WOMEN AT CINEMA AS STRENGTHENER THE NATIONAL IDENTITY

The women are thought to have a central role in the construction of national identity and when we thought of its effects on cinema's representation of women, it can be seen that a good amount of interrelated issues begin to be discussed. in this spirit, the paper initially focuses on the interrelated concepts such as ethnocentricism, racism and nationalism along with the mandatory relationship between woman -as the reproductor of the nation as well as the conveyer of cultural values- and nation. then the problematic representation of woman in cinema and the organization of the we/other dichotomy transferred through the woman character have been analysed. aiming to exemplify the sexist and ethnocentric cliches in the cinema, the films named bir millet uyanıyor (eğilmez, 1966) and bir türk’e gönül verdim (refiğ, 1969) have been analysed in the light of the above-mentioned titles and their explanations. the films; the values touched upon, repeated cliches, the descriptive features of the characters, the social roles of women characters, the places they live and the relationships among the characters are investigated in this study. through this investigation, the discourse analysis method is used to be able to put forward the beliefs, judgements, values and the ideologic backgrounds of the narratives.