Watching Violence

 

In her first feature film, The Lost Daughter, Maggie Gyllenhaal managed to both make a faithful adaptation of the Elena Ferrante novel of the same name and make the story her own. This achievement was in addition to her playing a range of notable female characters as an actress for years (my favorite is Eileen/Candy from The Deuce). As a result, one of the films I really looked forward to this year was The Bride!, her ambitious take on the story of The Bride of Frankenstein.

The Bride! was declared a misfire in many ways, which I don’t necessarily disagree with. If it wasn’t for its 80+ million-dollar budget (and financial loss), it could have been declared punk or experimental instead. Regardless, Gyllenhaal still managed to make the story her own, despite the crowded field of Frankenstein adaptations, and made some choices that are worth noting down. The choice I thought about the most after watching the film was the way the film depicted violence. Rather than brushing it off, the film’s main character, The Bride, acknowledges and puts weight on the violence inflicted by her or because of her actions.

 

In recent years, I have become more conscious of the violence I have been watching all my life as someone whose main hobby is watching stuff. It was long time coming, but the tipping point was watching The Sopranos for the first time in my 30s, even though I should also give credit to Game of Thrones (the TV show not the books) for this.

 

Being at home more during COVID days, I had more time on my hands. Rather than picking up baking bread like others seemed to be doing at the time, I decided it was time to finally watch Entourage and The Sopranos, two series I had never been super interested in watching but thought I should watch at some point due to both being cultural touchstones in their own right. In a way, this was like me doing my late homework.

By the time I got to the last season of The Sopranos, I thought I wouldn’t be able to finish this homework. I hit the limits of the amount of misogyny and violence I could stomach watching due to the show’s depiction of misogyny and violence amplifying with each season. People killing others due to receiving a homophobic slur from them, women being killed by men only to be forgotten, a closeted gay character finally deciding to leave his environment to be free to live his truth only to face one of the most brutal deaths in the show … The fake eating scenes, where characters aggressively use the fork on the pasta/ziti on their plates without eating anything, became the relief points.

I had to watch the first season of the L Word revival, where the characters discuss their issues via talking instead of killing, beating up, or psychologically manipulating each other, to wash away the lingering impact of the excessive misogyny/violence exposure after I was done with The Sopranos.

 

What if I had watched The Sopranos during the time it was aired with more time in between the episodes? Would it have been easier, even fun, to finish the show? In those days, I watched all sorts of things, mostly made by men, that aestheticized violence. I didn’t glorify it in my head but didn’t question or badly reacted to it either.

As I got older, my tolerance to watching (certain kinds of) violence got lower. In parallel, the scenes of violence became more mainstream as they moved from movies to TV.

 

I looked forward to the new Game of Thrones episodes like many others when the show aired. But Game of Thrones was also the first TV show that made me ask many times “Was this scene necessary?” There was even one episode that I thought I was going to puke in one of the scenes (Season 4 Episode 4 – Craster’s Keep scene) and paused it to take a break.

An argument for such scenes is that they follow the source material. Yet I don’t remember wanting to puke at any point while reading The Song of Ice & Fire series, and the scene I mentioned above was a creative choice made by the showrunners.

Another argument is that violence is part of our history and life. The Sopranos didn’t show anything that doesn’t happen in real life. Maybe that was why it was so hard for me to watch. But I don’t know how it was to watch for others who are fans of characters such as Tony Soprano, and his newer versions Don Draper (Mad Men) and Walter White (Breaking Bad).

 

Unlike The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, or The Game of Thrones, Mad Men is one of my favorite TV shows. The show aired at the time I was in the early days of practicing my profession trying to find my place and voice among an army of boys/men. When people said, “this show is sexist”, I defended it for its depiction of sexism. For me, in those early days, watching the show was therapeutic because of its well-written female characters trying to make it among the Mad Men and through all the sexism. But then why did Don Draper have to be the show’s focus? Why did his story steal time from Peggy’s and Joan’s?

 

Does art become sexist, racist, homophobic for depicting sexism, racism, homophobia? Is it a matter of how the depiction is or how the characters inflicting it are treated?

When does depicting violence serve a purpose? Does it ever serve a purpose? Can it be an effective tool for depicting sexism, racism, homophobia? Or does it reinforce these things instead?

When/If depicting violence serves a purpose, when does it become “glorification”? Is that a matter of the perception of the viewer regardless of what the depiction intends?

 

My favorite genre is horror. I get catharsis from watching some of the horror films (e.g., Titane); they provide me with a cheap and intimate therapy experience, similar to Mad Men. Don’t we all need some tools to help us deal with both personal and this world’s horrors? Watching the news often feels more disturbing than any horror film I have ever watched. Plus, don’t many horror films/series/books offer smart political allegories?

I can give you a list of “favorite fight scenes.” At the top would be the scene from True Romance where Patricia Arquette is against a pre-Sopranos James Gandolfini. If it didn’t end the way it does, not sure if I would like that scene considering the amount of violence Arquette’s character, Alabama, endures. On the other hand, does it justify the violence she inflicts on Gandolfini’s character, Virgil, in return?  

In recent TV history, one of the characters I really enjoyed watching was Villanelle (Killing Eve). What makes Villanelle’s violence different from the one inflicted by any of the characters in The Sopranos? Is it because she isn’t fueled by misogyny? Am I more forgiving of women? Or is it just the rarity of watching an unapologetic woman who cannot be put in a box and is excellent at her job, which happens to be being an assassin?

John Wick films are a rare kind that put my mind in standby mode, and hence oddly help me relax, even though I acknowledge the excessive number of casualties that are in each of those films. In a recent podcast episode of Unspooled, the guest Jorma Taccone refers to a scene in the first John Wick film saying, “if they just cut to every single widow he has just made.” Does the ridiculousness of those scenes where John Wick is on binge-killing is the reason why my mind reacts less to them?

Similarly, none of the gory violence scenes in Terrifier 3 bother me as much as the scene where Sue is beating Elisabeth in The Substance. The Terrifier series is not really the type of horror I like, and I don’t intend to watch others in the series; the extremity of its violence makes it harder for me to take it seriously. On the other hand, The Substance is exactly the kind of horror movie I am interested in, body horror made by a female filmmaker. I understand the purpose of that beating scene, which is the reason why I take it more seriously, but I also wish that the movie kept that scene shorter. Does the extended duration of it help delivering its point better or does it turn into exploitation at that point?

 

It is also important to note down the alternative thoughtful and effective creative choices.

As mentioned in the beginning, The Bride! doesn’t accept casualties, unlike John Wick or most superhero films, and acknowledges the consequences of violence.

While still depicting a lot of violence and being a much grimmer show due to the subject matter, House of the Dragon, the Game of Thrones spin-off, seems more careful about how and when it visualizes violence, especially violence toward women. It also seems to employ more female writers and directors behind the scenes. 

The first season of Jane Campion’s Top of The Lake has the topic of sexual assault engrained throughout its story without showing any scenes of it.

Paola Cortellesi’s C'è ancora domani switches to musical aesthetics and shows characters dancing rather than depicting violence during, what we clearly understand, the scenes of the lead character, Delia, being beaten by her husband.

Maybe more should think about such alternatives.

 

I know this is a heavily debated subject. I am not a film/TV scholar and don’t really have a thesis here, just my personal experience as someone who loves to watch things. I have no right to be didactic or claim high morals either; as mentioned above I do watch a range of things that include violence and love some of them. The best I can do is at least to question what I watch more carefully now and not simply accept scenes of violence for the sake of it.

 

Indfødsretsprøven

Study material for indfødsretsprøven.

There I was last Wednesday in a sports hall in Frederiksberg with many other foreigners, sitting on a chair that was not designed by Arne Jacobsen, behind a desk that was too high for my size and took the Danish citizenship test, indfødsretsprøven.

 

Indfødsretsprøven is one of the requirements for a Danish citizenship application. It is given twice a year composed of 45 multiple choice questions: 35 of them is from a reading/study material on Danish history, culture, politics, life … (243 pages long for this instance), 5 of them are from contemporary Danish news, and 5 of them are on Danish values. You have 45mins for it. To pass, you have to answer at least 36 out of 45 correctly, while also answering at least 4 out of 5 of the Danish value questions correctly. In the previous iteration of the exam, only 47.2% of the examiners passed.

 

The last three weekends in May, I spent at least half of my time studying for the test. Two of my ballpoint pens died in the process. My goal was to be done with all the reading by Sunday before the test, so that I have some time to do the previous tests (last 12 are available online) for practice.

When I sat down that Sunday morning to do a practice test, I was full of self-confidence based on carefully studying the reading material, my overall knowledge of the world history, and all the Danish books, TV, films, news I have consumed since I moved to Denmark. Up until the last part of the test, the 5 Danish value questions, that confidence stayed intact. Then, my body started experiencing something I wasn’t expecting. I did a second test, the same reaction. It was like receiving aggression.

After that second test, I found myself on the couch crying. (It was one of those Tori Amos Little Earthquakes moments.) I guess the baggage of decades of EU-Turkey relations was coming out of me, the person whose childhood aligned with the period Turkey tried entering EU the most. After that cry, I was able to emotionally detach and do the rest of the practice tests without issues.

 

The Danish values part of the exam primarily targets people who come from non-Western and Muslim-majority backgrounds, which includes me. According to some Danish politicians, we have higher chances of not aligning with Danish values (whatever that means), so that part of the test was introduced in 2021. Not sure how effective a test could be on this front, anyone can answer in opposition to what they believe to pass a test, but maybe I am being an arrogant academic here.

If you look at the questions, themes are violence against women, child brides, forced marriages, democratic values, press freedom, personal freedom, LGBTQ+ rights, … These are very important themes. All of them are worth a fight to me, and they have their roots from real-life events that aren’t all from the non-Western world. My reaction wasn’t to the themes; it was to the approach. Just like every previous interaction I had with EU(+Switzerland) trying to evaluate me (or my country), the approach felt top-down.

First, I did a couple of those questions wrong across the practice tests just because the question had a Danish word that I didn’t know. You are allowed to make only one mistake on that part of the exam, so this creates an extra stressful situation. I get that part of the exam is evaluating one’s Danish language skills as well, but if one gets a question wrong due to not knowing a word or phrase, does that mean that they have unacceptable values?

Then, in one of the practice tests, there was a question asking the age of sexual consent in Denmark. The options were 12, 15, and 18. The correct answer is 15. I didn’t really know Danish law on this point, and the study material doesn’t have it. Not sure if that makes me a terrible person. In Turkey, the answer is 18. I picked 15, though, while doing the practice test, just because I remembered the news from some years ago about a Danish politician, Jeppe Kofod, having at some point a relationship with a 15-year-old while he was 34,  which was not illegal but a point of discussion due to the age and power difference. But what if a person answers “18” to this? Does that make them someone with unacceptable values? Again, you are allowed to make only one mistake here.

Finally, there are also the questions of the sort “What is the ranking of Denmark when it comes to press freedom / democracy / LGBTQ+ rights / …?” or “What percentage of Danish population is against someone beating their wives?” You of course pick the highest rankings and percentages, respectively, for these, since “Denmark is a perfect land!”

 

Thankfully, in the test I took on Wednesday, there were no violence-related questions under “values” section. The two questions I want to note are:

(1) There was the question of whether a parent has the legal right to ask for meat that is slaughtered based on religious practices for their child in kindergarten. While the answer is “no” to this, based on friends and colleagues with children in Denmark, I know that some schools try to be accommodating for the different dietary preferences and restrictions these days, which I think is nice.

(2) There was the question of whether one can have another spouse while already married. Of course, the answer is “no” to this but considering that I am hearing more and more open relationships and less pair-wise arrangements around me, maybe people will change their minds about this in the future. =P

 

To end on a positive note, it was a nice experience to read the study material and watch more documentaries about Denmark during May. I am a nerd when it comes to history, culture, and politics. Time spent on these topics is enjoyable for me even if it is for a test. Observing how a country chooses to present itself through such study material is also interesting.

The exam itself was pleasant as well. This was my third exam in Denmark for permanent residency and citizenship applications. In all cases, the exam organizers were quite friendly and helpful.

I checked my answers against the released ones the day after the exam, and assuming what I remember from the exam is correct, I have only one mistake in the part about contemporary Danish news. My mistake was due to the failure of my Danish rather than my knowledge. Not sure if it makes it better or worse. In any case, this means another big milestone is done (almost – need to get the official result to confirm for sure). But I still have the end-of-game-monster to face, which is the application process and the wait, which in my case can take 2-3 years.

This is me ending on a positive note. 

Bananas

Note: This was the write-up for the last part of my EDBT keynote. The talk itself was of course slightly different.

 

This concludes the scientific part of my talk. In the remaining time, I would like to talk about bananas.

My parents were visiting me in Copenhagen in August 2024. One day, we were walking in the Vesterbro neighborhood. And we saw a young well-built man coming toward us in the other direction who had an empty banana peel in his hands while eating another banana and holding a third, not yet peeled, banana.

Seeing this image, I turned to my dad and said, “You have given me one third of a banana my entire life, and here is this guy eating three whole bananas by himself.”

Why one third of a banana? My dad has the principle of splitting whatever food he serves into equal pieces to people he is serving that food to. While I was growing up, we were three people in the house (my mom, my dad, and I). When we had/have visitors, the distribution of the food was/is adjusted accordingly.

I get my dad. I get where he is coming from. It isn’t just because he didn’t grow up rich, and that is an understatement, but for his generation growing up in Turkey, bananas weren’t that accessible even if you were rich. (Depending on your country of origin you may have this relationship with different kinds of fruits.)

Today, bananas are more accessible for everyone in Turkey because of the many greenhouse productions. Similar trends exist for many other consumer products whether it is clothes, food, or … technology.

 

Since their release, the cost of using generative AI tools has declined. This is what we expected, and this is what we wanted. As a result, they are more accessible to a larger scale of users, and I experience more and more of the following:

A friend tells me that they use ChatGPT to get ideas for what to cook later.

Colleagues tell me that they use one GenAI tool for literature search, another GenAI tool for brainstorming for ideas, yet another GenAI tool for help with writing, and Claude Code for coding …

Students tell me the answers they got from GenAI tools for errors, definition of a concept, setup steps of a library ...

I get why people embrace these tools so much. Today, it also takes me less time to search for something if I am using such a tool compared to old-school web search. But I am also almost embarrassed to say that I don’t have a drive to consult GenAI tools by default, and I in general avoid them. (I also avoided smart phones for a long time.)

 

Technology is like any other consumer product. The cheaper the product gets, the more accessible it becomes, which creates higher consumption, which in turn requires ever growing resource needs to deliver the product. In economics, this is called Jevon’s paradox.

There is always a high cost to a cheap product, and high consumption translates to high carbon footprint.

That is why we get depressing / dystopian news articles about the energy demands of data centers and this being driven by the demands of AI. *

 

How do we achieve more sustainable progress in the field of AI?

Do we always need the biggest / latest GPU? Do we always need bigger scale?

We keep rejecting academic papers for not targeting larger scales.

Do we have to use a GenAI tool as often?

The banana pictures I showed were taken by me, not by GenAI, and I then ate those bananas over a two-week period.

How do we decide how often to use things? Who decides?

I neither want these tools to be inaccessible to people nor want to be patronizing and tell people not to use them.

But how do we incentivize lower use?

At the end of the day, all hardware vendors want to sell more hardware, since there is no economic incentive to do otherwise.

 

I have a BSc in computer engineering and PhD in computer science. I am not an economist, anthropologist, political scientist …  I am qualified to discuss a subset of the above questions but not all. A more holistic discussion requires reaching across the aisle and talking and collaborating with people from other disciplines.

 

* Some of these articles:

The Obscene Energy Demands of A.I.

Google plans to put datacentres in space to meet demand for AI

Sam Altman gets defensive about AI’s massive electricity usage: ‘It also takes a lot of energy to train a human’

Inside the Dirty, Dystopian World of AI Data Centers

 

Farewells

  

He isn’t in his usual position smoking a cigarette on the couch looking out the window. Instead, he is lying on the couch, sleeping. I doubt his hands could hold a cigarette now. They tried different things to make him better. He doesn’t look better. He looks like cancer ate him up into a skeleton.

I am 8. I am looking at my uncle realizing this is probably the last time I see him. I don’t remember when exactly I learned what death was, certainly I am aware of other people who died. But at that moment, for the first time, I really understand what death means; not just the detached awareness of it as something that happens to everyone, but all the emotions that come with it.

My parents tell me it is time to leave and to say goodbye. I am unsure if they mean it as the last farewell or a regular goodbye, but I can’t take chances. I approach my uncle. I want to hug him like E.T. hugs Elliott just before he departs to go back to his space-home. At 8, that is the only “we likely won’t see each other again, and I want you to know that I love you” farewell I know. What is the best way to hug him as he is lying on the couch? Would it wake him up? Would it hurt him? Should I just kiss him gently on his head or cheek instead?

As I am deep in my thoughts, his hand suddenly reaches for mine and grabs it from the bottom. Then, he puts his other hand on top. He squeezes my hand tightly. He can’t speak. But he says his version of “we likely won’t see each other again, and I want you to know that I love you” to me and relieves me of the burden of trying to figure out the “perfect farewell.”

Now I know there are no perfect farewells, and it is a luxury to have a chance to say “farewell” to a loved one before they pass away.

 

She is 6. I want to hug her properly to say goodbye, but I have to be content with a quick side-hug, because she just saw her best friend at the school entrance and ran to her. Last night, while playing the Hello Kitty video game, I was her best friend. Next time I see her, likely a year later, there won’t be a Hello Kitty game. But I hope I can have a permanent place in her life, at least as her (cool?) aunt.

About 5 hours later, I hug her mom tightly to say goodbye, before I depart for the airport to go back to my life in Copenhagen. Her mom is one of my best friends, my Twin Sister. I wish we lived in the same city like we used to, but I was the one who left that city first.

This hasn’t gotten easier, even though farewells are a routine part of my expat life for more than 15 years now. In addition to my visits to Turkey to see close family, I try my best to arrange once-a-year-visit to certain loved ones who neither live in Turkey or Denmark nor go to the same conferences. It takes effort, I have to organize my work schedule and life in Copenhagen around this. Before each visit, I wonder whether this is too much effort at my age now. After each visit, all the doubt disappears, and I am left with bittersweet tiredness.

 

I hug her tightly and say, “We’ll keep in touch.” I wish I could think of something smarter to say. The truth is I don’t know when I will see her again. She is going back to her home country, Argentina, tomorrow, after ~8 years in Denmark. Argentina isn’t in Europe, I can’t go there every year, and there are low chances that work will take me there.

There was a possibility that the Radiohead concert last night was going to be our farewell. While that sounded cool in theory, the reality would have been us saying each other farewell among the super-packed post-concert crowd moving toward public transportation. Once again, there is no perfect farewell, but we are both glad that we didn’t have to do the post-concert farewell.

This is technically our 5th farewell. We did one at my place to say farewell to all the movie / TV evenings we had eating take away food from Wokshop Amager. We did one at Husets Biograf, where we went to the movies together for the first time and our friendship was formed, which was also her farewell to Huset. We did one at her place, which was my farewell to all the peaceful time I spent there with her and her family. And we had a farewell dinner with a group of friends.

She has been my #1 partner-in-crime in Denmark. We moved to Copenhagen around the same time. We met during our early days in Copenhagen. We bonded over our shared love of movies and political/feminist views. We referred to the couch next to the entrance of Husets Biograf as “our couch”. During the first COVID lockdown, she was the first person I arranged to meet in person after almost one month of isolation. She had my extra house keys. …

The third book of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels is titled Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay. I love that title. (I adore the books.) I am used to being the one who leaves. I left my parents in 2005. I left Illegitimate Daughter in 2009. I left my academic family in 2014. I left Twin Sister in 2018. This is the first time I am the one who stays, and Sister in Movies is leaving. I know she is leaving for a good reason, I left for good reasons each time and had no regrets after. I am happy for her, but I also know that I will miss her.

 

I miss her. I miss them.

 

Sports ... for Health, or As a Team Activity or Hobby

 

I was going through my work TO-DO list in my head, as I was lifting 5kg on each side of the barbell during the strength training class at the gym, until the class instructor approached me and added an extra 2.5kg on each side telling me in Danish that I look like I can do more. She was right, I could balance the extra 2.5kg the rest of the class time. It took more effort, but I no longer thought about work.

Once upon a time, playing basketball was my favorite thing to do. Today, the only reason I do sports is that unless I do that, my body aches, because I am old now. My body aches as a result of strength training as well, but I prefer that ache to the one that happens when I don’t exercise at all. Going to a gym class is easier than motivating myself to exercise on my own. An exception to this is swimming, but I don’t view it as a sport, it is a part of the relationship I have with the sea.

The attitude of my PhDs and postdocs toward sports is completely different from mine. They are seriously motivated. They run. They climb. They cycle. They do all sorts of strength training. Some of them are even into Ironman events, which are triathlons that include swimming, cycling, and running. Before I moved to Denmark, the only Iron Man I knew was Tony Stark.

I tell people “My team members do sports at the level of ex-drug addicts” as a joke, but no one has laughed at this so far. The source of that joke in my head is the character Mark Renton in Irvine Welsh’s Porno who takes up running to replace the high he used to get from drugs. I am not sure what this (non-)sense of humor says about me, but it is clear that I shouldn’t get into stand-up comedy any time soon.

 

During my sabbatical, I had the pleasure of being invited to various social activities organized by the research groups that were hosting me. One was a water sports activity followed by dinner. Another one was ice skating followed by dinner. In both cases, I only participated in the dinner part and haven’t regretted that decision. (In the former case, I was also on the heavy days of my period.)

I don’t bike. I don’t climb. I don’t ski. I don’t ice-skate. I don’t do any water sports. I hike very seldomly. I am afraid that one day I will be deported from Europe because I refuse to do all these activities that when thought collectively scream “European welfare” to me.

I didn’t get to do sports or elaborate/complex hobbies as a teenager. I had to go to weekend school to prepare for the big university exam on top of going to regular school five days a week, like most teenagers in Turkey do if they want to get into a decent university, which does not necessarily guarantee a job that pays above minimum wage today. My main weekend hobby was watching TV on Saturday nights on our living room couch and then crashing there, and I loved it.

It is lazy to dismiss the more elaborate hobbies or sports just because I didn’t grow up with “European welfare” and can’t feel myself part of it. I know many foreigners in Europe who took up skiing or climbing after moving to Europe and became passionate about them. Also, not all Europeans grow up with welfare and can still enjoy these things. In my case, simply: Life is short, I have limited time and energy, there is a lot I want to do, and I am just not interested in these things. I can’t embrace skiing or water sports or cycling the same way I embrace raclette or avocados or fastelavnsbolle. I once watched a person dressing up for skiing and was like “Nope! Too much.” Water sports, beyond swimming, tend to separate you from the water, so don’t get the point. I admit cycling could be useful, especially to reach the beach/sea faster. But I love walking, it gives me time to think and dream.

Maybe I am not adventurous enough or open to change. Though, having lived in four countries long-term and a couple of others short-term in addition to traveling as much as I do for work, my adventure and change quotas are full and buffers are overflown as is. I will keep it to hobbies and sports that do not require elaborate clothing, gear, expenses, and planning … at least for now.

January Blues & 2025

  

Even though I love my life in Copenhagen, January has been a difficult month since I moved to Denmark.

(1) It is dark. Technically, the days are getting longer, but there is usually an overcast between you and the sun. While I did my best to escape the sun when I was younger, now I am turning into your average plant.

(2) It is cold. Well, it is winter, it should be cold. But the combination of cold and wind is at a level that turns the activity of taking a long walk outside from peaceful to unpleasant.

(3) There are course exams. Grading students for a course may be the least favorite part of my job. There are things I don’t want to do even for money in my life, and grading a student's performance in a course is among them. Many of my colleagues have similar sentiments. I am not sure if the students realize their professors are as uncomfortable about the exams as they are.

(4) Being exposed to all three above right after returning from the holidays in Istanbul, where I get a lot of love and care from the family, amplifies the negative effects.

I refer to this situation as January Blues.

 

This January, I also had two work trips (one to Amsterdam and one to the US). Both trips were awesome, and the latter dissolved my January Blues as it took me to my previous home, downtown San Jose, where the sun was generous and I had some time to hit my old favorite spots in the area. But I am left with scarce energy and time for writing once again. And, just like a student, who is trying to make their deadline at the last minute, I am making this attempt at a blog post for January.

 

I have never reviewed a year with respect to films, TV shows, books … despite going through a decent amount of them. My feelings toward making lists of this stuff for a year is similar to what Emily Nussbaum wrote in the article where she was reviewing the year 2011. Is this pretentious? Who am I to review things? I am neither a TV critic like Emily Nussbaum nor an important person like Obama. I haven’t seen / read everything. People have different tastes, what I like is subjective. I may not like what I liked this year later, maybe it was that particular time / day / occasion that made the difference. Most things I watch / read are the productions of the Western World, and more specifically the English-speaking world. …

So, this is not an attempt to make rankings and lists, but a recollection of a year, which feels more and more distant each day. I know that it is more customary to do this in December rather than January, but I will keep that in mind for 2026.

 

The ordering is based on the order I saw / read things. To keep things manageable, I put the limit of mentioning at most 5 things in each category, even though it was hard. There will be no spoilers in this one.

 

Films:

Coexistence, My Ass!

A great documentary centered around the solo show of the comedian Noam Shuster-Eliassi that tackles the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Sinners

Is this horror? musical? historical drama? action?

Well, it has the best of all of the above!

Den Stygge Stesøsteren

After so many takes on the Cinderella story, can one still do a new take that feels interesting? Norwegian director/writer Emilie Blichfeldt does it in this body horror comedy.

Sorry, Baby

I was impressed by the kind of thoughtful tone this film strikes in a dark comedy that takes on a topic as difficult as this one. It is the first feature film of Eva Victor, who is also the writer of the film and plays the lead. I am looking forward to seeing what they do in the future.

Alpha

Rather than adding another body horror here, I could have picked something else for the sake of diversity. But this is the newest by Julia Ducournau, I dedicated a whole blog post to her previous film Titane, I will always give a shout out to her.

 

Series:

Say Nothing

Technically from late 2024, but I will include here. I have special interest in Irish history.

Sirens

This was the show I discussed the most with other people after watching. Wrote about it also in Childless Petless Plantless Lady: Part 1.

Étoile

The latest from Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino. Unfortunately, it got cancelled after first season. I must admit it had some misses, but it also had great dance pieces and memorable/quotable moments. I already included a quote from it in Childless Petless Plantless Lady: Part 2.

Man on the Inside

The first season of this show is also from 2024. I decided to watch it with the release of the second season, which is in 2025. It is a lovely show on grief, family dynamics, getting older, and intergenerational relationships. I think there should be more shows that focus on older people.

Stranger Things – Last Season

As kids in the 90s, my generation in Turkey grew up watching stuff on TV from the 80s. Early seasons of this show were an overdose of 80s nostalgia, and thus I was hooked. Then, it became something I watched for the characters, and it didn’t matter if it was good or not. Last season was a nice goodbye.

 

Books:

Mixing up some from 2024 here as well, I read them all in 2025, so that part fits.

Rather than adding individual notes here, I just want to give a shout out to the authors of these books. Except for Hisham Matar, I have followed their work regularly over the years and appreciate anything they create. Hisham Matar’s My Friends was given to me as a birthday gift this year by my dear colleague Maria Astefanoaei. I thank her for introducing me to this author.

All Fours – Miranda July

Evil Eyes Sea – Özge Samancı

My Friends – Hisham Matar

Dead or Alive – Zadie Smith

Adulthood is a Gift (Sarah’s Scribbles #5) – Sarah Andersen

 

Music:

I tend to be more conservative in the way I listen to music and don’t do much to discover new stuff. This part is about the artists I got into in 2025, even though they have been around for a while.

Chapell Roan

Discovered when I watched her on Saturday Night Live late 2024. Started listening to her more and more often in 2025. Got to watch her live in Syd for Solen. I think Pink Pony Club deserves to be an anthem.

Fontaines D.C.

Discovered while watching Andrea Arnold’s Bird last year, where you get to hear the music of Fontaines D.C. Especially, Too Real, which plays during the end credits, caught my attention. I can’t believe what I was missing all these years.

 

Socializing Through Anti-Social Hobbies

  

“Can we do a cultural activity tonight?” my cousin asked. I was temporarily living in Berlin for my sabbatical. He was in Berlin for a couple of days for work visiting from Stuttgart. I was ready for his question, as I had proactively compiled a list of possible activities, which included some movie options and comedy shows, for that evening anticipating he might ask this question. After all, when it comes to these matters, we are cut from the same cloth.

 

“None of these are social hobbies.” was the reaction I got from a friend, I drifted apart from over time, after she inquired my hobbies and I listed them. I don’t remember the exact list, but knowing myself it was probably a subset of watching movies/series/stage-shows, reading, writing, listening to music … She liked those things as well, but she also liked playing board games, which require other human beings and which I am ok to play if friends ask but won’t have a drive to play by default.

It is true that in theory one doesn’t need another person to do any of my hobbies. Is that the reason I am drawn to them? While this may be a contributing factor, as I value my independence and am an introvert, I think the primary factor is the cloth.

My dad poured his love of movies and music on me when I was a kid. Our main outdoors activity was going to the movies, which I know is not really an outdoors activity. At home, he culturally influenced (brainwashed?) me through what he chose to watch on TV and the music he listened to with me. Later in life, I of course developed my own taste in things, separately from him, and there is now mutual cultural influencing.

I grew up in a house full of books and was raised by a mom who always took the time to read books, not only work-related ones and often multiple in parallel. When I was in high school, she even read my Irvine Welsh and ChuckPalahniuk books hoping they would help her understand me better as I was being a difficult teenager (sorry mom!). So, we can say that mom and I have been influencing each other when it comes to books.

Once, while going through old stuff at home, I found a poem my mom wrote, way before she had me, and was blown away by her ability to strike a tone that was both tender and funny. After I moved abroad, I found another poem she wrote, this time about being a mother, in my apartment. She has no recollection of writing it. I keep it close to me.

One of my uncles, the one we lost when I was 10, almost built a shrine for his books and music records at home, and left his love of culture as his main inheritance to all his nieces and nephews. His books and music records are scattered across all our homes today as a part of our shrines. 

I had literature teachers who encouraged and challenged me in terms of writing despite it having no impact in any of the multiple-choice high-school or university entrance exams that become the mandatory focus of every teenager in Turkey forcing them to separate from their love of art and sports.

Today, with all my close friends and cousins, I can talk for hours about culture; the books we have been reading, the music we have been listening to, the stuff we have been watching … It is likely because of this that we are close and stay close even if we live in different countries. These discussions of culture are often entangled with real life experiences; a book, movie, song … may help explain an experience or real-life experiences influence what type of stories one is drawn to or how one interprets those stories.

 

These beg the question: Are my hobbies really anti-social if they are entangled with cross-personal influences and help me form stronger bonds with others even if the hobby activity itself may be performed as a solo activity?

How many friends would I have actually had during my BSc if I had never joined the cinema club?

What kind of person would I have become if Illegitimate Daughter had never listened to Tori Amos at our dorm room, insisted that I watch Gilmore Girls, or introduced me to Elena Ferrante?  

How many grim moments during PhD would have stayed grim if Twin Sister and I hadn’t quoted Turkish film moments to each other to snap out of the grimness? How many times a book she gave me said a lot more than words exchanged with others?

What if I hadn’t gone to see a play on one of the extra nights I spent in Copenhagen after my interview for my current job? What if I hadn’t felt at home in Huset, the culture house where the play was? Would I still have made my first friends in Denmark that night? Would I still have felt that sure about moving to Copenhagen?

What would my life in Denmark have been like if I had never asked Sister in Movies if she would be interested in watching two bad movies with me? What if she hadn’t answered “yes” to that absurd question she received from someone she knew only through Danish class?

 

I am a culture vulture when it comes to movies, books, music, and stage shows, with an interest in both the mainstream and counter- culture, as one doesn’t exist without the other. I have an easier time socializing through such cultural activities or talking about them. Most of my life, I thought I was anti-social because my culture vulturing hobbies seemed like they were solitary activities, but thinking their impact in my life more holistically, they never were.

I love you all, my fellow culture vultures!!

 

P.S. I first heard the term culture vulture thanks to the title of Moshe Kasher’s book Subculture Vulture. So, a shout out to him and his book!