 Sometimes everything looks like a big joke. This statement isn't the
expression of some kind of personal depression. What I mean is that we're like the fish in
an aquarium, surrounded by absurd pictures, and we don't talk about them as long as we can
bear it. Of course it would be impossible to live feeling this way all day long. But
sometimes, some event, or a sentence from the news, causes us to see our surroundings for
a second.
It wasn't long ago that we heard news about a boy who had escaped from home, telling his
parents that he would become an aborigine. He had believed that this was possible... I'm
running out of words because we're living in the environment that educated him. And the
most influential teacher of all time, television, is creating that environment every
passing moment. Ferhan ?ensoy introduced absurdity to a mass audience at the time when
private television channels were brand new challenges for Turkey. The TV series
"Varsayalım İsmail," written by him, was full of dialogues such as:
- Who are you?
- Who would be suitable for you?
But this absurdity was fully controlled and conscious. People knew that they were watching
something without any purpose, and they laughed at it. We don't laugh at absurdity
anymore. We take it seriously, because we live in the midst of it most of the time. A huge
game exists, and in this game, any given premise is accepted. For instance, there may be a
house full of young people looking for "love," and it's "sensible" for
this love to be rewarded with a house, a car, etc, etc.
At the end of the last episode of last season's "Zaga," Okan Bayülgen gave a
talk directed to his studio crew in front of the cameras. It was just like a seminar about
their job. "Television is a very bad thing. Never think of yourselves as people who
are doing a good job. Television captures people's attention and time. It gives nothing,
and it gains attention. Such a thing cannot be good." This deconstructing of the
program--and the whole business of television broadcasting--was a very interesting
acceptance of purposelessness and, accordingly, absurdity.
This column is too small to really discuss such a phenomenon. So, just look at a bigger
thing, such as a TV screen. You'll find out that you're buying a completely new brand of
chips because the men in its ad kidnapped another brand's ad character. You won't be able
to find a connection between most of the ads and the goods they're introducing. It doesn't
make sense to expect that things make sense anymore.
TV: 1
Logic: 0
İsmail O. Postalcıoğlu (POLS/II)
orhan@ug.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr
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