ABSTRACT
Esra Erol’da Evlen Benimle is one of the most popular and controversial reality show formats in Turkey. It aired between 2007 and 2017 and was cancelled by an emergency decree. The show entailed a complex negotiation between neoliberal frames of the self as foregrounded by the reality show genre and Turkey’s family regime. These negotiations enabled denklik (equivalence) and marriage age as two frames, which were employed for the selection and participation of marriage candidates on the show and thus demarcated the limits of individual desires and needs. Based on the ethnographic research conducted in the show’s production space, this chapter explores the particular encounters of the show’s staff and participants through multiple and contradictory norms of the family which, on a larger scale, open up a rare window into Turkey’s conservative and neoliberal transformations.
