emrahın troy yazısı // canavarlar

Troy: They shoot the horse, don’t they?

Emrah Guler

For some it’s the story that began the Western literature, for others
it’s
the best fusion of history and soap opera, and for many it’s
three-hours of
Brad Pitt in skirts. We’re talking about “Troy.” The summer blockbuster
everyone was waiting for, for one or another reason.

When it was announced that Wolfgang Petersen was making a Hollywood
adaptation of Homer’s epic “Iliad” of almost three millennia,
anticipation
began immediately. It conjured lots of expectations. ‘Brad Pitt,
Orlando
Bloom (Legolas of the “Rings” trilogy) and Eric Bana (Hulk) in an
ancient
epic war film’ was the primal reason for many. History-lovers raised an
eyebrow, knowing that tens of films can be made from Homer’s gigantic
historical epic, and knowing very well that Hollywood can lack total
respect
to history.

The hype didn’t end during the filming. Changing of locations for many
reasons, not including Turkey (the original location of the story) into
many
of the locations, excluding the Gods from the movie, Brad Pitt’s photo
in
skirts with a cell phone, Brad Pitt hurting (ironically) his Achilles’
tendon, and many more.

Reconstructing Troy

The film was finally released last week across many countries in quite
a
risky time for a summer blockbuster (right before the global releases
of
Spider-Man 2 and Harry Potter 3). Although “Troy” was treated with
mixed
reviews and mixed reactions from the audience, it has quite a different
meaning for the Turkish audience.

First of all, the ancient city of Troy, overthrown by the Greeks, was
supposedly in Anatolia, present northwestern Turkey. The ruins of the
ancient city is still an archaelogical site, where the artifacts found
amazingly match many of Homer’s depictions in his ancient epic.

Turkey, never to have been very good in promoting its historical
treasures
until recently, failed to use one of the most hyped movies in film
history
to its advantage from the very beginning. Why the Aegean coasts were
not
used – or at least proposed – in the film is still a mystery to the
Turkish
audience. It’s true that promotion of Turkey can be so mediocre at many
times that many people who were born and lived here are unaware that
the
ruins of the legendary Troy are not far from another historical place
in
Turkey, the Anzac Cove.

The Troy Museum within the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul was closed to the
public for about a decade for certain reasons that a Turkish writer
would
prefer not to share with foreign readers. However Tourism Minister
Erkan
Mumcu stopped a possible national scandal and opened the museum last
week.

Troy on Turkish papers

“Troy” was a hot topic for Turkish columnists as well. The tragic
situation
of the Troy Musuem immediately became the ideal agenda for political
antagonism. Then followed the discussions centering around the
historical
significance of Troy. Bearing in mind the fact that the Trojan War is
one of
the milestones of the establishment of the Western culture, many
Turkish
writers pointed its significance to the history of Turkey.

Daily Radikal’s columnist Haluk Sahin asked whether the people of
Turkey are
the descendants of the Trojans. He sited some interesting historical
research. That our ancestors could come from one of the generals of
Troy,
Turkus. That after conquering Istanbul, Sultan Mehmet visited the
supposed
location of the ancient Troy (close to Istanbul), and said that
“Hector’s
revenge was taken.” And similarly, when Ataturk was at the same
location
celebrating a victory during the Turkish Independence War, he
apparently
said “We took the revenge of the Trojans.”

Homer can only be a Simpson to many, Paris a beautiful city, Trojan a
brand
of condom, and Troy simply good looking men in skirts. But all of this
signify something all together different to Greeks and Turks, the
brothers
in arms.