“Television Series and Discrimination in Turkey” panel which was organized by ASULIS Discourse, Dialogue, Democracy Laboratory of Hrant Dink Foundation, was held in Hrant Dink Foundation Havak Room on October 13rd 2016. Director, scriptwriter and project designer Tomris Giritlioğlu, scriptwriter and author Gaye Boralıoğlu and scriptwriter Nilgün Öneş had shared their experiences in the panel moderated by Feyza Akınerdem who has got studies on domestic TV series.

According to Gaye Boralıoğlu, we have to say that there is a tragedy when it comes to discrimination and TV series sector, because it is hard to include the structures which placed in the margins such as the others and minorities, into the sector. Boralıoğlu who argued that every drama should include a conflict, suggested that the source of this conflict should be fed by political, religious and ethical conflicts. According to Boralıoğlu, nowadays, TV channels and producers prefer to give place to TV series that are about artificial conflicts at the cost of reduction in ratings of their own TV series.

Nilgün Öneş who suggested that anyone would not face a problem in case of using minorities which had seen as the others, in a humorous way; argued that scriptwriters restrict themselves by self-censoring although television has a power to change viewers’ perception. In this point, even though the issues about discrimination cannot be included into scripts directly; if they are included in a right way, perceptions can change.

Tomris Giritlioğlu who argued that TV channels and producers should be more courageous, told that in this way, productions which society deserves, can be introduced. While Giritlioğlu mentioned that they could not address to the issues in Turkey’s agenda, she said that they forced to be satisfied with little panoramas from Turkey that included to love stories.

The panel was followed by question-answer part in which future of the sector and discrimination were discussed with contributions of the audience.