Women in Trouble: Transformation Of Marginal Women in Turkish Cinema From Sultan to Zeynep

Macro changes since the 1940s resulted in fast transformation of urban and rural space. Gecekondu phenomenon, both represented a type of accomodation and sociological category emerged with this transformation and modified in due time. Women’s relation with the space and women labour changed with the start of chain migration from rural to urban areas. Gecekondu and the spatial transformation in urban areas were reflected on Turkish cinema since the 1960s, in various forms. The reflection of these subjects to the cinema have gone through a series of change as gecekondu have done. Women and men experienced urbanization, rural-to-urban migration and gecekondu like they do the other social phenomenon. The change in the meaning of city and urban margins were accompanied by the change in women’s respresentation in Turkish cinema. In this article, transformation of urban marginal women will be read through a comparison of female characters of Sultan from the 1970s and Zerre narrating the contemporary urban margins.