Although Kocek cannot be considered as a success it presents some interesting aspects to be approached from a structuralistic point of view as well as from a psychoanalytic one. Before interpreting the implications of the narrative in general terms, it will be helpful to focus on some details.
Gypsy identity is important in the film. It signifies the natural as opposed to the social. Again, Sulukule is presented as a place for lives apart from the regular course of events. A bridge separates Sulukule from the rest of the world, e.g., natural life from the cultural. Sulukule is also significant as a dancing district. Dancing is an activity in which all the participants become happy and close to each other; the social law which imposes genders and identities on people is not relevant during dancing. Another significant point is the way people dance. This is oriental dancing which is assumed to be more suitable for women. These altogether connote that culture suppresses nature and the most natural situation presented in the film is that of a dancing woman.
There is an analogy between making scores in a football game and sexual relationships (signifying the penis penetrating into the vagina, a man’s conquering a woman). The first example of this analogy is observed during the football match of Caniko and his friends. Adnan is the goalkeeper and Caniko makes a score. Adnan gets angry, such a conversation takes place between them: "How can you make a score, broken man?", "I have pierced so many buckets such as you!". The betrayed husband can recognize Adnan only after a while although no significant change in their positions to one another is observed. Since the husband is looking for a womanizer, he does not suspect a goalkeeper; he must have been a scorer.
Adnan’s situation as a goalkeeper and Caniko’s can be compared to each other. Although they are both men, they can somehow identify themselves with the situation of a woman: Caniko as a dancer, Adnan as a goalkeeper. Adnan steals women from men (and Caniko helps him for his clothes), Caniko steals the male gaze which is reserved for women. Adnan as goalkeeper and Raziye as a woman are both spectacles for the male gaze. They fought together against "tough" men.
In the dinner scene, Caniko desires to be gazed at instead of gazing at the dancer. There is an opposition between his real self and her desire to be a woman desiring the male gaze. This is an unacceptable situation in society. Similarly, when Adnan returns home after the fight in the bar, his drunken situation and his way of speaking is not acceptable.
At the beginning, both Caniko and Adnan were social failures but made good friends. At the end, Raziye and Adnan are both socially acceptable and they are still good friends. They maintained their friendship after resisting the genders imposed on them.
Adnan and Raziye play a "game" in the island. They both think that the other is being deceived but the spectator sees them both "acting". What they act is in accordance with the genders imposed upon them by the social environment whereas they play "the game" on an uninhabited island. At the end of the game, they quarrel and become unhappy because they both remember Caniko, and consequently, another kind of relationship is possible between two people. Adnan says to Raziye, "I wish you were Caniko!".
Two scenes take place on the Bosphorus bridge, in both of which the bridge is presented as a place for dance and happiness, and as a meeting point for two genders.
Adnan’s affection for Raziye is tested two times in the film: (1) when he rejects to participate in the "auction", (2) when he enters into the room through the window with a pistol in his hand. These can be interpreted as evidence showing that there is something personal in his love apart from a man’s role in the society.
There are several instances of misrecognition in the film. The betrayed husband cannot recognize Adnan; Adnan cannot recognize Raziye; Caniko’s old friend (Ali?) cannot recognize Raziye; and Salih (the rich man) cannot recognize his own wife in the bed. In all these examples, predetermined social roles prevent people’s identities from being recognized.
Caniko once looks in the mirror and says that he would like to cut his face since it lacks the characteristics of a man. It is known that this a procedure applied by "protectors" to prostitutes when they do not obey them. Here, it is possible to interpret the scene as a revelation of the split in Caniko’s character. The man who is looking at the woman in the mirror threatens her. Caniko’s social upbringing forces him to act as a man whereas there is always an innate desire in him to become a woman. The conflict between nature and culture takes place between his appearance and the gender imposed on him.
As far as time sequence is considered, the narrative can be clearly divided into two parts: the period of Caniko and that of Raziye. In the first part, there is restlessness and ambiguity in Caniko’s behavior. In the second part, Caniko is a perfect woman who is quite content to attract the male gaze, and the conflict between nature and culture has been solved.
The crucial time in the narrative is the period in which Caniko transforms into Raziye. Although being short, this period has some phases. First, Caniko is taken to the place of the rapists and is forced to dance for them. In the second step, men attempt to rape him but he is castrated instead since he is not a woman. The third step takes place in the hospital; Caniko is operated on and is transformed into a woman. The doctor declares that from now on Caniko is a woman both naturally and legally. In the fourth step, Naciye comes with women’s dresses and persuades "her" that she is the most attractive girl she has ever seen. Finally, in the fifth step, she becomes content to be named "Raziye" and gives her personal decision to dance for the male gaze. So, the transformation has been completed. As it can be observed, the conflict between nature and culture in Caniko’s case has been solved by force, e.g., a medical operation after castration. In patriarchal social relations, Caniko’s ambiguous situation is taken as a threat against male gender. Caniko should be made "normal" so that the threat be eliminated. The doctor says "It is a humanistic task to save her from this pain and lead her to her ‘normal’ way of life". Thus, the act of transforming takes place in the realm of science, a "neutral" zone, which is assumed to be outside nature-culture conflict. Her acceptance of the new gender is organized in the hospital, as Naciye visits her with dresses and makes many compliments to her about her new gender. Besides, she offers business to her in which she can dance and acquire the male gaze. Moreover, she guarantees that there is no risk for her "virtue" in Naciye’s house. In sum, one who is not socially acceptable is first taken to a "heterotopia", and then, is sent back to normal life after having been "normalized". A significant point is that Raziye is sent back to Sulukule, the gypsy district which is linked to the rest of the social life with a small bridge. The transformation by force has been "naturalized" by science. The hospital is the place where the myth is constructed.
The scene in which Raziye beats Acenta Riza reveals an opposition constructed throughout the film between a woman’s desire to attract the male gaze and a man’s desire to conquer women. As his name implies, he acts as an agent to help men to conquer women. Raziye first beats him, then steps on him, and finally, begins to dance on him. This signifies that she conquers him without being conquered by men.
If one uses Greimas’s semiotic square in order to represent the social model of sexual relations presented in the film, it will become clear that Adnan’s case has also two aspects just like that of Caniko/Raziye’s:
Throughout the film, the football field is where the function of genders is revealed. Similar to the wrestling areas in Barthes’ narration, there is no myth in the football field. It is functional to recognize that Adnan as a goalkeeper lacks woman-ness whereas Caniko as a scorer lacks man-ness. What is common in both is a lack despite being for contradictory qualities. That enables them to appreciate each other’s situations, and causes an empathy between them.
As for the nature/culture opposition in Caniko/Raziye’s case, something interesting can be observed:
| Caniko | Raziye | |
| nature | born as man | perfect woman |
| culture | made woman (humiliated) | spectacle for male gaze (accepted) |
Caniko wants to be gazed but when he is gazed, he is taken as a woman (even by himself), he becomes restless because of his desire. When he becomes Raziye her desire for the gaze is accepted since it is a woman’s role to be gazed. Up to this point, the case is in accordance with Laura Mulvey’s argument. However, something extra is observed in Raziye’s situation which seems more complicated. As is known, representation of the woman’s body for the male gaze is associated with men’s fear to be castrated. This fear should be eliminated by the submission of the female character to the order of man, being conquered and made obey the Law. The narration is required to be dramatic, e.g., as if presenting reality so as to guarantee the elimination of castration fear. The significant diversion from that stereotype narration is the way Adnan and Raziye act during the "game scene" in the island. They both show to the spectator that "they are acting the genders imposed on them by the society". Besides, Adnan, being a spectacle for the male gaze as a goalkeeper, can appreciate Caniko’s case. Again, Raziye, although being castrated by men’s order, achieves the male gaze that she desired so much before being a woman, yet she could not be conquered until the end of the film. The tests Adnan goes through to prove his love for Raziye and the complexity of the final scene connote that Raziye is not more humiliated than Adnan by getting married. One is provoked to think that, in the film, there is a latent desire of men to be a women in order to reach the pleasure of being looked at, which is represented by Adnan’s situation in the course of the film. It is possible to conclude that the pleasure of being gazed upon by men is presented in the film as a challenge of women to a certain extent.
CETIN SARIKARTAL (scetin@bilkent.edu.tr)