Women and precarity in contemporary cinema

Abstract

This thesis mainly focuses on precarity and the terms related with it such as precariat (as a social class), precariousness, and precarization. Within this sociological framework, six films from national cinema of Turkey and three films from outside of specified national cinema have been chosen. These films are Belmin Söylemez‟s Present Tense (2012), YeĢim Ustaoğlu‟s Somewhere in Between (2012), Pelin Esmer‟s Watchtower (2012), Deniz Akçay‟s Nobody’s Home (2013), Emine Emel Balcı‟s Until I Lose My Breath (2015) and Ahu Öztürk‟s Dust Cloth (2015). From transnational cinemas respectively from Sweden, the USA, and Romania; Gabriale Pichler‟s Äta Sova Dö (Eat Sleep Die, 2012), Andrea Arnold‟s American Honey (2016), and Teodora Ana Mihai‟s Waiting for August (2014) have been chosen. The main aim of this study is to examine what connects the women protagonists in these particular films. The study argues that in terms of socio-ontological and labour conditions; women might seem more precarious than men. However, in the representation of precarious working women films by the women filmmakers, the female protagonist try to mitigate their precarity whereas men are on the edge of nihilism; i.e. simply being indifferent to their precarious conditions in the broadest sense.