My father-in-law is from a part of Greece where Turkish culture took a long time to be shaken off. Turkish was his first language, and there were old-timers when he was little whose parents and grandparents were still alive during Ottoman rule.

This has a point...

So he’s been watching this Turkish show called “Resurrection,” about the father of Osman I (founder of the Ottoman Empire) b/c he finds Turkish culture interesting.

It’s well-acted, has high production values, etc., if a bit melodramatic.

But I noticed something else...

The main character, his tribe, and Islam are all portrayed only positively.

This character is from what I gather like a grandfather of the Turkish people, and defender of their faith. As such, he’s given due respect in this show.

The opposite of Western entertainment!

The Christians in the show—mostly Venetian, but there are monks, and I think I saw some Crusaders—are venal, un-trustworthy, bigoted, and vicious.

...so portrayed how nominally Christian nations would portray Christians.

Just imagine an American-made series about the siege of Vienna...Sobieski would be an evil hypocrite who hates women, there’d be a gay subplot or 3, all the priests would be pedos and hypocrites, the only good priest wouldn’t really believe all that stuff...

...the Ottomans would be portrayed as sympathetic, there’d be tons of talk about how the Hapsburgs actually deserved to lose, his Islam is superior in many ways to Christianity, there’d be a strong badass female Winged Hussar who’s the REAL hero...

...and TONS of unsubtle subtext about how the Ottomans aren’t that bad, and that Christendom is the real “evil empire.”

Then there’d be set-up for how the Enlightenment will sweep its all away.

You know all of this is 100% accurate.

The point is this: Turkey is a cohesive nation that respects its past, and even if they means mythologizing it, so be it.

Sure beats the hell out of nihilistic self-loathing in a fraying, multi-cultural empire held together by the threat of force.

There are some cultural storytelling differences though: much of the show is people standing around talking, then some action, then more people talking.

It’s common for episodes to have a group of talking characters NEVER LEAVE the place they’re standing and talking in.

My God, just imagine what an orgy of self-loathing a Western-made TV series about the Reconquista would be.

We don’t need our enemies to make propaganda against us when we can just do it ourselves.

Elements of every western historical drama:

- So-and-so was really gay/black/trans
- We’re the real bad guys (unless it’s about WW II or ending slavery)

Back to this show: finished the run and it has zero grotesque violence or weird, creepy sex. Just a good story well-told.

Something American TV producers cannot do. https://twitter.com/AHelleneAuthor/status/1296806967407779841?s=20

Turkish show runners understand the western storytelling tradition better than westerners.