The New Middle Eastern Hollywood

The Middle East is going through a bit of a cult now. Arabs watching Turkish dramas like it’s the only thing that makes sense. It all started with Noor, the infamous drama series featuring the Middle Eastern Brad Pitt and the beautiful young Arab-looking lady.

Those Turkish dramas became famous after they were dubbed in Arabic and aired on channels such as MBC. People were like, “Omg, they speak Syrian, they look pretty and they have love stories that suit our cultural and religious background. That’s dope!”

And dope it was. People couldn’t stop watching Noor when it came out. It was a family event. They would gather around the TV around 10 pm when it aired and just sit there for a whole hour. Nobody questioned as to why they are doing this or why do they find this show to be so attractive. When the theme song played in a mall, people would automatically turn their heads and look for the source. It was that hilarious.

After the success of Noor, the Turkish film industry decided to make more of “this show” and target the Middle Eastern audience. The Middle Eastern Brab Pitt almost appears in every new Drama and the ones he stars tend to be the most popular. Mirna and Khalil was the second biggest hit on TV and that was back in 2008-2009.

Now everyone expects to see a new Turkish Drama on TV. It became so much a part of the Arabic television program that it is unnatural if it ceases to exist.

What I find interesting from a sociological point of view is to know what elements made these Turkish dramas really successful. So let’s compare it to the movies made in Indian Cinema because those are popular in Southeast Asia.

Bollywood cinema features a blend of genres in different films such as comedy; action, musical and they call it the “masala.” Turkish TV series, on the other hand, appear to have the same exact safe combo of themes: Drama/Action/Romance. Every story has to have the main characters who are in love, a gun shooting and of course the messed up families and the sad sad sub-stories. The reason why all the dramas have the same theme is because it is one strategy that the Turkish film industry use to minimize risk and because it is the definition of what a Turkish drama is in Arab’s mindsets.

Bollywood films are popular for their song-and-dance-sequences that allows the film to exist beyond its plot and allows the characters to be more internal. Turkish dramas use a different technique but for the same exact purposes. They have a lot of slow motion shots that features the characters’ facial expressions when something dramatic happens on screen. And to add more drama, they insert a really sad musical track that makes the audience’s eyes water. Here is a scene from Meran and Khalil when Khalil discovers that the love of his life is being forced to marry this other guy (Skip to 9:42):

If you haven’t seen a Turkish Drama, you certainly should. It’s a great experience. You don’t even know why you enjoyed it, but you will.