Today I finished watching the first season of the famous Turkish series “Ertugrul’s Resurrection”, and God willing when I have free time, I will watch the second season which consists of 110 episodes, even though the first part was very long with 81 episodes and repeated several scenes completely, but it was very exciting and extremely kind.
It would have been even better if it was 40 episodes, I won’t say less because the long scenes are studied carefully to not cause boredom, but shortening them is better in my opinion. Anyway the series as it is, is very beautiful, the story is nice, the natural scenery is extremely impressive, the cinematography is distinct, and the actors’ performance is excellent with great directing.
What’s strange is the rabid campaign against the series, claiming that it distorts history, magnifies the Turkish role, and shows the Turks as if they are heroes and had a great role in human and Islamic history. In fact these are very weird objections.
Are TV series or even novels required to literally write history? Of course this is nonsense. If this was true there would be no need for history books, studies and documentaries, because a TV series is just a story, it’s normal for it to have some exaggeration or even a lot of fallacies to magnify the Turkish role, like what happens in all countries of the world when they produce films or series about their heroes.
I would like to note that I am not a fan of watching long series, or even short or normal ones. I rarely follow them, but I watched this series after seeing Dr. Karim’s episode when he said “a Roman woman converted to Islam after watching the Ertugrul series,” so I wanted to see a beautiful image of Muslims, because we are truly thirsty for a hero, even if in TV series.
I am a fan of historical series, adventure and old war and heroism films and movies, so I really liked the series, although I don’t like Turkish series and have never followed them because of their excessive length and boring romance. I remember a few years ago I used to follow a program I liked on a channel that unfortunately doesn’t respect its program broadcasting schedules. A Turkish series used to air before it, so sometimes I would switch channels and stop for a short while but can’t bear watching for more than 5 minutes because of the boredom, stretching out and unreasonable flow of events.
I’m happy that Turkish drama has started to enter a nice field like historical series. And of course because I’m following the series, YouTube suggests related topics, most of which are attacks on the series, but of course I didn’t care and didn’t try to open any videos. And I remembered the rabid campaign some time ago against the Salah Al-Din film, all revolving around slandering Salah Al-Din’s character. I don’t know why there is a campaign to slander the character of a historical figure or even a film that was released more than sixty years ago. What difference does it make if the leader Issa Al-Awam was Muslim or Christian, or that the unnamed ruler of Acre who wasn’t mentioned in the film once was a traitor or not, or that Salah Al-Din understood medicine and treated Richard himself or sent him his personal doctor, and other silly talk that no one cares about. But the important thing is that Salah Al-Din is a beautiful film and Ertugrul is a beautiful series worth watching.
Why do we want to distort everything beautiful in our lives with silly rumors and pointless or fruitless hostility? What will someone gain from attacking a series or movie that glorifies our heroism and immortalizes the memory of our heroes whether they were Egyptian, Arab, Muslim or otherwise as all countries do?
What will someone spreading rumors gain that defame an artist or actress who died 40 years ago? Is it because the dead can’t defend themselves or those who know the truth have died?
I’m not a fan of conspiracy theories but it makes sense that spreading such feverish campaigns can only happen with major funding, which means there is an objective behind it, which is to undermine our confidence in ourselves and distort the image of our art and history and everything of value in the eyes of our generations so that nothing remains for them to be proud of. So they destroy their confidence in everything they hear or watch, and they are easily internally defeated and not just mere bankruptcy or old score settling.
We have many real heroes whose stories deserve to be told in religious and historical TV series and movies. If only the state would rectify the big mistake it made when it raised the fees for filming in real historical places until the cost became prohibitive and unaffordable for production companies. If fees must be taken, what’s wrong with taking them from the revenues, which would lower production costs before release, with the costs of costumes, sets, salaries and equipment being enough.
Our new generations need to listen and watch stories of successes and see real role model heroes, not just a distorted reality portrayal and miserable characters that unjustly and aggressively call themselves heroes. When will we wake up and know that we erase our identity with our own hands and lose our children with our hands not only with the hands of our enemies? Nations are defeated internally and also win internally, and I don’t claim that movies or TV series can change our reality or instill confidence in the souls of our children, but they are a step in the right direction that we wish we can start with anything even small, and it will make a difference, God willing complete steps follow to complete the path through knowledge and work in all possible areas, for the sake of a future where we can find a place for ourselves.
Arabic