This article explores the critical reassessment of one particularly prevalent ethnic stereotype in Turkish-German cinema: the stereotype of the oppressive Turkish partriarch. Comparing Yasemin (1988), a much-cited, early coming-of-age film made by German film-maker Hark Bohm, with three recent features made by young Turkish-German film-makers-Sülbiye Günar's Karamuk (2002), Ayse Polat's Tour Abroad and Züli Aladag's controversial Rage (2006)-it examines father-daughter and father-son relationships and traces how these films reaffirm or invert the clichéd image of the domineering Turkish father who is out of touch with German majority culture. Drawing on Kobena Mercer's concept of the dialogic imagination, the article investigates whether these cinematic representations of the vilified or idealized father promote social change through 'a multiplication of critical dialogues' or whether they simply reiterate dominant 'discourses of domination' (Mercer 2003). Some of the most prominent directors of the New Turkish-German Cinema have put the destabilization and critical investigation of ethnic stereotypes of 'the Turk', or rather, the Turkish-German migrant, high on their artistic agenda. In fact, Fatih Akin, currently the most high-profile of the 'Young Turks', who started his career in the film industry as an actor, decided to make his own films because he was no longer prepared to the play the 'stereotype Turk', that is the Turk who is either a victim or a social problem (cited in Dehn 1999). By scripting and directing his own films, including such success stories as Kurz und schmerzlos / Short Sharp Shock (1998), Im Juli / In July (2000) and Gegen die Wand / Head-On (2004) he hoped to avoid these stereotypes (arguably creating other ones instead) and to move films about migrants out of the 'guest-worker niche' and into the mainstream of German film culture (Akin 2004). 1 Thomas Arslan, best known for his Berlin Kreuzberg Trilogy, expresses a similar disaffection with clichéd portrayals of Turks. By releasing Turkish characters from 'the burden of representation' (Mercer 2003: 251), 2 he endeavours to utilize cinema as a space for shifting public perception: 'If it is already no longer possible to avoid clichés altogether, one can perhaps attempt to pass beyond them, that is to say, to try and use such images as the point of departure in order, gradually to dismantle them in such a way as that 1 The term 'guestworker' (Gastarbeiter) refers to labour migrants who were 'invited' by the West German government during the economic boom years of the 1950s and 1960s. Like 'guests' they were expected to stay only temporarily but many, in particular, Turkish labour migrants were joined by their families and stayed for good. Films about Turkish and other labour migrants were first made by German film-makers during the 1970s and, from the 1980s on, also by Turkish film-makers living and working in 55
