Turkish Online Journal of Design Art and Communication

Öz

Even though cinema studies, usually
focusing on films, the audience has been attracted to the attention of
researchers since the beginning of these studies. However, in recent years the
number of studies on the audience has been increasing steadily. While early
cinema studies has focused on the influence of films on the audience, the
experience of cinemagoing has recently become a focus. This article is based on
oral history interviews conducted in Istanbul, Ankara, Antalya and Kocaeli
within the scope of the TUBITAK Project entitled "Cinemagoing as a
Cultural and Social Practice". In the article, through the fifty
interviews with female spectators who went to cinema in Turkey in the 1960s and
'70s, dynamics that played a role in the women's experience of cinemagoing and
the narration styles of the experience of cinemagoing were analyzed
thematically and discursively. The narratives of women spectators and their
analyzes emphasize that women's understanding of cinema is heterogeneous and
multidimensional and have shown that marriage is a significant threshold for
women's experience in cinemagoing and is used as a strategy act of going to
cinema  against the reality of everyday
life.