Nietzschean Gift Model as an Alternative to Potlatch Culture in Turkish Cinema: The Movie Kosmos

Abstract

Potlatch defines the ceremonies where pre-market economy societies come together for celebration and exchange gifts. This universal culture based on giving-accepting and giving back more than enough, aims to destroy the surplus value and spend to the furthest extent. Although gift carries traces of potlatch culture today, it has evolved into gifting consumer products as an expression of love on specific days that have become a ritual of capitalism. This study analyzes the “gift” not with its function in the potlatch or consumer culture but with the dimension of transcendence of humans in a philosophical sense. Therefore, the focus of this study is not Mauss and the anthropologists or sociologists who are in this line, but Nietzsche, who defines the gift as giving oneself rather than giving what one has and interprets that gifting type as one of the key concepts in the transition from human to superhuman. This research claims that in Turkish cinema, the gift is included with the functions and meaning systems in potlatch culture. However, the movie Kosmos deconstructs these systems and leads the audience to Nietzschean thoughts about gifts. In conclusion, an alternative gift model to potlatch culture is presented in Kosmos.