Interpartner Psychological Violence: (Semiotic and Content Analysis of the Movies “The Killing of Two Lovers” And “Biz Böyleyiz” Within the Context of Self-Disclosure Phenomenon)

Abstract

It is a requirement and obligation of social life for people to constantly engage in communicative action with individuals involved in their environment or private lives. Those in the private and close communication circle are commonly called “partners.” According to TDK, this concept is defined as a spouse, co-partner, teammate, and each party in a sexual relationship. Acts of violence, which are a social problem and include negative behaviors, are mostly encountered among partners, and it is assumed that victims are usually women. Violence is undoubtedly a behavior that can be learned, and this action can become a habit in many ways. The fact that scenes of violence are relatively frequent, especially in media tools, and often refer to legitimacy metaphorically, is considered one of the main reasons for the problem in this context. In addition to television and newspapers, interpartner scenes of violence in TV, newspapers, series, and motion pictures should undoubtedly be considered one of the process’s triggering components. This research aims to analyze psychological and physical violence through ‘self-disclosure,’ which forms the basis of inter-partner relations in the recently released movies. In the study, a foreigner and a Turkish movie were selected as a sample to determine the projections of interpartner psychological violence within the framework of ‘self-disclosure.’ In this regard, the movies ‘The Killing of Two Lovers’ and ‘The Way We Are,’ which were released in 2020 and where violent scenes were frequently visible, were tried to be analyzed through content analysis and semiotic methods, and the dominance between the partners was tried to be tested.

As a result of the findings obtained from the movies, it was concluded that male and female partners used psychological violence against each other at different times and ways, harmed each other, and psychological violence negatively affected individuals and relationships. In addition, it was determined that the partner who used interpartner psychological violence, which disproved the basic hypothesis of the study, was mostly female, and the victim was male. Furthermore, the findings revealed that many forms of violence have been legitimated through films.