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According to Laura Mulvey, in the narrative structure of traditional cinema the male character is
established as active and powerful agent around whom the dramatic actions unfold. 6 It is the male
character and his gaze that the spectator is made to identify with. The female character is turned into
a spectacle, an object of the male look. Mulvey states that “cinematic codes create a gaze” and that
the there is the power visual culture industry bares the power to structure the audiences
ideologically. 7 Hollinger argues that Mulvey, in her analysis, held out “no hope of progressive change
in regard to the representation of women within the mainstream.” 8 In relation to the pessimism
towards patriarchal codes of mainstream cinema, arguing that the traditional and mainstream
narrative and cinematic techniques are patriarchal, some feminist film theorists suggest feminists to
engage in experimental film making, and establish a counter‐cinema practice. 9 However, this causes
the very problem of who the audience would be for these experimental practices. Mary Gentile
argues that, “feminism exists in the film reading” rather than in the film text, which suggests that, the
films with inherent political messages seek to delimit the readings. 10 In a feminist film with a political
message at the core, the risk might be to be didactic and only reach and preach the already
converted. On the other hand, if a film is produced with an internalised feminist consciousness
without the concern or mission of delivering “the message”, the text itself could exist as a feminist
content. In that context, Mavi Dalga bears the potential to reach a wide audience including the youth
by telling an ordinary story in cinematic aesthetics. In such a film, everyday life is a terrain of
struggles and we do not need heroes and heroines to narrate cinematic stories. Within that frame,
Mavi Dalga provides an example of deconstructive cinema. Annnette Kuhn states:
On one level the object of deconstruction process is the textual operations and modes
of address characteristic of dominant cinema, the aim being to provoke spectators into
awareness existence and effectivity of dominant codes, and consequently to engender a
critical attitude towards those codes. Provacation, awareness and a critical attitude
suggest in turn a trasformation in spectator‐text relations…Deconstructive cinema aims
therefore to unsettle the spectator. 11
Therefore, as an example of deconstructive cinema the film “works by a process of breaking
down” 12 as throughout the film the audience is presented with scenes that creates the expectation of
a tension – as would be expected in mainstream cinematic narrative – but then the point of tension
is released without any catharsis. In that sense, I believe, the narrative technique of Mavi Dalga
provides the opportunity in terms of deconstructive feminist filmmaking. It would not only break the
cycle of binary profiles of women as angels/evils, femme fatale/innocent girl but also moralistic
understanding of women’s issues mostly in relation to victimisation of women. Also mentioned
earlier, there are examples of other films taking women as the centre of their story‐line and telling
the women’s stories, stories of women who are abused, sexually and psychologically harassed, are
subjected to violence etc. and the dramatic tension at the core of these films usually are claimed to
empower women by associating them common elements of masculine power. That is to say, these
are women that use sexuality to abuse men, fight against men and even kill men when they are
threatened. But what Mavi Dalga does in terms of empowering women is a real deconstruction of
the narrative that praise the feminine way via its mundaneness. In such a narrative the tension of
masculine discourse is not required to empower women. On the contrary, the mundaneness worthy
of narrating is the very source of empowerment.
Dr. İrem İNCEOĞLU
Kadir Has University, Faculty of Communications
irem.inceoglu@khas.edu.tr