Sette Olanları AİHM’ye Götürsek Kazanırız

Sette Olanları AİHM’ye Götürsek Kazanırız

Cinemania — 26 January 2010
Hosted by Ömür Gedik

One day after Nejat İşler’s major Milliyet interview about leaving Kapalıçarşı, another conversation made his position even clearer.

Appearing on Ömür Gedik’s Cinemania, İşler did not mainly complain about fame.

He complained about work.

More precisely:

the industrial conditions of Turkish television production.

His deliberately exaggerated summary was memorable:

“Sette olanları AİHM’ye götürsek kazanırız.”

The point was not a legal argument.

It was a labor argument.

He believed television sets had reached an unreasonable level of exhaustion.

The Problem Is the Tempo

İşler describes the pace of television production as absurdly demanding.

His concern is not simply that actors work hard.

A film set always requires long and difficult periods.

The problem is the repetitive weekly structure of television.

A new episode has to be produced continuously.

There is little recovery.

The exceptional becomes normal.

This transforms artistic work into endurance.

Before Someone Gets Hurt

His strongest concern is physical.

He warns that conditions should be challenged before something serious happens to somebody.

That statement matters in retrospect.

It comes years before his own major health crisis.

The archive should not retrospectively connect the two as cause and effect.

But the interview proves that his concern about physical limits existed long before 2014.

This Was Not an Excuse for Leaving Kapalıçarşı

The previous day’s reporting around Kapalıçarşı had created a familiar celebrity narrative.

Why did the actor leave?

Was alcohol involved?

Was there a discipline problem?

Was he difficult?

The Cinemania appearance points in another direction.

He presents the problem as structural.

The schedule is bad.

The production model is bad.

The issue is larger than Nejat İşler.

From Personal Dispute to Labor Criticism

This distinction is crucial.

A personal story asks:

Why couldn’t Nejat İşler continue?

A labor story asks:

Why is continuing under these conditions considered normal?

İşler clearly prefers the second question.

That makes this short appearance valuable beside the longer Milliyet interview.

He Had Already Tried to Leave Television

İşler says that after Bıçak Sırtı, he had effectively sworn off television work.

He later accepted Kapalıçarşı after producer Erol Avcı asked him to participate.

This is important because it shows that the 2010 withdrawal was not an impulsive reaction to a single production.

Dissatisfaction already existed.

A Pattern of Exceptions

This also predicts an important feature of his later career.

He often makes categorical statements:

no more series,

no more television,

then accepts an exception.

At first this can look inconsistent.

But the exceptions usually reveal the real rule.

The rule is not:

never television.

It is:

not under every condition.

Cinema Uses the Actor Differently

İşler explicitly contrasts television with cinema.

He says filmmakers use him in different ways and that he prefers this variety.

This is another major clue.

His dissatisfaction is not only about hours.

It is also artistic.

Television tends to stabilize an actor.

The same image.

The same character type.

Week after week.

Cinema offers greater movement.

Tired of the “Clean Boy”

İşler says he is tired of repeatedly playing the “clean boy” type and appreciates cinema because it allows different kinds of roles.

This statement is especially important when placed in the larger chronology.

The public had initially known him through:

romantic roles,

mainstream television,

leading-man visibility.

But his artistic appetite was moving elsewhere.

Barda Had Already Shown the Alternative

By 2010, Barda had demonstrated what this alternative could look like.

There, İşler was not:

the clean romantic man,

the safe television lead.

He entered a morally disturbing character.

Cinema allowed the public image to become unstable.

That instability seems to be part of what attracted him.

Ejder Kapanı Context

The Cinemania appearance took place while İşler was promoting Ejder Kapanı, in which he played Ensar.

Again, the film offered a darker dramatic environment than the conventional television roles he was already tired of.

The contrast between promotion for a crime film and criticism of television production therefore makes professional sense.

Television Pays

Later in 2010, another reported statement would make his position even more explicit.

İşler said television was primarily where he earned money, while cinema and theatre mattered more artistically.

That comment can sound cynical when isolated.

Placed beside Cinemania, it becomes more coherent.

Television provides economic security.

Cinema provides greater artistic variety.

The conflict is between what pays and what he most wants to do.

Money and Time Before 2017

This is an early version of a question he will later solve more philosophically.

In 2017:

money should help buy time.

In 2010:

television gives money but consumes enormous amounts of time.

The contradiction is already visible.

If earning more requires giving up most of your life, what exactly has the money purchased?

The Labor Cost of Visibility

Television also creates fame more rapidly than many films do.

That produces a double cost.

The actor gives:

time to production,

privacy to celebrity.

The reward is:

money,

visibility,

career security.

By 2010, İşler is clearly questioning whether the exchange remains worthwhile.

December 2010: The Behzat Ç. Exception

The most interesting development comes later the same year.

In December, reports announced that İşler would appear as a guest actor in Behzat Ç. despite having said he did not want regular television series.

The project was directed by Serdar Akar, with whom he had worked on Barda.

İşler accepted a limited guest role as Ercüment Çözer.

This is one of the most important exceptions in his career.

The Exception Becomes Iconic

Ercüment would eventually become one of the roles most strongly associated with Nejat İşler.

That creates a remarkable irony.

The character enters his career precisely when he is trying to get away from television.

The role works because it does not initially require surrendering his entire schedule to another conventional leading role.

It is limited.

Specific.

Created with a director he trusts.

Exactly the kind of exception his later career repeatedly favors.

Leaving Television Produces a Television Icon

The paradox is almost perfect.

Nejat İşler withdraws from standard television.

Then a guest role becomes one of his greatest television identities.

This demonstrates why the archive should avoid absolute statements such as:

Nejat İşler quit television.

A better statement is:

Nejat İşler tried to renegotiate his relationship with television.

Working Conditions, Not Medium

The later digital-platform period confirms this.

When limited seasons and more controlled schedules become possible, he returns willingly to projects such as Saygı.

The principle remains stable from 2010 onward.

He is not fundamentally anti-television.

He is anti-production conditions that consume too much of life.

A Useful Comparison with 2015

In 2015, İşler would say:

“Diziler bitti, sinemaya devam edeceğim.”

That sounds stronger than the 2010 position.

But even then, the real distinction remains between working structures.

Cinema fits better because it has an end.

Television series can theoretically continue indefinitely.

A Useful Comparison with Episode

The later Episode interview completes the argument.

Digital series offer:

defined seasons,

preparation,

shorter episode structures,

a known endpoint.

Under those conditions, television-like storytelling becomes acceptable again.

Thus:

2010 criticism

and

later digital return

are not contradictions.

The conditions changed.

The Wider Labor Question

The interview also deserves to be preserved beyond Nejat İşler’s biography.

Academic work on Turkish film and television labor from the period documented widespread problems including extremely long working days, weak employment security and the continuous pressures created by weekly series production.

İşler’s complaint therefore belonged to a wider industrial problem.

His celebrity simply gave the criticism greater visibility.

Why This Interview Matters

The 26 January 2010 Cinemania appearance is a short but essential companion to the previous day’s Milliyet interview.

It removes ambiguity from İşler’s withdrawal from Kapalıçarşı.

The core issue is not:

I no longer want to act.

It is:

I no longer want to work like this.

That distinction explains much of the next fifteen years.

He continues acting.

He continues television selectively.

He accepts Ercüment Çözer as a guest role.

He later works on digital series.

He moves into producing.

Across all of these changes, the basic principle remains remarkably consistent:

the profession matters, but no production system should automatically own all of the actor’s time.