Disney will not air a series about the founder of Turkey on its Disney+ streaming platform as originally planned, the company told multiple news outlets, after criticism over his ties to the Armenian genocide—a decision that sparked outrage from high-profile Turkish figures and marks the latest international controversy embroiling U.S. film and TV studios.
Atatürk, a six-part historical drama TV series about Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, was originally scheduled to broadcast on Disney+ on October 29, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the modern Republic of Turkey.
Instead, the series will be released in two parts, one of which will air on Turkey’s Disney-owned Fox network and the other will appear in theaters, the company told the Washington Post—a move it linked to a “revised content distribution strategy.”
While Atatürk is praised by many Turks for his prominent role founding a secular state in Turkey in 1923 after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, many Armenians accuse him of participating in the Armenian genocide and embracing the central perpetrators.
The Armenian National Committee of America has issued repeated calls for Disney to cancel the series, which it accuses of “glorifying Mustafa Kemal Ataturk – a Turkish dictator and genocide killer with the blood of millions.”
Ebubekir Şahin, head of Turkey’s Radio and Television Supreme Council, announced an investigation Tuesday into Disney’s decision and the possibility that it was made after a lobbying campaign from the Armenian diaspora.
Forbes has reached out to Disney for comment.
Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, told Politico: “Anything that looks at Atatürk without putting his genocidal legacy at the very center risks normalizing what he did,” adding that “if there’s now a national or an international discussion about that legacy, that’s a very welcome thing.”
Spokesperson for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s governing AK Party, Ömer Çelik, called Disney’s decision “a shame” and “disrespectful to the values of the Republic of Turkey” in Turkish.
This is not the first U.S. film or series to spark uproar and create tension with foreign government officials. In July, Vietnamese officials announced Greta Gerwig’s hugely successful Barbie film would be banned in the country over a scene depicting a map that appeared to display China’s contested territorial claims in the South China Sea. In June 2022, Saudi Arabia banned the animated Pixar film Lightyear due to the inclusion of a same-sex kiss. In Saudi Arabia same-sex relationships are illegal. Until February, China had been banning Disney’s Marvel film series for three-and-a-half-years with little explanation.
Historians estimate 1.5 million Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks were killed by the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923 in what the United Nations, the International Association of Genocide Scholars and 34 countries, including the U.S., has called a genocide. Mass killings of Armenians were recorded in the late 1800s, but during World War I, the Young Turks—a political movement that controlled the Ottoman empire—began forced marches and killings of Armenians, whom it accused of being loyal to the Russians. Over 90% of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were wiped out by the end of the war. Atatürk was a member of the Young Turk movement and an officer in World War 1—most notably at the Battle of Gallipoli—but there is debate amongst scholars whether he personally participated in the genocide or his responsibility for embracing those who did commit the atrocities. The Turkish government denies the allegation it was a genocide, disputes most historians’ estimates and reveres Atatürk so much, it made it a crime to criticize the historical figure.
Turkey fumes as Disney axes founding father series after Armenian outcry (Politico)
Turkey investigates reported cancellation of Disney Plus series on Ataturk (Washington Post)