The docile subject construction in the family films of new turkish cinema

The way of contemplation upon which hermeneutics of subject, true nature of self, the structures forming it and the dynamics constructing it constitutes fundamental concern of both most pre-modern school of thought and scientific disciplines constructed by modernity and it is garnered a huge achieve on this problematique which is as archaic as intellectual history. This archive on whether the self is pre-given and suigeneris or it is a form constructed later and on dynamics construct it clusters around two distinct and inclusive camps. The idea of the subject as a completely self-contained being and is of its own unique essence, this image of subjectivity is being identified with the Enlightenment defined by rational thought and consciousness. On the other hand, 20th century thinkers, social theorists and theorists in the field of cultural studies all consider the subject as a construction. One of the two subjectivity projects that put forward the thesis that the subject is a construction and which dominated at the end of the 20th century is a subjectivity project of Foucault, which focuses on power relations, discursive formations and institutional practices and the other one is psychoanalysis, which emphasizes the internal processes of the self. A set of 'experiences' consisting of ways of believing, desiring, feeling, acting, behaving that one takes to be one's own and then attributes to oneself or taking that experience as one's own and assuming the subject position of that experience is what Foucault seems to understand 'subjectivity' and what Foucault calls a complex process 'subjectification'. Foucault's account of the constitution of subjective experience consists of three formations as discursive practices, non-discursive practices and the axis of ethics. In the final axis, by ethics Foucault understands the conscious relation to self. In other words, ones the person accepting and recognizing the subjective experience which more or less well defined by the discursive formations and non-discursive practices, becomes subjectified. This implies a passive subjectivity determined by social processes. Nevertheless, according to Foucault, man can resist the subjectification processes and the subject positions imposed on him for the last two centuries. This is possible through the design of ethical life and the practices which requires a critical attitude, which involves a constant conscious effort and technologies of the self, and which Foucault simply calls cultivation of the self. For him, ethics is not the moral codes or institutional prescriptions, but the freedom achieved by consciously construction of the self. Foucault's project was positioned at the center of the theoretical approach of my thesis because of this emancipating manner. Because the construction of subjectivity takes place firstly in to the institution of family through the constitution of subjective experience, what would be the power technologies and strategies of domination run in family and, how can docility/docile subject/ submissiveness/obedience be constructed through these strategies have become the object of my thesis. I assert the thesis that the family, especially the family in the films, are the machines of docile subject production and I have tried to put forward the technology of this machine. Since I explain construction of subjectivity with Foucaultian theory, the theory has helped me for method of my thesis and I have used the method of Foucaultian discourse analysis in my analysis. Foucaultian discourse analysis involves firstly identifying the given discourses, secondly revealing the mechanisms and practices of power that constitute these discourses, and the process of understanding the truths constructed by all these and finally the fact that all kinds of pre-given general assumptions and what subsequently counts as being self-evident, universal and necessary are historical formations. In this respect, the method was the most appropriate for me to demonstrate what kind of dynamics are being used for constructing the docile subject in the family. Between the years of 1996-2018 in the New Turkish Art Cinema, eleven film, which placed the family at the center of his narrative among the total 120 films that won awards in national and international major festivals and that formed the research universe of the thesis, have become the research sample of my thesis. In these films, I analyzed the disciplinary technologies and the processes of docile subjectivity. Two types of family forms have emerged in the films as patriarchal family and modern family. While the power has been embodied in the father figure in the patriarchal family, it has been lost its center and has become decentered in the modern family. It has been emerged both that varying levels of disciplinary techniques work in the family from physical violence applied to the body to manufacturing consent practiced in the psyche, and moral norms are preserved by punishing the undisciplined subjects. With a few exceptions in films, I have observed that resistance to all these processes takes place in either the criminal or the psychiatric field, and thus which is being constructed that resistance to the sovereign is impossible. It has been turned out that all of the films constitute discourses constructing family such as that family is the center and location of troubles, problems, punishments, domination, violence, insults and murders; and that family is 'the cube of torment' six sides surrounded by walls. As a result of these findings, I have put forward that the family in the films works like a machine that manufactures docile subjects; and that it produces obedient subjects through all these subjugation and disciplinary technologies; moreover, family films cripple the subject instead of strengthening the subject by criticizing the dominant and sovereign.