ABSTRACT
This study aims to analyze the film Ivy (2015), written and directed by Tolga Karaçelik, within the framework of security studies, weak/failed state and regime security. It is argued that the film, which has been analyzed in many disciplines ranging from political science to masculinity studies, ethnic studies to psychology, and the ship, which has become the main character of the film, can be considered as a weak state marked by the qualities of function, legitimacy and exclusivity, and that the relationship between the captain and the crew throughout the film can be explained in terms of regime security. In this context, while analyzing the literature on the ship metaphor, the relationship between ship and (in)security, weak/failed state and regime security, the script, characters and dialogues of the film are evaluated within the vicious circle of weak/failed state and regime security. Thus, by emphasizing the pedagogical and expansive roles of films or fictional/artistic works in general as an extension of the “aesthetic turn” envisioned in international politics, it is argued that Ivy can be used as a tool to clarify the relationship between weak/ failed state and regime security and to develop new concepts of this relationship.