Constructing the Nation: Representation and Children in Indonesian Cinema
School of Media, Culture & Creative Arts Constructing the Nation: Representation and Children in Indonesian Cinema I Gusti Agung Ketut Satrya Wibawa This thesis is presented for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy of Curtin University September 2018 Declaration To the best of my knowledge and belief this thesis contains no material previously published by any other person except where due acknowledgment has been made. This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university I Gusti Agung Ketut Satrya Wibawa Date: 07 / 09 / 2018 iii Abstract This doctoral thesis applies a critical national cinema perspective to the examination of the changing discursive construction of Indonesia as a nation through the representation of children in Indonesian cinema. Cinema studies scholars have generally observed that Indonesian film has been utilised to explore issues such as social class, the family, the authoritarian state, and national identity in relation to this nation’s modern history of geopolitical and internal conflict (Said, 1991; Heider, 1991; Sen, 1994; Robert, 2000; Biran, 2009; Barker, 2011; Van Heeren, 2012; Paramaditha, 2014, Heryanto, 2014, Hanan, 2017). However, there has been limited dedicated scholarly attention given solely to the representation of children in this nation’s cinema (Kittley, 1999; Strassler, 1999; Spyer, 2004; Wibawa, 2008; Allen, 2011; and Noorman & Nafisah, 2016) although the Indonesian child has been a favourite subject of Indonesian film directors and screenwriters. This thesis conducts close analysis of fiction films that place child characters in the main narrative, made in Indonesia from the colonial era to the period of political reform that followed the fall of the New Order, in order to examine the way these representations are constructed to convey cultural narratives and ideologies about Indonesia as a nation.
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