| Popis: |
My PhD thesis draws from feminist and post-structuralist approaches to examine the construction of gender and Islam in Indonesian Islamic cinema between 1977 to 2011. This thesis asks: how, when, and where do Indonesian femininity and masculinity in film become Muslim? Previous studies on representations of gender in Islam have shown that clothes are immediate markers of Islamic identity. This thesis, however, seeks to transcend clothing as an obvious visual marker of Islamic identity and the fixation on the Islamic veil and turban and focus instead on the dynamic relationship between modernity and (trans)-nationalism in the construction of Muslim femininity and masculinity in Indonesian cinema. The Islamic film genre produces various mechanisms to isolate Muslim characters from their non-Muslim counterparts while at the same time marking distinctions between the 'good' and 'bad' Muslim. This thesis demonstrates that such mechanisms behind the binaries of the Muslim/non- Muslim and 'good' Muslim/'bad' Muslim are shifting concepts rather than fixed and selfevident. Furthermore, these shifting distinctions are achieved through narrative device, audio-visual tropes, and political discourse and governed by economic and cultural imperatives in the Islamic film genre. Ultimately, this thesis aims to make a contribution to the study of gender in Indonesian cinema more generally and to the definition of Islamic cinema as a film genre. |
