People who have made their choices to produce contra, documentaries or news, to become reporters seem to make another choice which is being the voice of others. The aim is to voice the quiet, to make the invisible visible. There seems to be, and actually there generally is, a human/ethical ground in such choices.
With this aim, while producing a documentary or contra and attempting to pronounce something for or on behalf of some people, we tend to include one of the main two groups: like the ruling or the opposing group, the centre or the periphery, me or the others, the oppressor or the oppressed, the majority or the minority. The common examples to the opposing groups, the centre or the periphery, the oppressed, the minorities could be gays and lesbians, the black people, Kurds, refugees, etc.
However, I believe some important factors are not considered especially in documentaries and research. Maybe the possibility that the oppressor could be the oppressed at the same time and the fear to access to this multi-layered structure make the topic easier to digest and exploit but more deficient.
It is natural that the structure and content of concepts that are handled as the ‘other’ (for example, the black and lesbian) is more complicated than it seems. However, this complexity is not usually considered, or it is overlooked. The formulas that are created from this false and easy point of view cannot solve the problems. At least we know that it does not propose solutions to the ‘other’ that is being talked about and seemed to be treated as subjects but actually treated as objects. If we do not know it, we learn it in a short time. We learn that not all black people are black or that the colour does not define the black today. How black is Michael Jordan? Or, how white is a common Turk in the world? If we handle it individually, in the context of “me and the other”, the others/outsiders/marginal/minorities are the ones who are continuously in struggle to change their situation and position. No one discusses about this because they are oppressed, under pressure, and they cannot realise themselves. We can see this only by looking at the names that define them.
However, in real life, it is extremely difficult to distinguish the ‘other’ from me, the centre, or the oppressor. In this difficult process, some will always represent the ‘other’ actually by continuously using the representation opportunities of the ‘other’ and replacing the ‘other.’ While doing this, they in fact realise only themselves in essence. This can be done in two ways. One way is to create one’s own presence through acting as if they represent the ‘other’ who work in this area. The other way is to come out as the representing spokesperson but in time to forget the problem and the group and benefit the process to elevate his position stepping on the others. The latter is realised by the help of the media usually.
This paradox, this tragicomic situation, whose background is formed by media, interests the contra director, documentary producer, writer, instructor and people. Some always volunteer to be or to represent the ‘other.’ Some people from the same groups continuously identify the problems, data, and solutions and define the good and the bad in the name of the ‘other.’
However, the real ‘other’ cannot often access to panels, televisions or radio programmes, books. (They can access as a figure, statistics, as an object that is “appropriated, cut and edited,” kind of garniture but not as a subject.)
The ‘other’, but the real one, the one who experiences all the problems and who at the same time knows the solutions emerge as an individual in the middle of extraordinary or exceptional situations. They emerge devastated, wretched, and irrational, with unutterable behaviour and words in their current situation when it is not possible to realise their existence. They emerge when they face death in Kosovo or Ruanda, or when they run away from the police in Taksim, etc. Here the ‘other’ is allowed to be represented in mass media in such exceptional situations when they don’t have the opportunity to express themselves. They are shown as if they were the subjects, but actually they appear and disappear as objects. A black one could say something when he was dying, and what he was saying does not matter, and a transvestite was shouting out loud to the microphone when she was being pulled from her hair and nothing could be understood. However, the one like “Sisi” who volunteers to represent the ‘other’ and who is at the same time the ‘other’ at first sight is approved as much as she falls apart from being the ‘other’ in real sense. The more she is alienated from the ‘other’ the more she is approved, and the more she is approved, the more she is alienated. The more she is approved, the better she is appropriated, and the more she is appropriated the farther she falls apart from the reality and the stronger she makes her power and become permanent. (Actually, this is a vicious circle that we cannot end explaining.) In a way, they become the censor of the limited terrains where something about the ‘other’ is uttered but not the spokespeople of the ‘other.’
The problem is that such examples like “Sisi” are frequently seen in the general structure. Some of the representatives of the ‘other’ fall apart from the ‘other.’ They differ from the ‘other’ not only in thinking and attitudes but also in the construction and organization of the new life and the repetitive structure of the daily life.
The representatives are ignorant of the ‘other.’ However, there is a contradiction that while the interest and information regarding the ‘other’ decrease, the number of the spheres and environments where the ‘other’ could be represented by those ‘representatives’ increases. We see them in panels, TV programmes, and they make a living over showing the ‘other’ as the subjects but actually using them as objects. The ‘other’ becomes the essence of their presence or their capital. When you meet the real ‘other’ who stands against the reality of life, listen to the oppressed or encounter their lack of education, drug abuse, their arm broken by the police and police records of the black, Asian, white, you can touch the real ‘other.’ Then, you can see, hear and touch the meaningful things regarding the ‘other,’ and this does not really happen in mass media.
At this point, you can simply ignore, use or attempt to understand everything. It is a frequently seen problematic situation that the representatives who volunteer to represent the ‘other’ but actually abuse them are in an illusion that they are parts of the ‘other.’
The representatives, who betray their philosophies that they had at the beginning, lose their quality of being representatives and become famous, in fact harm the ‘other’ in media, especially on TV where the programmes “categorise” and “homogenize” the ‘other’ due to the obligation that they have to say something no matter what it is, get to somewhere and use the time allocated carefully. In such a process, the meaning, originality and uniqueness of diversity lose its sense because such TV programmes run out of time. The time concern and the anchor-people’s desire to wrap things up as a closing speech as if they were identifying some solutions make the participants, i.e. the representatives, prefer an unrealistic discourse that homogenizes the theme rapidly. Then, rhetoric deprived of originality and details that will expire right after the programme finishes are built. Thousands of such types of rhetoric are dumped by the end of the programmes. What remain in mind are the gestures, mimics and the apparent or hidden violence that participants practice on each other. In such programmes, there is usually an educator, an NGO representative and a victim. If the media can communicate with the victim, we can often see or hear about that victim in different channels and programmes, and we can actually all witness the metamorphosis that he/she goes through.
contra 