Living Islam in a German Family and Germanness in a Muslim family

Abstract:

Abstract PDF

Türkisch  für Anfänger, a German sitcom directed by Bora Dagtekin, son to a Turkish  father and a German mother, draws on the quotidian of a German-Turkish  – Deutsch-Türken– family tossed together by fate in the city of Berlin in the years following 9/11. For the sake of brevity, focus is mainly placed on the first season whose twelve episodes shed light on some of the major issues Muslims, German Muslims, and Turks together with Germans, are faced with when fate brings them together in so cosmopolitan a city as Berlin. With this in the background, it goes without saying that much of the scriptwriter’s personal life is brought to bear on his creation of an ethno-comedy intriguing enough to follow and retrace. This study aims at explicating the ways in which friction leads to the perception and the construction of Muslim Other within the gates as riddled with stereotypes. By deconstructing the stereotypical, the researchers seek to demonstrate how humour can be used to dispel and subvert clichés, thus creating a culture of resistance.