Divulging the Longitudinal Representations of Gay People in Indonesian Films: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

This research is an interpretative research, employing case study design. Since, this research was conducted to explore and derived well-elaborated understanding about gay community in Indonesia during 2000s to 2010s depicted in Indonesian films as well as to know the dynamic of how they were treated and seen from time to time by using the perspectives stemmed in the films, then to facilitate the process of fulfilling the sets of inquiries in this research, I considered the research model the most appropriate option to be exercised. Six Indonesian gay films were purposively chosen with six considerations viz. (1) they should be compatible with the research topic; gayness in Indonesia, (2) it was legitimized by the abidance of the representative gay content in the film be it as the major or minor storylines, (3) they should be Indonesian films, (4) they should be directed by Indonesian directors, (5) they should be presented in Indonesian contexts, and (6) they should be released in the 2000s – 2010s. The complete information about the films would be presented in the following table. The data in this research were collected by using direct observation and documentation. Observation method was used in this research to garner fruitful data taken from the dialogues and the pictures in the film gay scenes in the gay scenes in the films being scrutinized in this research and the social perceptions towards gay people in Indonesia. Documentation was used to compile the audience’s opinions concerning the gay scenes in the selected films; their thoughts, their commentaries, their reaction, and the screenshots of how the gay scenes re-shape their attitude and perceptions towards gayness taken from YouTube commentary sections and other online resources. The data analysis was done by using the flow of analysis suggested by Fairclough in his model of CDA which embraced three layers of analysis namely textual analysis, discourse practice analysis, and sociocultural practice analysis. In textual analysis, the representative gay dialogues and scenes in the selected films were deeply analyzed. The dialogues would be analyzed linguistically which in the process they were referred to the context so that it could produce meaningful and contextual interpretation. There were some elements in the film scenes which would be used to yield a comprehensive result of this first analysis in Fairclough’s CDA model such as the gesture, shot, and also the background music accompanying the scenes. Those elements would be scrutinized collectively to encode some groups of representation of gay people in Indonesia. in the discourse practice analysis, Information regarding the producer of the films would be compiled from a number of articles and the commentaries from the audience on the films would be acquired from the commentary section on YouTube as well as from news articles. The accolades and the number of the films audience would also be considered in this analysis. Lastly, in the sociocultural practice, supporting articles which discussed the matters about how the gay community’s endeavored to show their identity would be collected to fulfil this layer of analysis. In addition, the articles speaking about how they were treated from time to time by their surroundings were also considered in this layer of analysis.