The Undoing of Comforting and Beautifying Spells: A Qualitative Analysis on the Transformation of Love Relationships in the Film "Innocence" within the Concept of Modernity

In understanding modernity, the doubts we encounter include the Enlightenment experience, the development of capitalism, and secularism. The ongoing debate about whether these concepts are causes or consequences of the emergence of modernity confirms this doubt. Moreover, it can be said that modernity awakens people from dreams that make the pains in their lives more tolerable. The emotional turmoil of the subject, who constantly loses and regains its object in the modern era, has become the focus of many studies examining how it relates to power dynamics in social life. Love, as a passion that connects a person to another object, is one of the emotions that emerge in these relationships. In this context, this study analyzes the transformation of romantic love discourse in the film Masumiyet, directed by Zeki Demirkubuz in the 1990s in Turkey, guided by a post-structuralist approach. In the film, love as an emotion that cannot find a stable object forms the identity of the subjects as social actors, and the phenomenon of power in social relationships finds expression in this shared identity. The aim is to understand the power dynamics in the love experiences of the characters in the film in the context of inequality and prejudice. The film has been analyzed, and the data obtained has been evaluated through critical discourse analysis. The research results show that in the context of inequality, the masculinity-femininity relationships in the love experiences of characters differ from the dominant role distribution in the modern era, while economic relationships reinforce the discourse of marriage based on joint property in the modern period. Finally, love relationships, in the context of social status, differ from the discourse aimed at achieving the promised social status in the modern era, leading to a narrative of status loss.