Books by Intan Paramaditha
Papers by Intan Paramaditha
Film Quarterly
Joshua Oppenheimer has called The Act of Killing his love letter to Indonesia. It did not take lo... more Joshua Oppenheimer has called The Act of Killing his love letter to Indonesia. It did not take long for him to discover that his love was requited; after hundreds of community screenings in various cities throughout the country, countless comments and reviews have appeared in blogs and social media confirming how Indonesian viewers truly appreciate the labor of love of Oppenheimer and his co-directors Christine Cynn and Anonymous. The Act of Killing is a beautiful and disturbing gift, a mirror that projects the image of the nation so violent and surreal. And this raises further questions: How do Indonesians recognize their faces in the mirror? How do they resituate themselves as witnesses to violence after The Act of Killing?
in Tilman Baumgärtel, Southeast Asian Independent Cinema (Hong Kong University Press, 2012), pp. 70-87.
At the end of 2007, the omnibus film Perempuan Punya Cerita (Chants of Lotus, 2008), directed by ... more At the end of 2007, the omnibus film Perempuan Punya Cerita (Chants of Lotus, 2008), directed by four women filmmakers and produced by independent production house Kalyana Shira Film, was severely cut by the Indonesian Censorship Board for showing sex scenes regarded as obscene by Indonesian standards and for portraying a veiled woman involved in a casual conversation about sex. The filmmakers – Nia Dinata, Upi Avianto, Lasja Fauziah, and Fatimah Tobing Rony – believe that the cutting has disrupted the narrative coherence of the movie and that this act of censorship underlines the problems pertaining to sexuality in Indonesia such as abortion, women trafficking, teenage sexuality, and AIDS. The censoring of Chants of Lotus demonstrates that even after the New Order authoritarian regime under president Suharto ended in 1998, film policy still operates based on the old, repressive paradigm. The persistence of censorship caused a large number of young filmmakers to join the Indonesian Film Society (Masyarakat Film Indonesia/MFI) in 2006 and urged the government to abolish the 1992 Law of film censorship that they regarded as no longer relevant to the contemporary situation. The demands were brought to the Constitutional Court and rejected in April 2008.
The anxiety about sexual representation in cinema exemplified by Chants of Lotus reveals how the discourse of sexuality has become an inseparable element of the public debate in Indonesia. Since Suharto stepped down in 1998, various national phenomena ranging from the launching of Playboy Indonesia to the controversial erotic dance of dangdut singer Inul have stirred up a moral panic among some Islamist groups, which have gained more power in politics and triggered the state to push the Pornography Bill (Rancangan Undang-Undang Pornografi) that regulates the public depiction of sexuality. While these groups supported the Bill, cultural activist, artists, writers, and filmmakers protested against it for its underlying patriarchal and anti-pluralist logic. After almost a decade of debates, revisions, and demonstrations, the Bill became law in October 2008 as the Pornography Law.
Within this sphere of tension around sexuality, my essay explores the connection between the ways in which the new generation of Indonesian filmmakers channel their aspiration through Masyarakat Film Indonesia/MFI and the larger discourse of post-Suharto sexual politics. I attempt to answer the following questions: How do the new filmmakers see sexuality, and how does this perspective differ from that of the state? What is the significance of depicting sexuality in contemporary Indonesian cinema? My research focuses on the debates around censorship between MFI and the Censorship Board in the Constitutional Court as well as some films, particularly Chants of Lotus and Perempuan: Kisah di Balik Guntingan (Women: In the Cut, 2008), a documentary on how Chants of Lotuswas afflicted by censorship. Elucidating the historical context of censorship and sexuality in Indonesia, the logic behind post-Suharto film censorship, and the way that MFI criticizes the Censorship Board, I will show that the new filmmakers conceptualize sexuality differently from the state and deploy sexuality to both question and reconstruct national identity. I will also argue that there are limitations and ambivalences in the new filmmakers’ desire to explore and problematize sexuality as a national issue.
This paper is a part of a larger research that attempts to situate the new generation of Indonesi... more This paper is a part of a larger research that attempts to situate the new generation of Indonesian filmmakers within the larger field of cultural production in Indonesia after the demise of the New Order authoritarian regime in 1998. It is anchored on an overarching question of how this generation is produced by a large-scale political transformation called Reformasi (reform) as new citizen subjects. While the ideal citizens within the New Order paradigm of developmentalism were constructed as middle-class apolitical subjects, Reformasi has allowed the creation of new citizen subjects who desire (and are pressured) to perform political awareness. The new Reformasi landscape has transformed the relationship between the state and the civil society while opening up stages on the national public sphere in which we see a visibility contest of various actors, including the state, the cultural actors, and the religious conservatives. It is within this context that I will discuss the new filmmakers’ engagement to politics, specifically in their advocacy to reform film policy. Looking at the process of the judicial review of the repressive 1992 film law, I will analyze how the young generation perform their status as new, knowledgeable citizen subjects capable of exercising their political rights. I will also discuss how, having stumbled upon limitations and failure, they revise the performance in the more recent activism that I have been involved in: the advocacy against the new 2009 film law, which projects the effort of the government to perform ‘change’ yet ambivalently retains the old paradigms of the authoritarian regime.
Asian Cinema, Fall/Winter 2010
The success of Ayat-Ayat Cinta (The Love Verses, 2008), a major box office Islamic themed film, w... more The success of Ayat-Ayat Cinta (The Love Verses, 2008), a major box office Islamic themed film, was one of the key moments of Islamic hype in Indonesia after the fall of the Suharto regime in 1998. Based on the best-selling novel by Habiburrahman El Shirazy, the film broke the record of Indonesian cinema after 10 years by attracting more than 4 million people. With an audience ranging from political elites to students of Islamic boarding schools, it exemplifies the dominant Islamic visibility in popular culture after a long suppression of Islam under Suharto’s dictatorship. Some Indonesian Muslims view Ayat-Ayat Cinta positively as a moving melodramatic tale that attempts to spread dakwah (Islamic teaching), yet the film has triggered various debates in the public sphere. One of the issues raised was the convert story of the character Maria Girgis, a Christian Egyptian woman who is fascinated with Islam yet never really practises the religion until, on her deathbed when she asks her husband to teach her to pray in an Islamic way.
There has been a mushrooming of “Islamic cinema” following the commercial success of Ayat-Ayat Cinta. In the past two years movie theaters have been populated with films about the everyday lives of Muslims, such as Kun Fayakun (Be! 2008), Mengaku Rasul (The False Prophet, 2008), Syahadat Cinta (The Love Declaration, 2008), Perempuan Berkalung Sorban (The Scarfed Woman, 2009), and Ketika Cinta Bertasbih 1 & 2 (When Love Glorifies God, 2009). In this essay I will return to Ayat-Ayat Cinta as the convert stories on and off screen help us reflect on the question of Muslim performativity. I will explore how the characters on screen as well as the filmmaker and actors project desirable Muslim public identities within the conflation of piety, politics, and consumer culture in post-authoritarian Indonesia. Furthermore, I will examine how the narrative of passing is used as a motif in religious conversion to solidify the fiction of religious authenticity.
Talks by Intan Paramaditha
Essays by Intan Paramaditha
In less than two decades since Reformasi (reform) in 1998, Indonesians have been trained to respo... more In less than two decades since Reformasi (reform) in 1998, Indonesians have been trained to respond collectively and immediately to urgent situations. We have developed survival skills and tactics as “emergency activists”.
We are witnessing a new age of spectacular violence. When we read stories about people digging up... more We are witnessing a new age of spectacular violence. When we read stories about people digging up and exposing the dead body of an Ahmadiyah follower in a graveyard, we are encountering the very definition of the spectacular: a “dramatic” or “elaborate display”.
The reform era has brought with it increasing openness, including openness to techniques of violence that transcend our imagination of the grotesque...
Uploads
Books by Intan Paramaditha
Papers by Intan Paramaditha
The anxiety about sexual representation in cinema exemplified by Chants of Lotus reveals how the discourse of sexuality has become an inseparable element of the public debate in Indonesia. Since Suharto stepped down in 1998, various national phenomena ranging from the launching of Playboy Indonesia to the controversial erotic dance of dangdut singer Inul have stirred up a moral panic among some Islamist groups, which have gained more power in politics and triggered the state to push the Pornography Bill (Rancangan Undang-Undang Pornografi) that regulates the public depiction of sexuality. While these groups supported the Bill, cultural activist, artists, writers, and filmmakers protested against it for its underlying patriarchal and anti-pluralist logic. After almost a decade of debates, revisions, and demonstrations, the Bill became law in October 2008 as the Pornography Law.
Within this sphere of tension around sexuality, my essay explores the connection between the ways in which the new generation of Indonesian filmmakers channel their aspiration through Masyarakat Film Indonesia/MFI and the larger discourse of post-Suharto sexual politics. I attempt to answer the following questions: How do the new filmmakers see sexuality, and how does this perspective differ from that of the state? What is the significance of depicting sexuality in contemporary Indonesian cinema? My research focuses on the debates around censorship between MFI and the Censorship Board in the Constitutional Court as well as some films, particularly Chants of Lotus and Perempuan: Kisah di Balik Guntingan (Women: In the Cut, 2008), a documentary on how Chants of Lotuswas afflicted by censorship. Elucidating the historical context of censorship and sexuality in Indonesia, the logic behind post-Suharto film censorship, and the way that MFI criticizes the Censorship Board, I will show that the new filmmakers conceptualize sexuality differently from the state and deploy sexuality to both question and reconstruct national identity. I will also argue that there are limitations and ambivalences in the new filmmakers’ desire to explore and problematize sexuality as a national issue.
There has been a mushrooming of “Islamic cinema” following the commercial success of Ayat-Ayat Cinta. In the past two years movie theaters have been populated with films about the everyday lives of Muslims, such as Kun Fayakun (Be! 2008), Mengaku Rasul (The False Prophet, 2008), Syahadat Cinta (The Love Declaration, 2008), Perempuan Berkalung Sorban (The Scarfed Woman, 2009), and Ketika Cinta Bertasbih 1 & 2 (When Love Glorifies God, 2009). In this essay I will return to Ayat-Ayat Cinta as the convert stories on and off screen help us reflect on the question of Muslim performativity. I will explore how the characters on screen as well as the filmmaker and actors project desirable Muslim public identities within the conflation of piety, politics, and consumer culture in post-authoritarian Indonesia. Furthermore, I will examine how the narrative of passing is used as a motif in religious conversion to solidify the fiction of religious authenticity.
Talks by Intan Paramaditha
Essays by Intan Paramaditha
The reform era has brought with it increasing openness, including openness to techniques of violence that transcend our imagination of the grotesque...
The anxiety about sexual representation in cinema exemplified by Chants of Lotus reveals how the discourse of sexuality has become an inseparable element of the public debate in Indonesia. Since Suharto stepped down in 1998, various national phenomena ranging from the launching of Playboy Indonesia to the controversial erotic dance of dangdut singer Inul have stirred up a moral panic among some Islamist groups, which have gained more power in politics and triggered the state to push the Pornography Bill (Rancangan Undang-Undang Pornografi) that regulates the public depiction of sexuality. While these groups supported the Bill, cultural activist, artists, writers, and filmmakers protested against it for its underlying patriarchal and anti-pluralist logic. After almost a decade of debates, revisions, and demonstrations, the Bill became law in October 2008 as the Pornography Law.
Within this sphere of tension around sexuality, my essay explores the connection between the ways in which the new generation of Indonesian filmmakers channel their aspiration through Masyarakat Film Indonesia/MFI and the larger discourse of post-Suharto sexual politics. I attempt to answer the following questions: How do the new filmmakers see sexuality, and how does this perspective differ from that of the state? What is the significance of depicting sexuality in contemporary Indonesian cinema? My research focuses on the debates around censorship between MFI and the Censorship Board in the Constitutional Court as well as some films, particularly Chants of Lotus and Perempuan: Kisah di Balik Guntingan (Women: In the Cut, 2008), a documentary on how Chants of Lotuswas afflicted by censorship. Elucidating the historical context of censorship and sexuality in Indonesia, the logic behind post-Suharto film censorship, and the way that MFI criticizes the Censorship Board, I will show that the new filmmakers conceptualize sexuality differently from the state and deploy sexuality to both question and reconstruct national identity. I will also argue that there are limitations and ambivalences in the new filmmakers’ desire to explore and problematize sexuality as a national issue.
There has been a mushrooming of “Islamic cinema” following the commercial success of Ayat-Ayat Cinta. In the past two years movie theaters have been populated with films about the everyday lives of Muslims, such as Kun Fayakun (Be! 2008), Mengaku Rasul (The False Prophet, 2008), Syahadat Cinta (The Love Declaration, 2008), Perempuan Berkalung Sorban (The Scarfed Woman, 2009), and Ketika Cinta Bertasbih 1 & 2 (When Love Glorifies God, 2009). In this essay I will return to Ayat-Ayat Cinta as the convert stories on and off screen help us reflect on the question of Muslim performativity. I will explore how the characters on screen as well as the filmmaker and actors project desirable Muslim public identities within the conflation of piety, politics, and consumer culture in post-authoritarian Indonesia. Furthermore, I will examine how the narrative of passing is used as a motif in religious conversion to solidify the fiction of religious authenticity.
The reform era has brought with it increasing openness, including openness to techniques of violence that transcend our imagination of the grotesque...