2000’ler Türk Sinemasında Engelli Kadınların Alımlanması: Temsil, Öznellik, Kapsayıcılık

Abstract

This thesis focuses on how representations of disabled women in the post-2000s Turkish cinema are received by women with lived experiences of disability, what discourses they engage when interpreting these representations, and what kind of emotional responses they give to these representations. The study attempted to answer the question, “How do disabled women receive films that include representations of disabled women and what kind of responses do they give to these representations?” The sample of the study consisted of the movies; Neredesin Firuze (Ezel Akay, 2004), Vizontele Tuuba (Yılmaz Erdoğan, 2004), Beyza’nın Kadınları (Mustafa Altıoklar, 2006), Sadece Sen (Hakan Yonat, 2018), Benim Dünyam (Uğur Yücel, 2013), Aşkın Gören Gözlere İhtiyacı Yok (Onur Ünlü, 2022), Demir Kadın Neslican (Özgür Bakar 2022). The theoretical approach of the study was shaped by debates within Feminist Disability Studies and Cultural Studies on identity, subjectivity, body, representation, and active audience. The research data were collected through in-depth interviews with eight female participants with visual, physical, and mental disabilities, between October 2023 and March 2024. Following the historical materialist approach of Janet Staiger, film interpretations of the participants were examined within the experiential and historical context. Building on the critical perspective offered by disability studies and using the views of disabled women, as historically constructed active audiences, this research attempted to discover the meanings that need to be constructed to encourage more inclusive practices towards disabled people in society. The findings have shown that women interpret the representations in relation to their life experiences. Participants, most of whom understand disability about social barriers, interpreted the films by engaging with the notions of independent living, social participation and agency. Within this interpretative framework, participant accounts showed that in the films examined in this research, disabled women are associated with inadequacy, need, and dependency; disability is instrumentalized and portrayed as exaggerated and superficial; the physical and social oppression experienced by disabled people are largely ignored; and beauty is used as a means of normalizing disabled women. Incorporating the views of disabled women has made it possible to evaluate representation more in detail and beyond the positive/negative dichotomy. This study suggests that the views and experiences of people with disabilities should be included in content production and performance in order to construct representations that promote more inclusive policies and practices regarding disability and disabled women.