Turkish Television in the Time of Pandemic

Kara Para Aşk, a.k.a. Black Money Love, is a Turkish series set in modern day Istanbul. Eve and I love this show. Produced in 2014 and 2105, it has elements of a crime drama, but it’s mainly a soap. It is available on Netflix in the form of 164 45-minute episodes with Turkish dialog and English subtitles. So far we’ve suffered through 115 episodes. I use the word suffered because in many respects this show is really terrible. 

But never mind that now. First let’s try to find out why we like it so much. One thing is that it reminds us of Turkey. We lived and worked in Ankara for a year in 2007 and it was a wonderful experience. As we watch Black Money Love, we can hear the Turkish language again and experience again the Turkish energy and the Turkish spirit. The producers of BML deliberately include scenes that celebrate some aspects of Turkish culture and also include lots of footage of the beauties of Istanbul. (Istanbul is way too crowded to be livable, but it’s a wonderful place to visit and it is strikingly photogenic on film.) BML characters are often snacking on simit, a distant relative of the bagel. Man, do we miss simit. Occasionally the characters indulge in a full-blown Turkish breakfast, of which we have even more wonderful memories. Some of them drink rakı, which is a like oozu but not as nasty. Everybody drinks Turkish tea and behaves in ways that are very much connected (let us say) to the way real Turks behave. 

We studied the Turkish language a little when we were there. We’ve forgotten most of it (E has retained more than M) but we remember a few words and grammar rules. So with the help of the subtitles, we can make out, now and then, words that we know. That’s great fun. Plus, we have learned one or two new phrases just because they are used so often. The best example of this is sakın ol, which means calm down. In BML someone is always telling someone else to calm down.

As for the show itself, BML production values are high. Lighting and photography are excellent. The location shoots include the interiors of a some lovely buildings, both new and old. And in every episode there are multiple shots of the Bosphorus, one of the loveliest city views in the world. The costuming is great, with beautiful fabrics and extraordinary colors and designs. The hairstyles and jewelry are also impressive. (And yes, some of Elif’s hair is fake and also some of Ömer’s, but it’s not too obvious.) The chief actors are all good-looking and talented, capable of giving life to mediocre dialog and able to communicate volumes with just a look or a small movement. The stars are Tuba Büyüküstün (Elif) and Engin Akyürek (Ömer). They are both excellent in their way. We have to say, though, that veteran actors Erkan Can (Tayyar) and Isil Yücesoy (Nedret) often steal the show. Eve is particularly taken with Nedret’s clothing and hairstyles. She’s thinking of taking a photo along to her next hair appointment. Nedret is somewhat of a shady character, so our sources are not sure this is a good idea.

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The directing and editing are competent: crisp and clear, but never frantic. At the tensest moments time seems to dilate as the action is stretched out almost to the point of ridiculousness. (Well okay, it is sometimes stretched out even a little bit past that point.) In general, Turks are not afraid to overdo, in any realm. Take the actress who plays Nilüfer. Everybody thinks she’s beautiful, but she’s thin, really thin, freakishly, ridiculously thin. How is that actress even alive? We really wish she would eat something. 

As for the writing, there’s good news and bad news. One problem with soaps in general is that occasionally everyone’s energy seems to flag and the action slows to a crawl. Conversations just rehash previous ones and plot progression is nil. This happens in BML, but not very often. Most of the time the writers keep the pot at a hard rolling boil. New crises pop up thick and fast. The good people suffer and suffer and then suffer some more. You’d suffer too in their shoes. 

Or maybe you wouldn’t. I have to mention that in this show the good people are not always real bright. They have powerful emotions combined with frustratingly low levels of emotional intelligence, with the result that some of their worst wounds are self-inflicted. The evil characters  in BML are a lot smarter than the good ones, but even they are not immune this particular problem. Sigh. Thank goodness nothing like that has ever happened to us.

And no one ever gives up. The monstrous Tayyar keeps an iron grip on his evil enterprises, always scheming and always smart enough stay one step ahead of his foes. He loves power above all and he will allow no force on earth to thwart him. But policeman Ömer is equally determined. He will persevere no matter how often he is outmaneuvered or betrayed. Once, when he does momentarily succumb to discouragement, his mother Elvan sees it in his face. “Don’t worry, my son,” she tells him, “God won’t let you fail.” 

The name of the game here is drama and they get that right, for sure. So why did I say that we have had to “suffer through” all these episodes. What’s so terrible? The worst is that the events in BML, as dramatic as they are, proceed with little regard for plausibility, consistency, or basic logic. The writers have no shame whatever. A character who leaves home driving her car returns in a taxi or is dropped off by a friend. Powerful evil doers who routinely get away with murder are strangely reluctant to just bump off their most dangerous enemies and instead go to great lengths merely to make those enemies uncomfortable and ruin their wedding plans. Minor bad guys often get arrested, but they are never, ever brought to trial. Either they immediately escape custody and disappear, or else they are murdered by their cellmates. In fact, whenever a prisoner gets a cellmate, you know it’s curtains for him. Another problem is that there is so much repetitiveness about all these crises that it’s hard to tell this week’s from last’s. Also, the dialog is uneven. Once in a while there will be an intense and highly emotional confrontation that makes no sense at all–sort of like two characters in a darkening room arguing violently about whose fault it is that they can’t see very well, never noticing that the sun has gone down and all the while ignoring the perfectly functional light switch that they’re standing next to. 

Another possible difficulty with BML is the matter of sexism and gender roles. There is generally more machismo and stereotyping than would be acceptable in a TV series here. When women try to walk away from an argument, men physically restrain them by grabbing their arms and jerking them around. (And these are the good guys; bad guys do much worse in the way of abuse.) In terms of roles, it’s always a woman who cooks, be it relative or servant. Ömer has cooked once, but the writers were careful to show us that he wasn’t very good at it. When Elif, a rich young career woman, gets engaged, it’s critical for her to show how well she can cook. She passes the test with flying colors, despite having been fed by servants most of her life. 

But this brings up another reason why we like this show. Like any good soap, it both mirrors and stretches the boundaries of the society in which it is produced. Elif, our female lead–she who passes the cooking test–is not dependent on any man. She is the de facto head of her family’s company and is also a talented designer. Although she is in love with Ömer, she is fully capable of going off on her own in defiance of his wishes. Another woman, Pelin, is a police detective who works with Ömer in the homicide bureau. The fact that she’s there at all is of course a measure of gender equality. And she’s an interesting character–smart, hardworking, and feisty. But so often her role is that of personal assistant, taking care of the details so that Ömer will have time to do whatever it is that he does. Still, the role of Pelin is not so different than that of her boyfriend and fellow detective Arda. Both are there to support Ömer. Many heroes have sidekicks; Ömer has two.   

The matter of reflecting and/or prodding societal norms in popular media is a sensitive issue in Turkey and Turkish writers work within a number of constraints. One of these constraints is that there is a law against “insulting Turkishness.” If you are perceived as insulting Turkishness, you can be arrested and imprisoned. This has happened to quite a number of writers, journalists, moviemakers and poets. Turkishness is a nebulous concept and there are no clear boundaries on what constitutes an insult to it, so things can get really complicated. But complication is Turkey’s middle name. The ancient name for Istanbul was Byzantium. The word byzantine in English means really, really complex because that’s the kind of reputation that Byzantium had. Things haven’t changed all that much in three thousand years. As far as I can tell, both insult and complication are key elements to understanding Turkish culture. 

So…given that insults to Turkishness are illegal and also ill-defined, is it wise to base a popular entertainment on the idea that Turkey might harbor a malignant criminal empire, one based partly on murdering people to steal their organs and partly on international money laundering, with key Istanbul police officials being paid off to provide protection? Is it wise to show guards in Turkish jails being bribed to look the other way while prisoners carry out their schemes? How about the police using physical violence when interrogating suspects? Can you get in trouble for showing this? The fact that criminal empires exist in Turkey is very well known to most Turks. But does that make it more less dangerous to say it out loud or more dangerous? It’s complicated. What it means in the case of Black Money Love is that if you play it just right, your ratings jump even higher.

Another challenge for film and TV makers in Turkey is that to reach the broadest audience, their work must appeal to both halves of a very divided society. A portion of the Turkish population is highly secular, which is to say, not particularly religious and very much in favor of the separation of church and state. People in this group are culturally Islamic in that they celebrate major Islamic holidays and revere certain traditions that have arisen from Islamic beliefs, but that’s about as far as it goes. These secular Turks, who live mostly in the big cities in the center and west of Turkey, look and act a lot like Europeans. They drink alcohol in bars and restaurants; they dance at parties; they wear European clothing; they take tango tourism trips to Argentina, and they don’t pray five times a day, if they pray at all. The women wear tight jeans and short skirts in public and rarely cover their hair. Women and men are considered to have equal rights, though it appears that in practice that gets…complicated.

So that’s one group. Another large portion of the population takes the religious aspects of Islam and so-called traditional culture much more seriously. Many do pray five times a day; they never drink alcohol (at least not in public); women rarely cover their faces, but they always cover their hair and wear extremely modest clothing in public. Bare arms are never shown, let alone legs. Men and women have very different roles, with the men having generally more public status and power. Music and dancing are limited to a few special occasions and couples never dance together in public. In 2006, an opinion poll in Turkey found that a majority of men and a narrow majority of women agreed with the idea that a husband had the right to beat his wife if he believed it was called for. 

People who make TV serials in Turkey want to appeal to both groups without offending either. Watching how BML manages this balance is another of the joys of viewing. It works like this. The great majority of characters appear to be secular. Some openly drink alcohol in bars; they all wear fashionable European clothing; women show their hair and a fair amount of skin; we generally don’t see them praying. Almost none of the characters are ever overtly religious, not the bad guys and not the good guys either. There are two exceptions. The first and most important is Ömer’s mother. Elvan dresses modestly and always covers her hair in public. She is the one character who prays often. Elvan is also the most clearly good person in the whole of the BML universe: wise, kind, and nurturing. She listens more than she speaks and speaks less than she knows. We see her praying, but she prays at home so we never see a mosque. In general, this religious woman is a saint. Elvan’s acquaintance Fatma is somewhat different. She covers her head when she is outside and dresses modestly, but it’s not clear how often she actually prays. In the first sections of the series, she is a fairly unpleasant woman. When she mentions God, she is likely to be calling down some sort of curse on someone, or else calling upon God to spare her daughter from the horrible dangers of being a mafia runner, an occupation that Fatma herself urged her daughter to take up. She is also a vicious and inveterate gossip. Later on, Fatma is redeemed to an extent. Eventually, Elvan continued genuine compassion toward Fatma wears down her spitefulness and she becomes a more supportive friend. Elvan has a much larger part in the drama than Fatma, but both of them are counters in the culture wars, and demonstrate the producers’ wish to cover all the bases.

That’s probably the safest way to go here. Religious viewers may be scandalized by both the clothing and the behavior of Elif and her sisters, but as everyone knows the right level of scandal is exactly what pulls in the viewers. Elif often wears short skirts to work, often shows her bare arms, and never covers her hair in the summer. (In the winter she wears an endless series of designer woolen caps.) Once–but only once–Elif and Ömer were shown sitting near one another at a swimming pool. Elif wore a fashionable two piece bathing suit, not a bikini but not an overly modest style either. This was only shown in one kind of middle distance camera shot and in only one pose: with Elif seated in a deep lounge chair with a towel strategically blocking any view of her hips. Ömer was similarly posed in his swim suit. The whole scene contributed nothing to the plot. It wasn’t meant to; it was meant to contribute to the ratings and, perhaps in a small way, to show a commitment to an open and secular society. And, it was a one-time deal. If the show’s producers showed such scenes often, they might be in trouble. They need to push the boundaries just a little and then back off. They’re not thinking only about Turkey. They were surely thinking from the start about the export market. Since 2015 BML has made money for them in 30 countries around the world, including Indonesia, the world’s most populous Islamic nation. (Also among the 30 are both Egypt and Israel, as well as Chile, Peru, Colombia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Spain and Kuwait.)

Another aspect of BML that we find interesting is that it tries to showcase certain other aspects of Turkish culture. There are a wealth of references to traditional foods and customs, including marriage customs. Although the language is varied and is sometimes obscene enough to require bleeping, it also seems to include a large number of familiar politeness formulae that are specific to Turkey and Turkish culture. And then there are those many scenes shot on location at places that Turks might be rather proud of. The new bridge over the Bosphorus, for example, is featured often. Characters go out to what appear to be very lovely restaurants and have tea in charming cafes all over town, including many on the waterfront. In one episode Elif takes Ömer to a luxurious private resort–a place where he and his family would never otherwise be able to go–where they spend the day sampling all the various amenities. (This was probably a real resort who may or may not have paid the producers for the privilege of being featured.) These are all exterior locations rather than artificial sets and they all make Turkey look like a paradise. And speaking of paradise, whenever BML characters drive their cars, traffic is light and flows smoothly. Parking is never a problem. All of this gushing over Turkish culture and Turkish places is a treat for the audience, including two formerly resident foreigners, and could possibly help ratings. But what else does it do? It balances the presentation of the nasty corruption which is at the heart of the story. “Insult Turkey?” the producers can say. “Are you crazy? We love Turkey to death. Just look.”

So there you have it. Kara Para Aşk, Black Money Love. It’s terrible, but it’s wonderful. Of course we’ve only gotten to Episode 115 out of 164. All we can say at this point, considering all that it has put us through, is that it better have an awfully nice ending. 

And by the way, there’s another great Turkish show on Netflix called Winter Sun (Kış Güneşi). It’s just as wonderful as BML; it’s also less terrible than BML; and there are far fewer episodes. To see the trailer for Winter Sun or to read dozens of American fans’ comments about it, see the Winter Sun entry on the Turkish Drama Website.

ADDENDUM: Questions and answers about Black Money Love.

Q: You mentioned some obscene language. Can I really learn Turkish swear words by watching this show?

A: Unfortunately not. The nasty words are included in the English subtitles, but they are bleeped out of the Turkish soundtrack. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn anything at all. Take this example, something one hoodlum says to another:

We hear:  Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah BLEEP!

We read:  I’ll shit on your grave if you try to mess with me! 

We learn:  In Turkish, the main verb comes at the end.

Q: If you love Turkey so much, why don’t you just go live there?

A: Hey, we said we liked a lot of things about Turkey. Among those things are how beautiful it is and how nice they are to visitors. We never said Turkey doesn’t have problems. Turkey has problems. They’re different from our problems, but not all that different.  

Q: You said that Istanbul used to be called Byzantium. I thought it was called Constantinople.

A: You’re right. It was called Constantinople between the time it was called Byzantium and the time it started to be called Istanbul. If you are Greek, you can still call it Constantinople if you want to, because if you are Greek you’re never going to let any Turk tell you what to call anything.

Q: Is it true that Elif is currently the most common name given to girl babies in Turkey?

A: Yes. 

Q: How do you say turkey (the bird) in Turkish?

A: The Turkish word for turkey is hindi. That means that turkeys were thought to come from India. But turkeys are from the new world. But Columbus, who discovered the new world, thought he had reached India. So when he brought back these big birds… Apparently there was a lot of confusion back then, unlike now when everything is clear and good.

Q: I watched a few episodes and I noticed that there are a lot of scenes of cars and driving. But on all the cars the brand logos and badges have been covered or removed. So, except for Bahar’s Mini, it’s hard to tell what model of car they are. What’s up with that?

A: Beats me. Something complicated, I’m sure. For what it’s worth I’m guessing that Elif’s blue car is a Mercedes A-class and that the white convertible that Ömer rents is a Mercedes E350. In one episode Fatih drives a Porsche Macan. I have no idea about Ömer’s own car, the blue one, but it looks boring.