Transculturation, Transe sexuality, and Turkish Germany:: Kutlug!Ataman's 'Lola und Bilidikid'

This essay examines the intersection of ethnic and sexual identities in Kutlug Ataman's 1998 film Lola und Bilidikid, set in the Turkish gay/drag subculture of Berlin. By focusing on the figure of the Turkish-German Transe, I explore the ways in which sexual and cultural liminality and transformation - phenomena I discuss in terms of 'transness'- inflect each other in the film. I argue for the necessity of the concept of transculturation for the study of Turkish Germany, since it, more than other approaches, emphasises the dynamic and reciprocal nature of cultural contact. Ataman uses the 7 Transe to undermine a range of binaries, including male/female, Turkish/German, and tradition/modernity. Ataman uses the urban space of Berlin in order to challenge not only German and Turkish fantasies of cultural homogeneity, but also dominant models of sexual identity. The film offers a postmodern, utopian vision that undoes the chronologies of a number of master narratives - the sexual 'progress' of European gay liberation, the assimilationist narrative of immigration, and the Kemalist narrative of modernisation itself - opening up a queer array of possible sexual and cultural identities.