV series instead of three totally different ones. It is argued here that these three TV series have close links with each other and created a close contact with the viewers. This is a series that sends a “wink” to the viewers, making it possible to observe the interrelationship between the text, the producer and the audience. Secondly, this article discusses how these TV series resist the dominant systems (both the political system and that of the ratings of the TV world) and demonstrate the potential of TV series to become a force of opposition.