Phallus in Turkish Cinema

   In this post I am sharing my first paper from my film course. The course was focusing on male subjectivity in the context of Turkish cinema. I enjoyed a lot and having this course changed my perspective to films. Now I think I was a simple audience and I was not aware of  the things I can see now. Perhaps there is a lot to learn about film analysis. Hopefully I will learn much more about films.

Phallus in Turkish Movie Context

         Phallus is an erected penis if we check the dictionary meaning of it but it has also some other connotations rather than this simple denotation. Phallus is associated with masculine dominance, fertility, power and potency of male. Sometimes we see in the movies its symbolic usage directly, I mean as a first meaning of the word, as an erected version of penis but sometimes directors, writers or any art makers use its connotative meaning. In movies, especially in Turkish movies male dominance and power are like basic subjects and other things are constructed upon it. It is accepted as quite normal even people are not aware of it because they use to see it, read it or somehow live within it. If this situation, this habit reverts that would be surprising for people. This perception comes out in phallic stage where boys understand their sexual difference. By difference I do not mean superiority but the thing is that due to its shape and its form, penis is like an excess when we compare it with girl’s bodies. It is an extended member of male body so it seems a lack for females while it seems an advantage for males. This is the root of all perceptions about male dominance, patriarchy or power and so on. If you have it you are the lucky one but if you do not, sorry nothing valuable in your body.

          Baby has first separation with his/her mother in birth physically and it causes a deprivation in terms of losing wholeness so later that is why children have desires about their parents. It is because girl does not have a penis but has attraction to his father which we call Electra Complex, boy has a penis and attraction to his mother named Oedipus Complex. In this state fathers law comes to stage that you should not have such feelings for your parents so after that boy looks for new other to fulfil his lack to feel whole again. In Oedipal phase children think his mother as his phallus and want to see her as his object but because of father’s law it is impossible. Phallus is what male subject assigned in the social domain. In this paper I will debate about how phallus portrayed in 2 Turkish movies named 40 Quadratmeter Deutschland and Walking After Midnight ( Düş Gezginleri).

          In 40 Quadratmeter Deutschland our protagonist Dursun lives in Germany and gets marry with Turna, a girl from his homeland. Turna comes to Germany with great expectations, others girls admire her because she gets chance to go out of the country etc. In fact it does not happen as she dreams because her husband locks her, actually imprisons her in their 40 Quadra meter flat. Dursun sees Turna as his object and does not want her to communicate with anyone else. She only sees his face and only talks with him. Whenever Dursun wants to have an intercourse with his wife, Turna behaves like a submissive of him because Dursun is phallus here. Even though Turna does not show any significance of feeling sexual desires. In fact she is kind of disgusting of this act and she has blank eyes during the intercourse but all in all she has to obey because Dursun is the representation of dominance and power. He is like her master and Turna is his slave, submissive. Their relation goes on like this during the movie. At the end Dursun gets some kind of seizure and dies. The important point here is he dies while he is nude and in this scene he has a small penis. His dead body lies in front of the exit door so while he was alive he never let Turna out now his is like an obstacle for her again. Finally Turna pulls his dead body away from the door and goes out for the first time. She reaches her freedom so showing this small penis signifies that phallus’ reign is over and woman gets her freedom. In the other movie named Walking After Midnight we have a reversal situation because in this movie two main characters are female Havva and Nilgun. They have a lesbian relationship. Through the film we observe changing of Nilgun’s attitude toward Havva. Firstly they have no problem but later Havva becomes in a position of female figure while Nilgun gets the male figure. For instance Havva cooks and knits at home and puts everywhere her laceworks like a classical Turkish woman. Nilgun begins to envy her from their female neighbour but at the same time she betrays her with her ex-lover. She gets angry to her, humiliates her and looks down upon her. Her behaviours are much like man’s attitude toward woman. As I said above girls feel lack of penis but as this movie show us when they get chance of not having a penis but pretend to be phallus they do it. It shows us woman’s desire to be phallus too.

          To sum up, phallus is the representation of male dominance and power within society and family. Being phallus is expected for male characters but if female gets a chance to be like a phallus she never misses it. Being phallus associated with being powerful and becoming authority in a particular society or in core of the society namely in family.