Orientalism effect on TV serries representation of Harem in Muhteşem Yüzyıl series

Television screens are one of the most important tools for the society to learn about history. Television continuously gives information to the audience, especially to those who are addicted to litearal. History fiction TV serials are one of these information. In this regard, historical dramas reach millions of people and enable the reconstruction of history. In recent years , the number of productions about Ottoman history on TV as well as in cinema increased. TV series on a specific period may contain either anachronical or discursive errors. Most of the time, television audience has no need to inverstigate what they see on the screen and memorize only what they hear or see. Thus, true or false, they get information from television. The sense of history is very important for constitution of the national identity. In this context , this study will examine one of the most popular TV series, "Muhteşem Yüzyıl", that displays the life of Kanuni Sultan Süleyman, the 10th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. We will discuss how overlap two discourses, the drama's discourse and the Orientalist discourse, which can be summarized as "the image of the East presented by the West". Orientalism is not only an historical fact, but an international discourse that has impact on today's issues. The East, marginalized by the West, has been defined in a pejorative way through history. In this sense, 16th century in which the Ottoman Empire reached it speak, Europeans produced a lot of work full of untrue, partial information including Orienatalist discourse about Ottomans and Harem in that period. Those works created in that period are still in use. This approach, in other words the Orientalist discourse, also reveals itself on television. One of the these is Muhteşem Yüzyıl series, which constitutes the sample of this study. This series, adopting Orientalist discourse, makes itself self-orientalist and producing a kind of auto – orientalism. In short, it reproduces and consolidates the Orientalism discourse by conceptualizing and fictionalizing Ottomans and Harem from the travelers' yes and descriptions.