Yeşilçam melodramlarında sakatlık metaforu ve normun kuruluşu (1960-1980)

This study seeks to problematize the recurring images of disability in Yeşilçam melodramas produced between the years 1960-1980, a period known as the "golden age" of Yeşilçam film-making. After determining the number of films with disabled protagonists and main plotlines which make use of stereotypical representations of the disabled characters, the study sets out to relate the frequency of these images to the socio-historical context of production and to the genre itself. The study first situates the sensational effect disabled imagery musters in the narrative structure and genre conventions. In order to analyze how such sensation is evoked and how the disability is rendered a metaphor, the study then situates the meanings attached to disability within the eugenicist discourse of Kemalist modernization project. The film analyses presented in this study suggest that it is the fusion of the Yeşilçam melodramas narrative framework and the meanings assigned to gender roles and to body that render the melodramatic disability legible, relatable and sensational. The study asserts that aside from the versatile functionality that figurative disability provides within the narrative structure and aesthetics of melodrama genre, images of disability in intricate relationship with images of sexuality in Yeşilçam melodramas both delineate and transgress the norms set forth by nationalist modernization project, by standing for absolute and immutable difference.