The Problem of Homosexuality: Desire-in-Uneasiness, Friendship, Family, Freedom

Zenne Dancer is a 2011 Turkish film written by Caner Alper and directed by Alper and Mehmet Binay. It is inspired by the story of Ahmet Yildiz, a gay Kurdish Turk allegedly murdered by his father in 2008 for dishonoring his family. Through its depiction of the unlikely friendship between three men, the film addresses the problem of homosexuality, the desire-in-uneasiness evoked by men being together, and the complex social structures of honor killings. In its address of honor killings, Zenne Dancer follows in a prestigious line of some of the best of Turkish and world cinema. The film depicts heteropatriarchy as a system harmful to women and men, and shows men and women enforcing and resisting that harm. In the end, Zenne Dancer connects these thematic concerns through a mixture of realist story, dance video, daydream, fairytale, and melodrama in a film ultimately concerned with the care of the self and the meaning of liberation.