Hayvanın Türk Sinemasına Politik Dokunuşu: Hayvan İmgesine Yeni Bakışlar

Abstract

In his essay “Why Look at Animals?”, John Berger states that animals have rapidly withdrawn from the human world since the early 20th century and interprets their increasing representation in visual culture as a negative sign of this disappearance. This thesis examines how Turkish cinema responds, on ethical, political, and aesthetic dimensions, to animals disappearing from the empirical world and severing their tactile bonds with humans, using Jacques Derrida’s concept of the “tactile” and Gilles Deleuze’s concepts of the “time-image” and “becoming-animal.” The analyzed films reveal various appearances of the image of disappearance. Three interrelated appearances have been identified: Animals, after coming into contact with humans, either die or enter a process of “becoming-death.” This disappearance plays a decisive role in disrupting both the sensory-motor schema of the subject and the sensory-motor schema of the film. Based on these three appearances, the concept of the “tactile animal” has been developed and defined within the framework of “time.” Derrida argues that the human-animal distinction plays a foundational role in the metaphysics of presence and the construction of the regime of the “sign,” thus making the tactile engagement of animals with humans epistemologically impossible. Deleuze’s concepts of the “time-image” and “becoming-animal” propose a mode of thought that transcends the temporality of the metaphysics of presence. These two concepts are further developed in relation to Derrida’s notion of the “tactile,” leading to the formulation of the concept of the “tactile animal.” This thesis argues that, since the 1990s, Turkish cinema has become a cinema politically “touched” by disappearing animals. The analyzed films transcend the pessimistic perspectives of Berger and animal rights theorists, generating new possibilities for thought from this disappearance. By integrating philosophy and cinema, this study contributes to film studies by offering a reading model that explains the relationship between a film’s content and form through the concept of the “tactile animal.”