How Did Turkish People Become Like This?

Scandal!

A 1987 movie starring the late Tarık Akan and Sibel Turnagöl.

The movie takes place in the Özal years and fictitious exports were on the agenda.

Tarık Akan plays a journalist who has just been released from prison. Dissident journalists were also being imprisoned at that time.

Sibel Turnagöl plays the sister of one of Tarık Akan's friends from prison. She plays a lady who plays in small commercials and would love to be in a movie.

Sibel Turnagöl is supposedly a lady in the movie, but she is also the mistress of a famous businessman! And she is the mistress of a businessman who is a tax record holder by making fictitious exports!

The events unfold as you would expect, Tarık Akan, as a journalist who likes to write the truth and pursue scandalous news, goes after the issue of fictitious exports, and somehow Sibel Turnagöl, who plays a well-meaning lady in the movie, first approaches Tarık Akan and snitches on his plans to her lover, and then helps Tarık Akan, whom she falls in love with during the events, and this time she tells Tarık Akan about the fictitious export plans of the businessman whose mistress she is.

Tarık Akan wins a journalism award for his news report revealing these events.

But the last scene of the movie is shot as Tarık Akan gets into his shabby car with Sibel Turnagöl, turns the ignition and the bomb planted in the car explodes, killing them both.

***

Of course, it is a well-made movie for its time, and even though Tarık Akan is an artist who tries to address social issues in his movies, I must say that the movie and the script have their own aspects that are not well studied.

First of all, the acting quality is quite low compared to today's movies. When I watch those old movies today, I say how contrived the old actors were.

In the script, Tarık Akan is constantly told not to do that, that he will get into trouble, the editorial director encourages him to do sports and magazine news, and then the scenes with Sibel Turnagöl are all a bit contrived like in those old Yeşilçam movies. 

All these would be the parts of the movie that I would criticize if I were a movie critic.

But my main criticism of the movie is the hidden message of the movie! 

What they call it, the subliminal message that the movie conveys to the audience!

Yes, the movie actually says: business people, if you do fictitious exports, Turkish journalists will expose it, Turkish police will go on the scandal that the journalist has uncovered and catch the fictitious exporters.

But Turkish journalist, if you go on scandalous cases, you will die sooner or later!

O young Turkish ladies, you too can be a mistress for the sake of money, but when you find a young and kind-hearted man, don't miss him, it is your right to be happy and content. 

However, a water jug breaks on its way to water, and if he is a journalist or something like that, you will go to the rightful path along with him. 

Maybe even deeper, ladies, if you live the life of a mistress, this is your right too!

***

How's that? Doesn't it have a good message?

Are the events depicted in the script wrong?

No, of course not, it was the Özal years. There were things that the late Özal did wrong in his own way.

As a liberal, Özal did the duties assigned to him by those who raised him. Turkey reached a certain level in his time. 

At least Turkey was freed from the rightist-leftist conflicts that preceded his time and he knew how to bring the country to the middle.

However, the logic of "my civil servant knows his job" was the key word for Turkey to get to where it is today!

My business people also knew their job, which was why fictitious exports were at a peak back then. 

Now, there are those who put things here and there.

This is how we got to where we are today, and now our social morality level has literally crumbled to the ground.

No, when I say the level of morality, I am not talking about young ladies being mistresses, of course it is not a good thing to be a mistress, but it is a reality that can happen in any period and in any environment. 

When the parties mutually agree, especially when the ladies are willing to be mistresses, it is a matter of supply and demand, the taker is willing and the giver is willing.

This is not the issue. What I'm talking about is the fact that in today's environment, it has become a habit for everyone to screw everyone over.

Journalists who want to expose scandals are now openly intimidated.

On the one hand, as shown in that movie, the admonishment of "don't do it, my son, you'll get in trouble" has reached an extreme level.

The empire of fear has now completely taken over our lives.

If you chase scandals, you will eventually get killed! Don't chase scandals! 

That was the subliminal message of the movie.

Be a partisan like a master, make money if it's money, whatever amount of money you want, sit and earn your money! 

It's not worth rotting in jail! 

Whoever comes to power does not let those who oppose the order live! Even if they don't kill them, they make them crawl.

That's how we got like this. 

Even Tarık Akan, while trying to do something good, in a sense paved the road for the society to be in its current state.

The result?

We started to rot as a society.

For those who say, "Where did you think of such things now?" I saw Tansu Çiller on the internet.

For some reason, these feelings, these thoughts filled me.

What can I say, congratulations on your work, maybe I should say our work! After all, everyone has contributed in their own small way to this situation.

Love and respect to everyone from Moscow.