Orientalism meets Occidentalism in Tarkan versus the Vikings

Abstract

Tarkan Viking kani (Tarkan versus the Vikings) (), a low-budget feature film made in the heyday of Turkey’s prolific Yeşilçam film industry, anachronistically pits Viking against Hun in an allegory of Turkey’s position between East and West. By figuring Vikings as representatives of an essential westernness, this film partakes in what I propose is a Viking-film commonplace, but does so from a rare non-western perspective, positioning Vikings within a discourse that is both Orientalist and Occidentalist. This article examines Tarkan versus the Vikings in its historical and ideological contexts, using this film as a critical vantage point from which to consider the (mostly) western Viking film genre, and the stylized image of the West that is the cinematic Viking.