Representation of Maternal Identity in Post-2010 Turkish Cinema: Particle (2012), Motherland (2015), Dust Cloth (2015), and My Mother (2019)

Abstract

The representations in the cinema create stereotypes in the minds of the audience regarding the gender roles attributed to women and men. Motherhood is also seen as one of the identities a woman acquires throughout her life. The representation of motherhood in cinema can be viewed from sociological, psychoanalytic, and feminist perspectives. The change experienced in Turkish cinema after 2010 was also reflected in the characters of women and mothers, and different representations of mothers began to be seen instead of stereotypical characters. In the research, four films with mother characters in their narratives were selected by purposive sampling method. The films Zerre-Particle (2012), Anayurdu-Motherland (2015), Toz Bezi-Dust Cloth (2015), and Annem-My Mother (2019) were analyzed using the qualitative content analysis method in terms of how motherhood is presented. Consequently, the depiction of the self-sacrificing mother archetype is reconstructed in cinema, except in Dust Cloth film.