hollywood in vernacular

7/24/2019 Hollywood in Vernacular

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Hollywood in Vernacular:ranslation and Cross-CulturalReception of American Films in

urkeyAhmet Grata

o write the international history of classical American cinema

is a matter of tracing not just its mechanisms of standardizationand hegemony but also the diversity of ways in which this cinemawas translated and reconfigured in both local and translocalcontexts of reception.

Cinema as Vernacular Modernism

Te world-wide success of classical Hollywood cinema is usually attributedto a combination of its universal intelligibility, derived from its popularand hybrid nature, and the cultural imperialism that resulted from the

enormous economic power of the U.S culture industry. According to thefirst argument, Hollywood films developed a narrative style that differentaudiences throughout the world found easy to comprehend. As Will Hays,President of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc.(MPPDA), recalled in his Memoirs, American films of the earliest silentpicture era had to be designed to appeal to the less educated groups and tothe large foreign-language sections of our own population. It was essentialthat the viewer should be able to follow the story whether understandingEnglish or not. Hence our silent pictures early developed a style and form

that commended them to all races and groups of people, without the

Maltby et al, Going to the movie333 333 28/09/2007 13:40:35


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aid of words. Te popularity of Hollywood films in the sound era hasalso often been explained by reference to a comparable universalism, in

which American cinemas repetition and quotation of its own images andgenres proved more responsive to consumer desires than did the productsof other cinemas. Most accounts of Hollywoods strong global presence,however, also attribute its success to political and economic factors such asits significant mode of production, large economies of scale and the US.governments support and aggressive policies.

Beyond these narrative templates and industrial strategies, however,more localised processes by which these products were adapted to suit thecultural preferences of the target audiences contributed significantly to theirsuccess, as did the specific ways in which they were exhibited. As Jacques

Malthtes study of Georges Mlis films shows, the adaptation of filmsinto specific contexts of reception started almost with the introductionof the cinmatagrophe. Te English and French versions of Mlis filmssometimes differ significantly, and from , Mlis catalogues includeda twenty-metre film aiming to thank respective spectators of his films: Vuede remerciements au public. In this short film, different people display thesame banner, reading thanks in French, English, German, Spanish, Italian,

Vue de remerciements au public (Mlis catalogue no , ). Te banner readsTanks in Arabic and Greek (From Malthte, Mlis et le confrencier, Iris,

p. ).



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Russian and finally in Arabic and Greek. Te latter, addressing Ottomanaudiences, was presented by two women and a men in Oriental dress.

Interpreted by lecturers or inter-titles and accompanied by music orsound effects, silent movies were adapted for different culturally specificaudiences. Although the introduction of sound made these kinds ofmodification more difficult and expensive, similar strategies were used byproducers, distributors and exhibitors alike during the sound era. Alteringforeign films, especially Hollywood products, helped to increase moviespopularity among local audiences. As Miriam Hansen observes:

If classical Hollywood cinema succeeded as an international modernistidiom on a mass basis, it did so not because of its presumably universalnarrative form but because it meant different things to different people and

publics, both at home and abroad. We must not forget that these films, alongwith other mass-cultural exports, were consumed in locally quite specific,and unequally developed, contexts and conditions of reception; that theynot only had a levelling impact on indigenous cultures but also challengedprevailing social and sexual arrangements and advanced new possibilitiesof social identity and cultural styles; and that the films were also changedin that process.

In this chapter, I would like to focus on the processes of culturaladaptation by which Hollywood films were modified and translated into the

local context in urkey between and . In some cases, the movieswere significantly altered for particular export markets.More importantly,local distributors, exhibitors and censorship bodies modified these moviesto facilitate their reception by their culturally specific audiences. Sometimesscenes were removed, or performances featuring local stars were insertedinto the original prints. Tese transformations particularly affected thelocal context of reception in relation to the experience of modernisationand modernity. In her essay on the transnational currency of classicalHollywood cinema, Miriam Hansen, describes the promiscuity and translat-ability of this cinema as a form of vernacular modernism. She suggests

that the American movies of the classical period played a key role inmediating competing cultural discourses on modernity and modernisation.Appropriating Hansens theoretical framework, I would like to discuss therole of marketing, programming and exhibition practices, as well as dubbingand censorship, as strategies of translation in effecting the cross-culturalreception of Hollywood cinema.



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Marketing, Programming and Exhibition

Hollywood films have been an integral and naturalised part of urkishmovie culture, spreading from Istanbuls highly Westernised Pera district tothe whole country. Starting in with the opening of Istanbuls CinmaAmericain theatre promoting Vitagraph films, American films becomehighly popular, outnumbering continental brands by the mid-s. As themovie theatres name itself indicated, French was used extensively amongstthe Ottoman elite. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,French symbolised all Europeanor Westernnetworks and values. Untilthe mid-s, American films were either dubbed into French or screenedin the original with French subtitles in Istanbuls Pera district.As late as

, the U.S Department of Commerce was reporting that from a foreignlanguage point of view with regard to films, French could be rated next tourkish. Tis trend changed only in the s, with the impact of theMarshall Plan and urkeys growing relations with the US. Before then,American culture made its entry, if not in urkish then in French.

American film titles were translated into urkish, in the process oftenbeing either adapted to the local context for easy comprehension, or strippedof any offending phrases, in order to attract larger audiences. Cheaper bythe Dozen (), a movie about a couple who try to conduct their lives

efficiently as they have a dozen children, was translated as Demokrat Aile(Democratic Family), referring to the just and equal care given by the parents,but also connoting the Democratic Party, which was then enjoying its firstyears in power after the end of single party rule in . Cecil B. de MillesTe Crusades () was screened under the title Selahattin Eyybi ve HalSeferleri (Salahaddin-i Ayyubi and the Crusades), emphasising the role of theAbbasid Sultan fighting against the Crusades. Te movies dialogue wasprobably also modified to justify this emphasis. In a practice that RobertStam has called parasitical translation, movies were sometimes also re-titled to refer to earlier box-office hits for obvious commercial reasons.

For example, after the success of Rudolph Valentinos Te Sheik (urkishtitle eyh Ahmet) and Te Son of Sheik a number of movies screened undersimilar titles. Roman Novarros Te Sheik Steps Out (Irving Pichel, )was screened under the familiar title eyh Ahmet, while Te Barbarian() was titled as eyhin Ak (Te Lover of the Sheik) probably becausethe word barbarian, a term commonly used to describe urks in the West,was conceived as insulting.

Te movies were also exhibited in locally specific ways. Movie programformats varied. Te program of Istanbuls rk movie theatre in

included a urkish short, a Fox Movietone newsreel and a feature film.



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Other Istanbul theatres showed double-bills, programming two films,each approximately sixty minutes long, for the price of one. Generally,

however, the two-hour program of American movie theatres was standardin urkey, although exhibitors were reluctant to go beyond this limit. If afilm did not fit into this program together with the shorts and newsreels,it was automatically shortened. For example, minutes out of minutesof Te Story of Dr Wassell (Cecil B. de Mille, ) was removed by itsurkish distributors. Tis type of trimming caused misapprehensions andwas strongly criticised by film journals in the s.

Distributors also removed songs and dance scenes from some musicals.Spectacular Hollywood productions such as Kismet (Vincente Minnelli,) and South Pacific(Joshua Logan, ) were exhibited in much shorter

versions, without their songs. s urkish audiences disliked musicals,despite their being the third most popular genre (after action and drama)among audiences worldwide according to a survey conducted by MGM intothe relative popularity of different genres, urkey was listed with India,Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon as being among the countries with tastes almostdiametrically opposed to those of American audiences. Tese films werefurther modified by inserting locally produced scenes featuring local singersor dancers into the original film. Although this method was widely used inadapting Egyptian and European films, some Hollywood movies were also

altered in this fashion. As Alim erif Onaran, a film scholar and formermember of the urkish censorship body, explains, international films werenot just retitled, but altered in order to give the impression that the moviewas set in urkey. As a result, the movies were presented as almost likea urkish movie.

Indigenisation of this kind was a cheap way of catering to local tastes,since film production in urkey was limited at the time. Te modificationof movies gained a new momentum in , when local taxes on filmadmissions were reduced in favour of urkish products. As a result, thenumber of films produced in urkey increased from six in to eighteen

in . In response, foreign film distributors released nearly twice as manydubbed and modified films in as they had in the previous year.Mostof these dubbed versions included inserted indigenous performances, andnew film studios were established to produce them. Faruk Ken, who startedhis career by shooting inserts of local dancers, singers, comedians andmagicians described this process as the urkification of a movie.Whilethese inserts often replaced song and dance scenes in the original prints ofmusicals, dramas and other genres of films also included such performancesHere, the aim was to offer something like the variety form of programming

that had been highly popular among urkish audiences during and after



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the silent period. As late as the mid-s, some urkish movie theatreswere not equipped with sound projectors, and most of these continued to

use a variety programming format. For example, before the exhibition ofa urkish film, musicians performed a classical urkish music concert inKonyas Belediye movie theatre. Inserting locally produced performancesor significant modification of films can be considered as an extension of thistype of variety programming.

Tis suggests that even in the sound period the relationship betweenfilm and viewer in urkey was presentational rather than representational.According to Hansen, early modes of presentation, alternating shortfilms with live performances, borrowed their disjunctive style from othercommercial forms of entertainment. Presentational films address the viewer

directly, with frequent asides to the camera and a frontal organisation ofspace. According to Hansen, early cinemas dispersal of meaning acrossfilmic and nonfilmic sources, such as the alternation of films and numbers,lent the exhibition the character of a live event, that is, a performance thatvaried from place to place and time to time depending on theater type andlocation, audience composition, and musical accompaniment. Some ofthese practices remained quite common in urkey in the sound era, anddistributors and exhibitors transformed classical films into presentationalones, by cutting different scenes into original copies or programming them

together with musical numbers.

Dubbing

During the early sound years, Hollywood companies mostly dubbed theirown movies into different languages, but before long they received protestsfrom several countries about the use of unsuitable accents and intonation.Tis method also left little room to modify any inappropriate scenes. Duringthe early s, eleven countries introduced regulations requiring dubbingto be carried out on their home soil.After the success of the first urkish

talking picture, stanbul Sokaklarnda (On the Streets of Istanbul) (MuhsinErturul, ), which was dubbed at Epinay Studios in France, urkeyssole production company pek Film decided to build a new sound filmstudio in Istanbul. In , with equipment from obis-Klangfilm andunder the supervision of a German engineer, pek Films dubbing studiowas launched.In its first year, the studio dubbed four movies.Soon otherdubbing studios were launched and, by the late s, urkish studios weredubbing more than a hundred movies a year.

Te cultural adaptation and familiarisation provided by dubbing might

best be exemplified by the case of voice actor Ferdi ayfur (), who



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worked for the pek Studio. He was a man of many trades, translatingand dubbing films as well as acting and directing. As fellow dubbing actor

Mcap Ofluolu recalls, he could simultaneously translate films from Frenchand English: in some cases, he would just listen to the original dialogueand then translate it into urkish. German was his mother-tongue. He hada vast knowledge of Ottoman-urkish and was proficient in Istanbul dialect.He could imitate the dialects of [non-Muslim] minorities and Anatolianpeople very well. He had an appealing and natural voice.ayfur dubbed anumber of Hollywood stars, such as Roman Novarro, Spencer racy, ClarkGable and Gary Cooper. He is, however, best known for his successfuldubbing of a number of comedians, includingboth Laurel and Hardy,Groucho Marx and Eddie Cantor.

Comedy was one of the most popular genres of s and sin urkey, and the films of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were highlysuccessful. Both characters were dubbed speaking broken urkish withan American accent. pek Films studio manager, the famous poet NazmHikmet (), together with dubbing actor Ferdi ayfur, thoughtLaurel and Hardys gags and puns were too American and did not makemuch sense in urkish. Te idea of Americans speaking urkish with anaccent did the trick, although the locale and the topics also had to bealtered to fit into the context. As ayfur, who dubbed both characters,

explained in a interview:Question: Why did you decide to dub Laurel and Hardy in anAmerican accent?

ayfur: We wanted to add some extra comic elements via thecharacters voice and accent. Dont you like it?

Q: On the contrary, I quite like it. But do you translate literally ordo you improvise?

ayfur: Well, at the beginning I tried to translate word by word,

but later I thought it was more appropriate to lip synchronise myvery own gags. For example, in one of the movies Laurel and Hardybought the shadow (!) of the famous Galata ower. In another one,Hardy sings a traditional folk song, while Laurel compares himto a local singer. Of course, there are similar adaptations in theirmovies

Similar strategies of adaptation were quite widespread. In Spain, Laureland Hardy were dubbed as speaking in trick pigeon Spanish. MGM

modelled this for the French version of Te Night Owls (James Parrott,



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). Later, they were dubbed in French speaking with a strong Englishaccent. Although poor accent and bad grammar were no hindrance to

foreign success, improper French reinforced the slapstick and burlesquecharacter of comedies which were based on physical gags, incongruousbehaviour, or loss of dignity. In a similar fashion, ayfur added specificqualities to his characters voice, such as pronunciation and accent, andused vernacular idioms. As im Bergfelder suggests, idioms based on class,generational or sub-cultural variations, create a nationally recognisablecorrespondence between language, social status, and character. Troughthese modifications, comedy films were also assimilated into differentgeneric traditions. In the end, these films were promoted almost like a localproduct, emphasising the significant role of their voice actor, as exemplified

in this advertisement.

In this flyerFerdi ayfuris seen whiledubbing aLaurel-Hardyfilm. Tecaption reads,ayfur, bothLaurel andHardy (Perde ve

Sahne , ).



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ayfur also changed protagonists names and transferred them intofamiliar locations. Te Marx Brothers, who were renamed Ahbap

avular (Tree Buddies), lived in Istanbul in their films urkish versions.Groucho Marx, dubbed by ayfur, was renamed as Arak Palabykyan,an Armenian from Istanbul (Palabyk: bushy-moustache, with the suffix-yan meaning from the family of in Armenian). According to ayfur,this character was so well-liked that some Armenians living in Istanbuleven claimed to be relatives of Arak Palabykyan. Chico was calledorik (Bonito), and Harpo was Kvrck (Curly) in the urkish versions.ayfur also transformed Eddie Cantor into a nouveau-richemerchant fromurkeys Kayseri region called Yani Babanolu, who is unscrupulously savvyconforming to the stereotype of this regions inhabitants.

Tese were successful adaptations of the films original ethnic role-playing into another context. As Charles Musser notes, by the s inHollywood, the daily conditions of role-playing are reversed. Instead ofimmigrants seeking to lose their ethnic markings and assimilate, native-born performers assume ethnic identitiesand yet do so without simulatingspecific qualities that would associate them with that group. Amongthe early sound comedians, the Marx Brothers and Eddie Cantor, bothoriginating from the polyglot city of New York, used a humour that wasverbal and ethnic. Cantors Whoopee () and Marx Brothers Animal

Crackers () were quintessential New York comedies that take the citysethnic, social, and cultural milieu as their subject and ridicule. Tesecharacters comic appeal depended on their performances as highly adeptrole-players. In moving the original setting from New York to anothercosmopolitan city, Istanbul, ayfur managed to preserve the basic comiccontradictions of the Marx Brothers. While Jewish Groucho Marx andWASP Margaret Dumont (Mrs. Rittenhouse in the original) are givenArmenian names, Italian immigrant Chico is turned into a tough urkishguy. In the case of Eddie Cantor, references to his Jewishness are replacedwith local stereotypes. Similarly, in the s, Italian comic Antonio de

Curtiss popular character oto was dubbed in a urkish-Jewish accent in hismovies urkish versions (by dubbing actor Necdet Mahfi Ayral).Rubber-faced French comedian Fernandel (Fernand Contandin), who starred inthe Don Camillo series, was also dubbed in a Kayseri accent, like EddieCantor (dubbed by actor Mcap Ofluolu).Te table below, adapted fromIan Jarvies work on stars and ethnicity, shows the perceived ethnicities ofthese comedians both in the original and urkish versions:



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able 1. Comedy and ethnic role-playing in dubbed movies

Star nameName onscreen

Name inurkishversion

Whereborn

Ethnicityreal/perceived

Ethnicityon screen

Ethnicityin urkishversion

Stan Laurel Same Same Britain British WASP American

Oliver Hardy Same Same US WASP WASP American

Julius Marx Groucho ArakPalabykyan

US Jewish Jewish Armenian-urkish

Adolph Marx Harpo Kvrck (Curly) US Jewish

Leonard Marx Chico orik (Bonito)Necmi

US Jewish Italian urkish

Margaret Dumont(Margaret Baker)

Mrs.Rittenhouse

MadamHayganu

US WASP WASP Armenian-urkish

Eddie Cantor Yani Babanolu USA Jewish Jewish urkish(Kayseri)

Fernand ContandinFernandel France French French urkish(Kayseri)

Antonio de Curtis oto oto Italy Italian Italian Jewish-urkish

Ali al-Kassar Ali Baba Balk Osman(Osman theFisherman)

Egypt Arab Arab urkish(BlackSea)

Although accents were an asset in comedy, standardised dialect was ageneral requirement for other genres. Voice actors, mostly from IstanbulsMunicipality Teatre, were trained to speak in an Istanbul accent, and bothinternational and urkish films were dubbed in this accent. In many filmswhere accent was used to emphasise social and cultural differences, thisproduced an effect of cultural levelling. In this sense, dubbing functionsas the effacement of the national signifier, as Mark Betz suggests. At theintra-national level, it creates the synthetic unity of a shared nationallanguage. At the international level, on the other hand, dubbing may beregarded as a form of national protectionism and a different kind of nationbuilding, since the dubbed film becomes a new, often local product once itis re-contextualised through this process.

Dubbing was an important tool for cultural adaptation and familiar-isation, especially in the case of comedy. Trough dubbing, a films foreignorigin was at least partially effaced, giving its urkish audience the chance

to disavow what they really know, hence opening an avenue for cultural



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ventriloquism through voice post-synchronization. In doing so, the dubbedfilm appears as a radically new product rather than a transformed old one,

a single text rather than a double one.

Censorship

It was not only local distributors and exhibitors who omitted certain scenesfrom movies and replaced them with new ones; censors also decided howthe movies should be modified, and urkeys extremely strict censorshiprules served as a straitjacket that all movies had to wear. Although therewere virtually no rules on film censorship in the early days of cinema, the Law on the Obligation and Authority of the Police entrusted the

duty of censorship to local governors. Under their authority, films werereviewed and censored by two police officers in each city where they wereto be screened. Te Regulation on the Control of Films and Screenplayswas introduced in . Tis regulation, based on an Italian model, stayedlargely intact until . It established two control commissions, one basedin Istanbul reviewing foreign films, and the other in Ankara for urkishfilms. Te membership of these boards comprised representatives of thegovernor (head), the chief of Metropolitan Police, the Interior Ministry(controlling the police force), the Ministry of Education and the Directorate

of the Press (part of the ourism Ministry). Depending on the nature ofthe film, representatives of the army or other ministries were also to jointhe commissions, and eventually army officers became de facto members.Te commissions not only reviewed all movies to be screened in urkey,but also the scripts for movies that were to be shot Te rules of censorshipwere comprehensive and strict. Article has been defined as the tencommandments of censorship by film scholar Ouz Makal. Tis articleprohibited movies deemed guilty of the following offences:

) political propaganda in favour of a particular state;

) degrading a race or a nation; ) humiliating allied states and nations; ) propagating religion; ) propagating political, economic and social ideologies hostile to

the national regime; ) contradicting general decency and morals, and national

sentiments; ) debasing the honour and dignity of the armed forces, and

propagating anti-militarism;

) undermining the order and security of the country;



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) provoking people to commit crimes;) including scenes that are propaganda against urkey.

Out of these ten commandments the most controversial were numbersone and five. According to a survey by critic Nijat zn, per cent ofbanned foreign films fell under these clauses.In the s, the foreign filmcommission banned almost all Soviet productions, citing the two clauses.Another common basis for rejection was the fourth clause, under which anumber of Hollywood epics, including King of Kings (Cecil B. de Mille,), Te en Commandments (Cecil B. de Mille, ), Te Bible (JohnHuston, ), and Te Devil at Four oClock (Melvyn Le Roy, ), werebanned.Decency and moral considerations were the other great concerns

of the censors. Almost per cent of movies were banned under clause six,according to zn. Hollywood movies tamed by the Hays Code were notmuch affected by this rule, however, and the French New Wave troubledthe censors most in the s.

Te army was also sensitive about the portrayal of the military in films,whether indigenous or foreign productions. Clause seven affected a numberof war movies such as Te Men(Fred Zinnemann, ), Te Attack (RobertAldrich, ) and Te Victors (Carl Foreman, ). Ironically, Francis(Arthur Lubin, ), the first of the series about the talking mule Francis,

was also banned in because Francis befriended an army private. Scenesof revolt, riot or crime were also unacceptable under clause eight: El Cid(Anthony Mann, ), Ben Hur (William Wyler, ), Doctor Zhivago(David Lean, ), Riot in Cell Block Eleven (Don Siegel, ), andCrisis (Richard Brooks, ) were all banned under this clause. Finally,most of the international movies set in urkey or related with urkey, suchas Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, ), America, America (Elia Kazan,) and opkap (Jules Dassin, ) were banned from screening inaccordance with clause ten.

Te censors were also equipped with other rules that authorised them

to ban movies that conformed to the ten commandments. Article of theRegulation permitted censors to prevent the screening of over-used anddamaged films that might threaten spectators eyesight. Old classics withdamaged prints and even some films with atmospheric lighting were bannedunder this article, which was used, controversially, to prohibit Orson WellesCitizen Kane() and Macbeth (), and Long Voyage Home(John Ford,).

Te commission would approve the release of some previously rejectedmovies if certain conditions were met. Tese conditions, or in the terms

used by the Regulation revision requests, normally involved the removal



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of certain scenes, re-titling or dubbing. Te revisions could only be carriedout after the approval of the films distributor. In most cases, distributors

consented to the revisions in order to avoid financial loss. For example,between and the censors banned . per cent of the foreignmovies they reviewed (a total of ,), while approving the release of some. per cent of movies with certain revisions.For example, the censorshipcommittee authorised the release of Anatole Litvaks Te Journey() withtwo cuts Te film was set in the Hungarian uprising, and told thestory of a bus-load of passengers who were detained by a Russian major.Te censorship committee requested the removal of two sentences: Russiansare good people and Men are bastards, but after p.m. they becomeirresistible. In another instance, the censors requested the removal of

blessing scenes during the war between Spanish and Arab soldiers, as wellas King Ferdinands death, inEl Cid(Anthony Mann, ).Similarly, allthe love scenes were removed from Love Story (Arthur Hiller, ) at thecensors request, turning it into an entirely platonic affair.

It would be interesting to evaluate which countries films had mostproblems with censorship. According to a survey by zcan ikve, only .per cent of the films imported from the USSR could be screened in urkeywithout any revisions. . per cent of USSR films were banned, while .per cent of them could only be released with some revisions. French and

Italian films were also most likely to be censored. per cent of French filmsand . per cent of Italian filmsmostly on the grounds of general decencyand moralswere subject to modification. Censors viewed US. films quitefavourably, and banned only . per cent of these between and .

able 3 Films reviewed by Istanbul Controlling Commissionfrom 1951 and 1966

Country of origin Conditionally accepted (%) Rejected (%)

US 2.2 2.6Britain 5.6 3.5

Italy 13.1 3.8

Germany 7 6.4

France 17 7.8

USSR 39.8 41.3

otal 8.1 5.3

(From ikve, Mukayeseli Hukukta ve rk Hukukunda SinemaFilmlerinin Sansr, p. 154).



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We should also note that, even before they sent their films to the censorshipbody, the distributors might have modified them while dubbing or subtitling.

As seen from these examples, what is left out from these films is quitesignificant. As Annette Kuhn has argued, film censorship is not reducible toa circumscribed and predefined set of institutions and institutional activities,and should be understood as a process. In this sense, the unwritten rulesof prohibition have changed with time and context. In the relatively liberalatmosphere of the early s and mid-s, the discourses and practicesabout film censorship shifted, allowing some former banning decisions tobe lifted. One can explore the nature of these discourses and practices byexamining the individual examples that are cited here.

Conclusion: Te grocer and the chief

America is the original version of modernity. We are the dubbedor subtitled version.

Jean Baudrillard, America

Daniel Lerner, in his classic text on urkish modernisation, Te Passingof raditional Society, explains the function of movies in this process. When

he first visited urkey in , Lerners first stop was Balgat, then a villageeight kilometres outside Ankara. Tere he met a village chief (muhtar) who,for him, represented the traditional, and a grocer who was much moreforward-looking. Lerner used the story of these characters as a parable ofmodern urkey. One of the questions Lerner asked was: If for some reason,you could not live in your country, what other country would you choose tolive in? Te chiefs answer was nowhere, while the grocer wanted to live inAmerica, because he heard that it is a nice country, and with possibilitiesto be rich even for the simplest person. In Lerners survey, which wascarried out in the mid-s, the answers to this question form what he

calls the empathy index. According to the survey, a large majority of peoplewho could imagine living outside urkey chose the U.S. as their preferredimagined residence.

able: Empathy Index (Lerner, 1964, 144)

Ability to imagine Moderns ransitionals raditionals

Living outside urkey 94 74 49

Living in U.S. 100 98 74



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Lerner was also interested in the influence of movies, commenting thatthey became a commodity to which the ordinary urk gained access on

the terms of closest equality with the ordinary American in the s.icket prices were, however relatively more expensive than in the US at thetime. An ordinary urkish worker was working at least an hour for a singleadmission to a cinema, whereas his American counterpart need to workfor half that time. Lerner believed that the growth of mediamovies,theatres, radio and newspaper circulationalong with the parallel growthof literacy, would bring the Enlightenment to urkey. He asked a number ofquestions, such as What sort of movies do you like best?, Which countrymakes this kind of movies best? and What is it about their movies that isbetter than others? Te grocer thought that urkish movies were gloomy

and ordinary, commenting that: I can guess at the start of the film howit will end Te American ones are exciting. You know, it makes peopleask what will happen next. Te chief did not have much of an opinionabout them, and only stressed that his sons were always impressed by themovies they saw.

able: Movie attendance (Lerner, 1964, 139)

Moderns ransitionals raditionals

Attend movies 88 63 27

Prefer American movies* 68 48 23

* Among movie-goers

Te most important deficiency in Daniel Lerners study was that heconceived the modernisation process as a struggle between modernists,who provided urkeys elite with a model for the countrys future, and thetraditionalists, who neither have nor seek a shaping influence over theurkish future. Tis approach has long been discarded as oversimplified

in studies of modernisation. Rather than merely providing a modernalternative to traditional forms, as Lerner would have claimed, Hollywoodsproducts were appropriated and transformed in different contexts. Tesefilms were received and interpreted in ways that were bound to their localhistorical context, naturalising them as part of urkish cinema. Once thefilms entered local distribution they were subject to translations, culturaladaptations and significant modifications, which not only made themintelligible to a different language market, but also offered a vernacularversion of the modern.

hollywood in vernacular

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