Netflix Ottomans
by Thomas Simsarian Dolan
December 20, 2021
Last March, Cardi B came under fire, especially among many Armenians, for tweeting that she loved Ottoman History. Inspired by her devotion to the Turkish TV drama Muhteşem Yüzyıl (The Magnificent Century), she later admitted “The ottoman history I like it’s mostly about Hurrem & Kosem,” in reference to figures romanticized in the aforementioned show. In doing so, Cardi B walked back what some assumed was tacit endorsement of the Ottoman and Young Turk devastation of non-Turkic peoples across the Middle East. However, this moment offered insight into some of the pitfalls of widespread access to web series and US streaming services that render these kinds of global misrecognitions possible – and sometimes, intentional.
As scholars have noted, shows like The Magnificent Century are part of an onslaught of content eulogizing the Ottomans produced by and in Turkey. One of the largest markets in the MENA region – and a major exporter of cultural commodities – Turkey is an especially influential market for international streaming services. Even a casual search for broadly defined MENA content on industry leader Netflix produces reems of problematic content that most American audiences are ill-equipped to interpret.
“Turkey is an especially influential market for international streaming services”
An Ottoman milieu curiously devoid of minorities is at the core of shows like The Protector or Filinta, and the latter makes its politics especially explicit. Produced by Yusuf Esenkal – whose Eastern Sunrise Film also produced The Ottoman Lieutenant, Filinta begins with a verse from the Quran (4:135) and the following epigraph:
This show is in memory of those glorious martyrs of the Ottoman Empire, which ruled justly over the world and of the descendants of this great nation who lost their lives in the pursuit of justice.
Of course, there is nothing reprehensible about citing the Quran, but this troubling statement raises several red flags: martyrs is an ambiguous reference, but certainly a dog whistle for religious fundamentalism and those who fought against self-determination, enfranchisement and equality for the Ottoman Empire's many non-Sunni ethno-religious groups. Moreover, the Ottoman Empire was not a nation; it was a multi-ethnic empire dominated by Sunnis (sometimes not ethnically Turkish), who ruled over much of the MENA region and Southeastern Europe with varying degrees of success. The descendants hailed by this statement are most certainly not those who situate themselves within the pluralism and cosmopolitanism that was one of the defining features of the MENA region. Instead, it calls out to Turks who align themselves with the exclusionary nationalism and autocracy of conservative Ottomans, Young Turks, Ataturk’s CHP and Erdogan’s current AKP regimes.
This statement is alarming because resuscitating the Ottoman Empire is at the core of Erdogan's militarism and persecution of ethnic, religious, sexual and political minorities in Turkey. As Armenians well know, the Turkish government has brutally cracked down on dissent and difference in its turn toward religious fundamentalism, militarism and authoritarianism. In addition to the Artsakh war, Erdogan has deployed Turkey's military against and/or in Libya, Syria, Nagorno-Karabagh, Cyprus, Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. Erdogan has also imprisoned tens of thousands of dissident journalists, politicians, etc., called Armenians "leftovers of the sword" for inconveniently surviving the genocide, claimed Jerusalem is a Turkish city, along innumerable other claims that pose a profound danger to regional and global peace. A statement like this as preface to a show devoid of non-Turks in positive roles (if at all) throws this historical drama in relief, especially relative to other Netflix hits like The Crown, remarkable for its historical rigor and critical eye on injustice and imperialism.
More broadly, a show like this and the slew of pro-regime Turkish content on Netflix should be alarming because this propaganda glorifies exactly the kind of historical revisionism and intolerance at the core of so much conflict in the world – especially the Middle East. While Netflix took deserved heat for kowtowing to Saudi censorship of Hasan Minhaj’s Patriot Act, it has faced little pushback for neo-Ottoman content driven by Turkish producers tightly aligned with the Erdogan dictatorship.
“A show like this and the slew of pro-regime Turkish content on Netflix should be alarming because this propaganda glorifies exactly the kind of historical revisionism and intolerance at the core of so much conflict in the world”
As an Armenian American looking to see myself – and my homeland – in Anatolia and the broader Middle East, this show reminds us that genocide is an ongoing process aided and abetted by power and capital, as much as by ignorance. Culture is a critical site of meaning-making and an international streaming service like Netflix has an incalculable impact on how people make sense of the world, as well as our shared pasts and many possible futures. As Armenian Americans, we have a crucial responsibility to call out injustice, to think critically about narratives and ideologies that exclude us, and I believe, fight for a better world. In a moment of racial reckoning in which we experience both advantages and ambiguities, harm and hope, I encourage us to recommit to a modest ethics of doing good and in this case, condemning injustice where we least expect it. Rather than give in to the frustrations and seemingly Sisyphean task of confronting the collusion of power and capital, we must serve as voices for truth, human dignity, diversity, and at the very least vote with our wallets.
Thomas Simsarian Dolan received his PhD in American Studies from George Washington University in Summer 2021, with a focus on Middle Eastern diaspora and race. His work has been supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Global Excellence Scholar, Institute for Middle East Studies, Dr. Philip M. Kayal Fund for Arab American Research, Bentley Historical Library Bordin-Gillette Fellowship, Loeb Institute for Religious Freedom and Armenian General Benevolent Union. He is also an alumnus of Yale University, NYU, and the New School's Institute for Critical Social Inquiry, and will be a Fulbright US Teaching Scholar at American University in Cairo in coming semesters. Future book projects examine a sonic history of MENA Migrations to the Americas, and a deeply historicized memoir of his family's intentionally murky migrations from Diyarbekir and Aleppo to the Americas.