“My beloveds! My unique ones! Those whom I've missed so much! My beautiful friends! My precious friends! My saintly guests! I am incredibly fortunate for being in your presence, my dears. As usual, I offer you my limitless love and my deepest reverence, with the hope that you will accept them.”
– Zeki Muren
Queerness, by its very nature, changes the world around it. This is not a simple sentiment but a provable fact. Simply by existing, queer people are making history. While there have been queer radicals, anarchists, and activists who have chosen to dedicate their lives to the betterment of the world, queerness alone is, by its very nature, transformative. While Zeki Müren did not spend his life fighting for the acceptance of queer people, he was able to transform the world around him through his choice to exist publicly and unapologetically as a queer man.
Known as the "sun of art," Zeki Müren was known for his music, but that was by no means his only contribution to the art scene of Turkey. Müren was raised in an upper-middle-class family. His initial pursuit was to become a singer, knowing that the best medium for this at the time was the radio. His auditions are legend, telling the people in charge of deciding his future that he knew thousands of songs and proving it to them when they challenged that assertion. Blending the traditions of Turkish folk music with more modern sensibilities, he was able to quickly find a foothold. As a university student in 1950, he entered a music competition and ranked number one out of one-hundred and eighty-six contestants. Müren gained nationwide popularity through live performances on the radio, so much so that people were known to ask when they were buying radios if they "played Zeki Müren." However, this was not the stopping point for Müren but rather the first step in a long and famed career that would include films, rug design, and television appearances.
Within his film roles, he insisted that any character he played would share his name, blurring the lines between his own life and his fictional one. He was also known for blending the lines between performer and audience, interacting with his listeners, and popularizing the T-shaped stage, which allowed him to get much closer to his audience. Partially because of this, many people describe having a very personal relationship with the pop star, even if they never met. People all across the political spectrum see Zeki Müren as more than an artist, but a friend, family member, or vehicle for their political beliefs.
While earlier in his career, Müren was mostly known for his hairstyle and wearing suits, as soon as his place in the limelight was secured, his clothing became more and more revolutionary. In performances, he would wear elaborate costumes that often broke traditional gender roles. He would manage the danger of this position by largely keeping these outfits for concerts, as well as portraying them as art pieces in their own right, naming them things like "The Dream of the Champagne," "The Smile of the Mimosas," "Thirsty Oyster," "Parisian Nights," and most famously "A Prince from Outer Space." This is not, of course, to say that this clothing was uncontroversial. There is a well-known story where Müren was about to perform and was approached by men holding bats, ready to attack him. He requested that the men sit down and watch his performance before beating him, and by the end, the men left in peace.
Throughout his career, it was an open secret that Zeki Müren was a gay man, something accepted, if not embraced by many people who would otherwise disapprove of such identities. Whether it was because his discretion allowed them to pretend that the rumours were not true or because he had found a place in their hearts, the justification is likely different for different people. What can be known is that while Müren himself was not very openly political, he was able to make friends and connections throughout the political spectrum. In a time when queer bars were often the target of harassment by the Turkish police, his presence would expel them without much fuss.
This is not to say political neutrality is an unquestionably supportable choice, and Müren has received posthumous criticism for his silence on many issues. It was not a harmless choice to become the "palatable" queer pop star, but it was one that kept him popular, and in many situations, it was one that kept him safe.
While by the end of his life, Müren had largely retreated from public life due to health issues, his final bow was a very public one. Zeki Müren died on September 24, 1996, during a televised celebration of his life and work.
Though he only lived to 76 years old, Müren was able to define a large and complicated legacy to leave behind him. One of the guardians of his story, Beyza Boyacioglu, who made a film and started a phone hotline in an effort to preserve the memory of Zeki Müren, wrote of the contradictions of Müren's remembrance by the state of Turkey, saying:
"By giving Müren an official funeral, the state reaffirmed his identity as a 'state artist' — a title he had earned in 1991 with his service to the country. It was an unusual thing for the Turkish state to hold a queer pop star in such high esteem. Only three months before Moren's death, the City Government of Istanbul had carried out a citywide 'cleansing project,' ironically in preparation for the United Nations Habitat 11 conference. The project's aim was getting rid of transgender people in Istanbul - specifically targeting the community on Ulker Street of Beyoglu district - alongside stray dogs, and homeless people. During the Olker Street resistance, mainstream newspapers depicted the transgender residents of the street as immoral and mentally ill; they were eventually forced out of their neighborhood and their community was dispersed. Three months after, the same media outlets depicted Müren's state funeral with utmost respect, treating the queer star as a national hero."
Loved with equal fervour by conservative women and queer revolutionaries within Turkey, the blurred lines within his story cement Zeki Müren as a silhouette of a man. He is often used as an image in support of one side or the other, and the reality of his life has faded behind the iconic legend he created for himself. It does not come without its' drawbacks, but it also comes with benefits. He exposed a country to queerness and was accepted for it. Though there have undeniably been people to accept the mythos of the man, but not the reality of the queerness he represented echoed in their own lives, the opposite is also true. Queer people have seen themselves in him, and people who otherwise never would have voluntarily interacted with any form of gender-nonconformity were exposed to its beauty. By all accounts, Müren was also able to carve out a space for himself to exist and be loved as a whole queer human, which is worth something in and of itself. Not every queer person should or can be an activist, radical, or leader of the queer movement, but that reality does not eclipse queerness' inherent transformative nature. This truth is only magnified when it is put into the limelight.
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
Disclaimer: some of the sources may contain triggering material
A Prince From Outer Space: Zeki Müren. (n.d.). Chicken & Egg Pictures. Retrieved April 7, 2022, from https://chickeneggpics.org/grantee/prince-outer-space-zeki-muren/
Agency, A. (2020, September 23). Zeki Müren: Introducing Turkey’s most glamorous artist. Daily Sabah. https://www.dailysabah.com/arts/portrait/zeki-muren-introducing-turkeys-most-glamorous-artist
Giaimo, C. (400 C.E., 42:00). Before Bowie Or Prince, There Was Zeki Müren—Turkey’s Gender-Bending Rock Star. Atlas Obscura. http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/before-bowie-or-prince-there-was-zeki-murenturkeys-genderbending-rock-star
Hawkins, S. (2018). Queerly Turkish: Queer Masculinity and National Belonging in the Image of Zeki Müren. Popular Music and Society, 41(2), 99–118. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2016.1212625
Oh so Zeki! - COVER magazine. (2019, January 28). https://www.cover-magazine.com/2019/01/28/oh-so-zeki/
Turkey’s “David Bowie”: Crowds flock to remember Zeki Muren. (2015, January 29). BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30942013
We Need to Talk About Zeki Müren. (2018, May 18). Messy Nessy Chic. https://www.messynessychic.com/2018/05/18/we-need-to-talk-about-zeki-muren-meet-turkeys-liberace/
Zeki Muren. (n.d.). Enjoy Bodrum. Retrieved April 7, 2022, from https://www.enjoy-bodrum.com/zeki-muren.html
Zeki Müren. (n.d.). Legacy Project Chicago. Retrieved April 7, 2022, from https://legacyprojectchicago.org/person/zeki-muren
Zeki Müren Hotline: An Interactive Web Documentary. (n.d.). Kickstarter. Retrieved April 7, 2022, from https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zekimurenhotline/zeki-muren-hotline-an-interactive-web-documentary
ZEKI MÜREN, THE DAVID BOWIE OF TURKEY. (2018, September 12). PleaseKillMe. https://pleasekillme.com/zeki-muren/
Zeki Muren—Turkey’s songbird. (2017, July 25). Inside Out In Istanbul. https://www.insideoutinistanbul.com/zeki-muren-turkeys-songbird/