Sublime yet ridiculous: Turkishness and the cinematic image of Zeki Müren

Abstract

AbstractThis paper scrutinizes anxieties of national identity in Turkey through the image of Zeki Müren in three films,Beklenen Şarkı, Kırık Plak, andSon Beste. In these films the image of Zeki Müren is articulated as the ridiculous sublime. His image always tells two stories simultaneously: construction and collapse of national identity. Through an analysis of Müren's early films, the paper shows, how anxieties about the formation of Turkish citizenship and about modernity are substantiated in his image. This analysis is carried out in the following steps: I, first, explain how the films chosen here construct the feeling ofwe-nessand national imaginary by virtue of Classical Turkish music and the voice of Zeki Müren. I show that the image of Zeki Müren in these films tells the story of the national subject being interpellated or hailed by Turkishness and argue that Zeki Müren's image exposes the “speculary” structure of Turkishness. Examining the construction, completeness, and integrity of Turkish national identity the paper continues to explore its collapse, incompleteness, and disintegration–that is, the dimension of “beyond interpellation.” Put differently, I analyze how the feeling ofwe-nesscollapses and explore the pleasure and torment produced through the relationship between social power and the subject. With the help of these two axes of exploration, I show how the torment as well as the pleasure of subjection, the desire to be recognized as well as the fear of not being recognized is the text of Zeki Müren's image in these films.