A Crime Drama Between Fidelity and Cultural Specificity

Selling Turkish quality: Multiple proximities and Turkish format exports in the post-streaming era

“…The opposite direction of flows – from Latin America to Turkey – is also notable for understanding the melodramatic proximity between the two regions. Yeşim Kaptan (2018, p. 195) and Arzu Öztürkmen (2018, pa. 15) locate Latin American telenovelas and American soap operas as important elements in the history of television broadcasting in Turkey during the 1970s and 1980s. Öztürkmen (2018, pa. 15) explains the success of these shows with audiences’ familiarity with preceding local melodrama examples in the Turkish market: ‘For Turkish television viewers the content of soap operas and telenovelas matched very well the memory of Turkish cinema of the 1960s, which consisted heavily of melodrama’.…”

“Down-to-Earth TV dramas”: The reception of authenticity, reality, and modality in Danish TV dramas

“…During the interviews, the audiences of these dramas underlined cultural distinctions and relational differences between niche and mass audiences. According to a fan of Forbrydelsen , mass audiences “cannot handle watching a quality TV show such as Forbrydelsen that requires a certain level of patience” (Kaptan, 2018b). The interviewees maintained that the Danish TV series is not a match for the tastes of “regular” Turkish TV audiences because a slow-developing plot, a gradual tempo of content, and well-developed media characters are not fit for mass Turkish audiences (Kaptan 2018b)).…”

“…According to a fan of Forbrydelsen , mass audiences “cannot handle watching a quality TV show such as Forbrydelsen that requires a certain level of patience” (Kaptan, 2018b). The interviewees maintained that the Danish TV series is not a match for the tastes of “regular” Turkish TV audiences because a slow-developing plot, a gradual tempo of content, and well-developed media characters are not fit for mass Turkish audiences (Kaptan 2018b)). With regard to the cosmopolitan sensibilities of the Turkish audience, the reception of Danish dramas indicates the significance of the appeal of authenticity, which stands as a determining force in the interpretation of these dramas.…”

“…Danish TV drama series such as Borgen ( 2010 –2013, 2022 ) , Forbrydelsen ( The Killing, 2007 , 2012 ), and Bron/Broen ( 2011 –2018 ) have become unexpectedly popular among transnational audiences in the 2010s (Eichner 2017; Esser, 2017; Jensen and Jacobsen, 2017a, 2017b, 2020). Following the recent and entirely unprecedented boom in global exports, many scholars have documented the success of Danish dramas and analyzed the audience’s reception of these dramas and their adaptations (Esser, 2017; Hansen and Waade, 2017; Hill, 2018; McCabe 2020; McHugh, 2018; Jensen and Jacobsen, 2017a; Kaptan, 2018b, 2020; Pinedo, 2019). In countries like Germany, Australia, and the UK, the series were popular among all types of audiences, and generated a large amount of press coverage (Eichner, 2017; Jacobsen and Jensen, 2020; Sparre and From, 2017).…”

‘Aesthetic Proximity’ and Transnational TV Series

“…Yeşim Kaptan explains that even though the television channel announces that Cinayet was cancelled due to low ratings the Turkish press kept blaming Yeşilçay by mentioning "her poor acting, tumultuous and much-reported personal life, and her rebellious, anti-hero character." 44 However, from an aesthetic perspective, it could be claimed that Yeşilçay's performance struggles to balance between preserving the core of the distant and mysterious character of Sarah Lund and being more emotionally expressive and available in the way that local conventional stylistics require her to be.…”