The Problem of Sustainability in Domestic Sitcoms: The Case of Avrupa

This study focuses on the problem of sustainability in sitcoms, which is one of the major troubles of Turkish TV programming. The predisposition towards unendingness is central to the TV narration and it makes sustainability a critical issue either in the context of TV formats in general or in regards to specific productions in particular. Sustainability as a concept is developed as an analytical tool to identify a problem that has been significant neither in academic nor in practical debates on television. This study suggests that the problem of sustainability is a by-product of the television programming environment in Turkey, which heavily relies on short term predispositions, has also offered an escape from the realities of everyday life and towards fantasy. This assumption is further discussed in the light of the textual analysis of the sitcom series Avrupa Yakasi. The sustainability problem as it appears in this sitcom results with repetitions from one episode to the other in various narrative forms such as dream, parody, or mystical things, which are not part of real life and all have a fantabulous-mythical feature. In this article, furthermore, the efforts of nationalizing the sitcoms as a popular sub-category are assessed on the axis of sustainability.