WESTERNIZATION CRISIS IN YEŞİLÇAM THROUGH THE USAGE OF MUSIC IN SÜRTÜK, KARAGÖZLÜM AND MEMLEKETİM

Abstract

The Republican revolutions aimed to form a bridge between the west and the east, which in turn brought changes in the habits of the people and the feeling of being stuck in between. These reforms, some of which have been implemented very strictly, have also affected the cultural world of the people. The society, which has undergone a sudden change with the prohibitions, has longed for the old musical habits, as it is in most of the other fields, and searched for it in different areas such as cinema. This demand, which was originally met with the addition of domestic and generally musical items to foreign films, revealed the effect of oppositions such as east-west, modern-traditional, us-them, especially in Yeşilçam cinema. The films told the story of -generally female- characters trying to be westernized but trapped between the two extremes, with the help of accompaniment music, and in a sense, they attracted the attention of the people by symbolizing the stuck between situation of society. These films, which are defined as simple, meaningless and same with each other, are not considered worthy of study by the majority today, but - whether this is their aim or not - transmitted the past and future social mood with their stories and their music which has become one of the basic features of Yeşilçam.