The
word “Sepet “in Malay language means “slit eyes” of the Chinese, a film title that
contains a bit of stereotype, which I think the director trying to highlight
this in the film. Sepet, a multiculturalism
film directed by Malaysian female director, Yasmin Ahmad in the year of 2004, which
it is about a romance blooms between a Chinese boy and a Malay girl in Malaysia
society. The aspects I would like to highlight are the issues of multiculturalism
and hybridity, besides, there are also important issues highlighted by Yasmin
Ahmad about the multiracial society in Malaysia, such as Stereotype, skin color
and racial issues.
At
the beginning of the film, multiculturalism is shown when Jason reads a Chinese
translated poem written by a poet from India to his Nyonya mother. Later on,
Jason uses Cantonese to communicate with his mother, while her replies him in
Malay. Furthermore, the overall film uses
variety of languages like English, Melay, Chinese, Cantonese and etc., as daily
communication, which is a very common phenomenon in Malaysia society, because
of Malaysian culture and education system.
As
for the issue of hybridity, it can be seen from Jason’s family. Jason’s mother
is a nyonya (Peranakan Chinese), a member of the
community where Chinese practices Malay culture. She married to a pure Chinese
man, but still remains the way she talks and dresses. Besides, the localization
of foreign culture becomes significant in Malaysia due to the presence of global
mass media (Ishak, 2011). For example, there are some scenes
that shows Malaysians are exposed to other cultures like Orked’s maid Kak Yam
listens to Thai songs and she watches Chinese drama with Orked’s mother. Even
though they might not understand the language but they are still attract to it.
From here, it metaphors how people still fall in love without knowing how it
means.
Stereotype
issues are found in the film where Chinese are said to have sepet eyes (slit eyes), Malays are lazy and etc. Take Jason (Ah Long) as another
example, although he looks like a gangster, whom his job as a pirated DVDs
seller also makes him like one, but he is actually not, he appreciates poetry
and sometimes he writes poems. Another example would be Jason’s friend, Keong
who seems like one of the gangsters but quite good in piano. From the examples
given, most people judges someone based on the way they look or their job,
which is very much stereotype. Sensitive issues like racial issue is also highlighted
by Yasmin Ahmad when Kak Yam and Orked’s mother raise the issue of Malaysian education
system giving different treats to different races. Other than that, Jason’s
friends also mentioned that if Jason married to Orked, he can no longer consume
pork and he needs to change his religion to Islam and also to go under bersunat(circumcision) which are very
much concern and unacceptable by most Chinese. Lastly, skin color issue is also highlighted
in Sepet when Orked read about a book that is written by a black man who
married a white woman that somehow “upgraded” his society level and also Orked’s
friend, Lin who likes white man actors like Leonardo DiCaprio, which gives a
feeling of white is always superior among all other races.
I
love most of the films and advertisements that directed by Yasmin Ahmad. I love
the way she produced local films and advertisements that contains rich local
cultures which can be related to the audience and touches the heart of the
audience. Even though most of her films highlighted some sensitive issues that
might be unacceptable to some people, but she means no provoke. She just raises
the topic and talks about it by using storytelling, which not much people able
to do so.
Reference:
Blaetz, R. (2007) Women’s Experimental
Cinema. United States: Duke University Press
Ciecko, A.T. ( 2006) Contemporary
Asian Cinema. New York: Berg, Oxford International Printing Ltd.
Ishak, S (2011)
Cultural Hybridity: Adapting and Filtering Popular Culture in Malaysia.
Retrieved August 10, 2014 from source: http://jpmm.um.edu.my/filebank/articles/2953/01_JPMM%202011_No_1.pdf
Lenos,M., & Ryan,M.
(2012) An Introduction to Film Analysis. New York: The Continuum International
Publishing Group Inc.
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