Not quite Turkish delight(ful)

Taken 2 – now showing

As far as flavours of the month go, this is one I can delight in. One I can Turkish delight in. Boom boom.

Waiting for Taken 2 to start and there was a preview for the new Bond film, Skyfall. Filmed in Istanbul.

Shortly thereafter was one for Argo. Also filmed in Istanbul.

Taken 2 began and moments in and Bryan (Liam Neeson) was off on an unexplained work trip. To Istanbul, of course, because Hollywood isn’t going anywhere else in 2012.

I’ve been lucky enough to visit on three occasions. Istanbul is one of my favourite cities and without a return scheduled, I can happily settle for ogling.

Had Taken 2 been filmed anywhere else and I’d quickly have dismissed it as phallic shlock. But the splendid backdrop motivated me to not only cut it a little slack but allow myself to take it too seriously.

Nope, I’m not Turkish, but on every visit some random person has claimed I have “eyes of the Turk”. I’m construing the remark as a) a compliment and b) testimony to my affinity with the Turks and my duty to defend them against stupid insults.

On one hand this shakily-shot, laughably idiotic romp does a pretty good job at showcasing the city’s aesthetic wares. Like the equally dodgy The International (2009), Istanbul is shown as noisy and delicious and architecturally spectacular.

The film is frenetically-paced and borrows/steals not one but two fantastic songs from the much better flick Drive (2011): sure, there’s some small mercies at hand.

And yet, as gorgeous and crazy as Istanbul is portrayed, some demonisation occurs that no amount of terrific music or seductive cityscapes can disguise.

While copious supplies of flags and headscarves work – eye-rollingly – to convince audiences that Turkey is so very ethnic and foreign and suspicious, Taken 2 has even bigger problems than inaccuracy.

Apparently turfing grenades all over Istanbul is the only way to track down someone who’s been kidnapped. Property destroyed? People killed? Pfft, merely collateral damage: good God, man, American lives are at stake!

As though this isn’t all disrespectful enough, cue any number of brilliant/ethical Anglo and dumb/shady Wog stereotypes.

He might be 60, but Bryan is an American. Which equally explains why he can single-handedly outwit and outsmart even the most diabolical of cheap leather jacket-wearing overlords.

And being an American, of course, he’ll fight cleanly, honourably. Unlike those swarthy and lascivious Turks who rape and terrorise and compulsively watch soccer on broken TVs while eating borek.

Mmm… simit

And of course, there’s going to be a car crash and a simit cart will get rammed sending the sesame treats flying.

And of course there’ll be a duel in a hamam. Because, really, what other possibilities are there for men in a bathhouse?

No, no whirling dervishes. Fortunately. And I only spotted one stray cat. But there’s hookahs and knock-off-handbag merchants and carpet peddlers a'plenty. As Morrissey would croon, dial-a-cliché.

Taken 2 is nowhere near the worst film I’ve seen this year – in fact, ironically, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is far less enjoyable – but it’s certainly the most racist.

So just how much city porn can compensate for mean stereotypes and gross disrespect?

“Istanbul not Constantinople” – Bart & Baker (1940)

Join the conversation

16 Comments sorted by

  1. Dale Bloom

    Analyst

    These movies may not be for me.

    Too violent, and I can’t understand how women like violent movies.

    Although the highest grossing films are usually quite violent, with much fighting, killing and death.

    http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/

    Either the audiences must be all male, or women do enjoy violence.

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    1. emily vicendese

      undergrad

      In reply to Dale Bloom

      Thanks Lauren, I enjoy reading your work. But it must be annoying to be constantly outshone by the pure genius and dazzling wit of Dale Bloom.

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  2. Burcak Gurun

    logged in via Facebook

    Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is lost in translation. It is a bit like the cryptic crossword, you need native speaker level Turkish together with all the cultural references and subtleties to appreciate it. The script is sublime and it has a great deal of really dark humour, very very funny.

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    2. Baz M

      Law graduate & politics/markets analyst

      In reply to Lauren Rosewarne

      In the first one I was hoping he (Liam Nielsen) gets killed because it was so ridiculous and disappointing for an actor whom should be doing much better films.

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  3. Sam Loy

    logged in via Facebook

    Racism - "falsely attributing inherited characteristics of personality or behaviour to individuals of a particular physical appearance" (Giddens, 1993)

    Let's get a few facts out: the first Taken movie was about sex slavery, a trade that the Turks are world leaders in. (Here's but one piece of reporting to support that: http://articles.latimes.com/2006/feb/01/world/fg-turkey1) The sequel kicks off with the friends of those Liam Neeson killed in the first film attempting to take revenge.

    The…

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    1. Baz M

      Law graduate & politics/markets analyst

      In reply to Sam Loy

      So your justification that Turkey is one of the biggest sex slave nations is a 2006 100 word LA Times piece which provides no factual accounting what so ever with regards to its proposed numbers on the sex trade. Not to mention it being a right wing agenda paper, and conveniently enough as pro Republican paper attempts to trash a Muslim nation.
      I haven't seen this film as yet but if taken 1 is anything to go by racism is an understatement. Made out all Albanians to be criminals and laughably an Anglo intelligence agent (CIA as you do) as a moral spectacle whom single handily took on a whole mafia network even disregarding French police.
      Your right its not racist if your subconscious world view is that the west is the epitome of morality and the rest as back minded degenerate nations whom have nothing but few exotic locations going for them.

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    2. Sam Loy

      logged in via Facebook

      In reply to Baz M

      So are you saying that Turkey is not a centre for sex slavery because of the article I (probably foolishly) included? Or that the LA Times is mounting a conspiracy against Turkey because the paper is right-wing? (By the way, the article is longer than 100 words - scroll passed the pop-up ads for the rest of the piece.) I'm not saying anything about Turkey or Turkish people. All that I'm saying is that the movie, being about sex slavery, has a real-world justification for basing the movie there…

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  4. Baz M

    Law graduate & politics/markets analyst

    I'll end up watching this film purely due to my parents interest as I'm from a Turkish background. However after all that's happened and we've seen not to mention the Asian Pacific region overtaking the west in terms off well pretty much everything, it still plays to the unfortunate arrogance possessed in what is meant to be supposedly "left leaning" Hollywood that they portray eastern culture regardless of the particular nationalities to be these sub culture species. Russian and Eastern Europeans are all mafia and gangsters, Muslims are all terrorists, Asians are all collective chaotic groups whom have no sense of individualism etc etc. Is it only me or is the time come and gone to say; "get over it, the world is not Americas little playground anymore and as the sensational opening line of the the newsroom suggests, "best nation in the world" syndrome is nothing beyond baseless rhetoric.

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    1. Sam Loy

      logged in via Facebook

      In reply to Baz M

      I think you are being overly simplistic with your summation of movie stereotypes. Hollywood in recent years has actually tried to avoid the "Muslims are all terrorists" characterisation, opting instead for extra-terrestial and domestic threats.
      At any rate, do you realise the irony in you asking when we will "get over it", when you have just admitted that you are going to watch the movie? The first step is to vote with your wallet, so that these movies with these stereotypes are not produced. Otherwise, the production houses will see their big returns and do what they have been doing for 30 odd years: repeating the formula.

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  5. Dennis Alexander

    logged in via LinkedIn

    I think it is interesting that the word 'pornography' in contracted form 'porn' has given rise to a new suffix "-porn" as in "food porn", "city porn", "car porn", "bike porn". The affixed meaning seems to me to be roughly "visually enticing and addictive, providing vulgar gratification of (primal) urges". I doubt that we will see the coinage of "academe porn" survive this posting, except for some of us, yes Dale included, who seem to find these boards strangely alluring.

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  6. Daniel Richardson

    logged in via Facebook

    What did you expect Ms Rosewarne? You don't go to a drive thru for a rib eye steak and you don't go to an action movie for historical and cultural accuracy and political correctness. The film was made to make money - not to educate or inform or to dispel prejudice or expound the virtues of tolerance acceptance and living in harmony. Its a classic good guy vs bad guy, blow up some stuff, happily ever after, America rules McMotion Picture. I think you got what you paid for.

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    1. Lauren Rosewarne

      Senior Lecturer at University of Melbourne

      In reply to Daniel Richardson

      I take your point – a person should never go to a multiplex and expect cultural or historical enlightenment. That said, I'd argue there is a bloody big difference between a film providing historical and cultural information and it being just plain offensive.

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  7. alfred venison

    records manager (public sector)

    i like vancouver, been through six or 7 times on the way to edmonton, and a very pretty & civilised place it is, too. nice human scale. if you know vancouver you can recognise it in a lot of contemporary tv shows & movies. just this weekend, i saw the interior of the cn station (apparent from the shape of the running board along the ceiling that featured briefly behind someone's shoulder) in an episode of "supernatural". sometimes its the skytrain, or its the eatons centre, or outside the art gallery where the guy sells roasted chestnuts in winter, other times its gastown its with faux period street lamps. and then there's stanley park - once all over "the x-files" & and now featuring frequently in "supernatural". i could take the "x-files" or leave them, and "supernatural" is more someone else's cup of tea, but with both i like to get a nudge when vancouver the city appears in the scene. a.v.

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