American cinema and popular representations of women in early Republican Turkey

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the relationship between American cinema and Turkish woman in the 1930s. Along with political reforms, there were cultural transformations in the society in the 1930s in Turkey. One of the dimension of it was movies. It was the American movies which dominated the Turkish screens in the 1930s. I aim to show that American movies and the Turkish movie fan magazines Holivut, Holivut İstanbul Magazin, Yıldız contributed in depicting a new type of woman which represented a role model for Turkish women; through this American cinema discourse, American cinema stars were promoted as a role model for women in terms of beauty, sports, personality traits, gender relations and consumerism. Current historiography focuses on the Americanization of Turkish popular culture and underlining cultural influence of America in the 1940s, especially after Marshall Plan. Examining influence of American movies, American cinema stars, the movie fan magazines Holivut, Holivut İstanbul Magazin, Yıldız, the Turkish press' construction of women in the 1930s, I argue that Turkish popular culture was already becoming Americanized before the Marshall plan. This thesis also explores the discourse of Turkish movie fan magazines construction of women and compare it with "the ideal woman image" presented by Kemalist ideology.