Kocek (Nejat Saydam, 1975), is an interesting movie dealing with gender issues quite openly; probably for the first time in Turkish cinema. However, Kocek’s difference not only lies in its approach to gender, but in the way it handles another problematic subject, namely the sex change. In Turkey, sex change was a debated issue regarding the sexual identity of the newly emerging singers of Turkish Art Music, in the 1970s. The society’s response to these new performers was a mixture of appreciation and neglect. Later, it became more clear how the issue was problematic for Turkish society, when transversite singers were banned from performing after the 1980 military take over.
The Meaning of the Phallus
Caniko is a boy trying to underline his masculinity with swearing and playing football, since he is often mistaken for a girl. In one of the early scenes of the movie, Adnan, who was arguing with Caniko and his friends, after running over their ball, asks him whether he is a girl or boy. Caniko’s reply is to perform masculine behaviors. Later he is once again offended in the local bar, when a group of men call him "Kocek." His discomfort with his/her sexual identity is repeated many times. Another significant scene (repetition) is Caniko’s conversation in front of the mirror at his home. His father asks for the money he has earned (that is the only time the father figure appears, since there is no sign of Caniko’s mother until it is replaced by Naciye). He is upset when the father is not satisfied with the amount and runs into his room. In the wall we see a poster of actor Cuneyt Arkin while practicing martial arts (a figure of strong masculinity, later used in a TV commercial as he was testing the endurance of a refrigerator by kicking it). He faces the mirror, talking to himself : "Damn! I will cut myself. I look like a girl rather than a boy."
Caniko’s discomfort is only released when he dances (like a woman). However, he cannot ease his discomfort long after he is castrated. He resists the idea of castration for a long time, because all he wants to be is a real man. According to Lacan the castration complex paves the way for "the installation in the subject of an unconscious position without which he would be unable to identify himself with the ideal type of his sex" (Lacan, 281). The act of castration would not be a solution to the complex, since the phallus is only a signifier in Lacan’s term.
On the paradox of the castration complex, one is reminded of a story by Murathan Mungan (Mungan, 143-165). A dolmus driver (Efkar) asks his lover (Umit) to have an operation and be a woman, since their relation is not socially accepted. Efkar thinks that they would be socially accepted if Umit is to be converted. "How long we can stand against this pressure? But if you become a woman we can get married," says Efkar (163). After long resistance Umit accepts the operation and becomes a real (?) woman. But after nine months Efkar splits with Umit, since he could not get use to this new type of relationship.
In the movie the possibilty of a relationship between Caniko and Adnan is often correlated with castration. However, some times the role of the phallus and castration goes beyond its symbolic function.
The Fantasy World
If we carry on reading Lacan’s article on "The Meaning of the Phallus," we will see that the phallus, as a signifier, is closely related with the desire.
Desire has its origin in the inadequate relationship between need and demand for love. Need and demand cannot be coordinated. According to Lacan, "desire is neither the appetite for satisfaction, nor the demand for love, but the difference that results from the subtraction of the first from the second, the phenomenon of their splitting." (Lacan, 287).
Later Lacan, referring to the experience of the childhood explains how the desire of the [m]other become decisive: the child learns not, whether or not he has a real phallus, but the mother does not have it. This lack in the other(‘to be’ and ‘to have’ a phallus) is replaced by ‘to seem’ (to have phallus), in order to mask it. And it is only in the world of phantasy that what is absent could be present.
Thus, the love does not meet one’s demand; the lover seeks what s/he lacks in the beloved. That is the object a in that beloved person. However, "what one lacks is not hidden in the other" as Lacan puts it.
That is to say that we perceive (gaze) the beloved one, always blurred with desire (anamorphosis). The woman becomes attractive only when she enters the phantasy world of the man. A good example of this is Hitchcock’s Rear Window. James Stewart starts loving his fiancee (Grace Kelly) when he sees her in the middle of the strange affairs taking place at the next door.
In the movie Kocek, this phantasy world plays an important role in the possibility of the relationships. A very typical example of this, is the case of Salih (one of the visitors of the Naciye’s house who is unhappy with his wife). He wants his wife to act like the girls in Naciye’s house, that is why he brings her there. "Look and learn how to act like a woman. Womanhood does not only mean working in kitchen" he says to his wife. The woman long refuses to behave that way, thus she is no more attractive for Salih. At the end, she accepts the idea for the sake of their marriage and runs to Naciye. "Teach me bellydancing" she asks. Meanwhile, Salih is ready to marry Caniko (Raziye) after paying a huge amount of money. He goes to the dark room to sleep with Raziye. However, it is his wife in the bed, instead of Raziye. He cannot recognize it, enjoys the moment, because he is in the phantasy world. Thanks to his wife’s little sacrifice and Raziye’s trick, Salih presumably starts a happy relationship.
Adnan is not happy with his snobbish fiancee. All her efforts to get into Adnan’s phantasy world fails. We see them twice while trying to make love. In the first scene, Adnan is heavily drunk and always talking about Caniko to her lover (one can claim that he is presumably making love with Caniko instead). In the other scene, the phantasy that was built by Adnan’s fiancee does not work when Raziye pours red paint all over her. She has been ridiculed and lost all her attractiveness (Erdogan).
The same law is also quite apparent in the relationship between Adnan and Raziye. Adnan first accuses Caniko of looking like a girl. Later he challenges Caniko and tests his masculinity. As a goal keeper he asks Caniko whether he could score. He manages to score and they become close friends. During this time it is impossible for Adnan to love Caniko as he (Caniko) was supposed to be masculine (nevertheless remember the first love scene between Adnan and his fiancee). Later when Caniko has the operation and is renamed Raziye, Adnan falls in love with her, though he is suspicious whether they are the same person. For a moment he realizes how they look alike, but strongly rejects the idea: "I wish you would resemble him(Caniko). He is a real buddy. However he ran away with a theater company," he says to Raziye. Despite the repressed idea, he falls in love with Raziye. He cannot concentrate on his work. He gives away 10 goals in three weeks time (another repeated theme: football-masculinity relation).
Raziye also rejects the idea of being with Adnan and plays a number of games. At the end, after understanding how much he loves her, they decide to marry. But Acenta Riza (the man who stabbed Caniko to womanhood) tries to prevent this marriage. "You as a man going to sleep with another man?" he shouts to Raziye. At that moment, all Adnan’s repressed thoughts are revealed and he is disillusioned. Raziye runs away to commit suicide. But then the doctor who carried out Caniko’s operation tells the facts about her to Adnan. He, once again persuaded about Raziye’s role in his fantasy world, convinces her not to commit suicide. They carry on loving (?) each other.
So is it the role of the phallus and castration that is at work in every love relation, securing the possibility of that relationship? Symbolically yes, is Lacan’s answer. If Kocek would deal with this "lack in the other" at a symbolic level, it would not be much different from any other movie. However, it is dealing with a real castration and the role of the phallus is obscene (remember the bloody castration scene). Therefore it is this relationship between the symbolic and real, that makes Kocek so confusing (one can even get lost after the dream scene is related with the rainbow myth) and interesting.
WORKS CITED
Erdogan, Nezih. "Gender and Split Identity in ‘Kocek’." nezih@bilkent.edu.tr
Lacan, Jacques. "The Meaning of the Phallus." Ecrits. London: Routledge 1995.
Mungan, Murathan. "Askin Gozyaslari ya da Rapunzel ile Avare." Kirk Oda. Istanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 1989.
Zizek, Slavoj. Enjoy Your Symptom: Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and out. New York: Routledge 1992.
AHMET GURATA (gurata@bilkent.edu.tr)