WHAT IS COURTESY?
Courtesy is more than politeness. Rooted in the Old French courtoisie, originally denoting the disciplined behavior expected in royal courts, it has long functioned as a tool of social regulation. As Norbert Elias (1969) suggests, such codes of con-duct internalized hierarchies by rendering domination respectable, even virtu-ous. In this sense, courtesy operates not only as etiquette but as ideology: a form of soft power that legitimizes authority while concealing inequality. In this film, Common Courtesy, this historical logic finds a contemporary echo. Beneath its modest portrayal of a seemingly benign workplace lies a quiet reproduction of class power. The relationship between a small appliance store owner and his ai-ling employee Halil is presented as humane, even touching—but its deeper sig-nificance is class-based. Here, courtesy itself becomes the protagonist: the invi-sible agent through which structural domination is naturalized, embodied, and moralized.