Drama Queens: the Engagement of Sarawak Malay Housewives with Television's Cosmopolitan Morality
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Drama Queens: The Engagement of Sarawak Malay Housewives with Television’s Cosmopolitan Morality Siti Zanariah Ahmad Ishak B.A (Hons) (Writing) Universiti Malaya, Malaysia MMS (Management Communication) University of Waikato, New Zealand This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The University of Western Australia School of Social and Cultural Studies Discipline of Anthropology & Sociology 2011 Abstract Due to the presence of television, domestic space is no longer so isolated. Television has allowed housewives exposure to electronic messages concerning globalisation, modernity and, in the case of Malaysia, a form of Islam which is promoted by the government. These messages are embedded in different television genres in locally produced programs. The purpose of this study is to explore how urban Sarawak Malay housewives engage with television. The context is Kampung Tabuan Melayu,a working class Malay village in Sarawak’s capital city, Kuching. The life of housewives in the village is framed by motivational and talk-show television programs in the early morning; drama serials or imported telenovelas in the mid-afternoon; prime- time news in the evening and reality television or television magazine programs at night. The research examines how these housewives search for images on television of ‘ideal wives and mothers’ and how they use these images as resources to guide their own role performance in a changing society. The research argues further that this is possible because free-to-air Malaysian television adopts a cosmopolitan outlook focused on cultural diversity, emphasising moral values which the women are able to use to enhance their local social standing. The ethnographic approach applied in this research enables a detailed investigation of how housewives interpret television messages. In-depth interviews and participant observation proved insightful methods in understanding how television messages permeate the everyday lives of housewives in Kampung Tabuan Melayu. Moreover, the adoption of a multi-sited fieldwork approach (Marcus 1995) made it possible to trace the housewives’ mobility and to comprehend their desire for consumer lifestyle commodities featured on television. Although there are studies of how ethnicity features in the way women engage with television, insufficient attention has focused on the way women use television images in their roles and identities as housewives, mothers, family members and petty business operators. Through its concern with these latter identities, this thesis offers fresh insight to studies of television reception among women. Whilst Kampung Tabuan housewives recognise that television messages are censored by the government, the first finding of the study is that they willingly adopt many of these messages as resources to facilitate their moral understanding and performance of wife and mother roles. Being supplementary income earners is one i means through which Kampung Tabuan housewives fulfil their moral obligation to be the ‘good wife and mother’ modelled television imagery. They often accomplish this through their involvement in petty-trading, which also enhances their ability to consume lifestyle commodities, and to reflect the images of modern women depicted on television. Thus, the second finding of the study is that Kampung Tabuan Melayu housewives utilise television imagery - drawn from both locally produced and imported television programs - in striving to enhance their social status. Through the influence of television, they do this by seeking to embrace cultural diversity and by acquiring an identity as modern, middle-class, but ostentatious, women. In short, Kampung Tabuan housewives seek to redefine themselves through a combination of kind-heartedness and ‘cosmopolitan’ beauty, the core qualities of female characters at the centre-stage of television dramas. My argument is that the modern lifestyles and moral guidance sought by Kampung Tabuan Melayu housewives is modelled on both Western and non-Western cultural values and popular culture. This reflects the establishment and rise of both Asian and Latin American cultural industries, alongside those based in the West. Given the considerable amount of foreign television content on free-to-air Malaysian television, cosmopolitanism provides a useful theoretical framework for conceptualising women’s engagement with media messages. In addition, hybridity theory facilitates our understanding of the way the Malaysian government adapts foreign popular culture in the Malaysian context. In this study Malaysian television cosmopolitanism is understood in the context of three occurrences: firstly, through the establishment of free-to-air government and privately owned television stations in Malaysia, developed to meet the demands of the nation’s multiethnic population; secondly, through the existence of diverse, popular culture programs from different countries; and finally through the process of producing local Malaysian television which has been adapted from imported programs. ii Table of Contents Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………..i Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………….iii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………..ix List of Abbreviations……………………………………………………………………xi List of Maps…………………………………………………………………………….xii List of Tables…………………………………………………………………………..xiii List of Plates…………………………………………………………………………...xiv Glossary of Malay Term……………………………………………………………….xvi Glossary of Malay, Indonesian and Adapted Television Programs…………………...xix Statement of Candidate’s Contribution………………………………………………..xxi Preface…………………………………………………………………………………...1 CHAPTER 1 GLOBALISATION AND THE STATE: HOUSEWIVES’ ENGAGEMENT WITH TELEVISION IN CHANGING SOCIETY…………………………………………….6 INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………6 MALAY HOUSEWIVES’ ROLES IN A CHANGING SOCIETY…………………...10 THE IMPACT OF STATE AND ISLAMIC INTERVENTION ON THE MALAY HOUSEWIVES………………………………………………………………………...14 TABUAN HOUSEWIVES: DRAMA SERIALS, ISLAM AND THE LAW…………16 THE ROLE OF MALAYSIAN TELEVISION………………………………………...21 WOMEN’S VIEWERS AND MORALITY: SOAP OPERA, TELENOVELA AND DRAMA SERIALS IN THE WORLD CONTEXT……………………………………24 TELEVISION AS RESOURCE FOR THE MORAL GUIDENCE OF HOUSEWIVES ………………………………………………………………………………………….27 RESEARCH QUESTIONS…………………………………………………………....29 iii RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE…………………………………………………….….30 STUDY SETTING……………………………………………………………………..31 CHAPTER OVERVIEW………………………………………………………………35 CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGY: AUDIENCE ETHNOGRAPHY………………………………….41 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………...41 ENTERING THE FIELD………………………………………………………………42 FIELDWORK ISSUES: WATCHING TELEVISION ACTIVITY AND OFFERING TABUAN HOUSEWIVES MOBILITY…………………………………………….....47 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………...58 CHAPTER 3 GLOBALISATION: TELEVISION AND COSMOPOLITANISM………………......59 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………...59 GLOBALISATION AND THE MEDIA: EXAMINING PERSPECTIVES IN THE HOMOGENISATION AND HETEROGENISATION OF LOCAL CULTURE……..60 COSMOPOLITANISM………………………………………………………………...64 COSMOPOLITANISM AND WOMEN: TRAVEL AND OPENNESS…………........66 TELEVISION AND IMAGINED COSMOPOLITANISM……………………………69 COSMOPOLITAN MORALITY: TELEVISION, NEWS AND MELODRAMA……69 HYBRIDITY…………………………………………………………………………...72 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………...74 CHAPTER 4 TELEVISION COSMOPOLITANISM: AN ANALYSIS OF FREE-TO-AIR TELEVISION CONTENT AND THE POLITICAL FACTORS THAT HAVE iv SHAPED THE BROADCASTING LANDSCAPE IN MALAYSIA PRIOR TO 2006……………………………………………………………………………………86 INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………….86 APPROACH TO THE INVESTIGATION OF TELEVISION COSMOPOLITANISM ………………………………………………………………………………………….88 THE GOVERNMENT TELEVISION STATION (TV1) 1963-1969………………….91 CHALLENGES TO THE MULTICULTURAL APPROACH ADOPTED BY TV1 AND TV3……………………………………………………………………………....94 IMPORTED POPULAR CULTURE ON MALAYSIAN TELEVISION STATIONS …………………………………………………………………………………….…..102 THE HYBRIDISATION OF TELEVISION POPULAR CULTURE PROGRAMS ………………………………………………………………………………………...108 FILTRATION IN MALAYSIA……………………………………………………...111 HYBRIDITY IN THE MALAY MINI DRAMA SERIAL: SEPUTIH QASEH RAMADHAN…………………………………………….………………………........116 The Storyline………………………………………………………………………….116 Inward and Outward Outlooks in Seputih Qaseh Ramadhan………………………....117 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………….119 CHAPTER 5 CHANGES IN THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND TENSION IN WOMEN’S ROLE IN KAMPUNG TABUAN MELAYU………………………………………………..121 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………….........121 RURAL-URBAN MIGRATION: KAMPUNG TABUAN AND ITS RELATION WITH THE DEVELOPMENT IN KUCHING………………………………………123 v THE MALAYS: GENDER RELATIONS AND THE ROLES OF WOMEN IN MALAYA AND COASTAL SARAWAK MALAY PEASANT COMMUNITIES...128 GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONDITION OF KAMPUNG TABUAN………………………………………………………………133 THE IMPACT OF MARGINALISATION AND STIGMATISATION ON THE TABUAN MEN AND WOMEN……………………………………………………..142 TABUAN HOUSEWIVES AND DOMESTIC SPACE…………………………..….148 TABUAN HOUSEWIVES’ ENGAGEMENT WITH TELEVISION………………..151 THE PETTY TRADING ACTIVITIES OF TABUAN HOUSEWIVES…………….158 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………….161 CHAPTER 6 IMAGINED COSMOPOLITANS: HOUSEWIVES’ PETTY TRADING AND CONSUMPTION……………………………………………………………………..163 INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………….163 OVERVIEW OF PETTY TRADING AND THE CONSUMPTION OF LIFESTYLE COMMODITIES……………………………………………………………………...165 TABUAN HOUSEWIVES, PETTY TRADING AND CONSUMPTION…………...167 Social-Trading Networks……………………………………………………………...173 Permanent Petty Trading……………………………………………………………...180 CONSUMPTION: THE CONNECTION WITH,