The rich girl and the poor boy: Binary oppositions in Yeşilçam melodramas

---

Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi, Siyaset Bilimi ve Kamu Yönetimi Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2004

Öğrenci: BAŞAK YEŞİL

Danışman: NECMİ ERDOĞAN

Özet:

This thesis is an attempt to analyze the binary oppositions between the أrichؤ and the أpoorؤ as well as the أgoodؤ and the أevilؤ in the 1960s̕ Yesilçam melodramas. It analyzes the narrative structure of Yesilçam melodramas which interweave fiction with certain embedded social values and argues that a number of cooperating and contending discourses interanimate each other in the form of binary oppositions in Yesilçam narratives. The cinematic representation of the lower and upper class is analyzed, underlining how the relation between the two was constructed by Yesilçam melodramas. The study focuses on the symbolic world established by Yesilçam narratives through the use of common meanings attributed to characters (e.g. delikanli and züppe), values (e.g. honesty, modesty, ostentation and artificialness) and places (e.g. meyhane and coffeehouse).