THE NEGOTIATION BETWEEN QUEER SPECTATORSHIP AND QUEER TEXT ON RIRI RIZA’S SOE HOK GIE Negosiasi antara Penonton Queer dan Teks Queer pada Soe Hok Gie Karya Riri Riza Maimunah Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Ilmu Budaya, Universitas Airlangga, Jalan Dharmawangsa Dalam Selatan 2A, Surabaya, Telepon 031-5035676, Pos-el: [email protected] (Makalah diterima tanggal 1 Februari 2010—Revisi tanggal 14 Mei 2010) Abstract: The emergence of young generation filmmakers who are more confident in depicting gender and sexual issues after the Soeharto era (1998), significantly changes the construction of sexual diversity in 2003—2006 Indonesian films. One of the considerable phenomena is the personal experience and social commitment to support sexual minorities such as gay and lesbian issues. At the same time Indonesian queer communities strive to read the discourse of homosexuality in different way. Physical contact and even intimacy between persons of the same-sex, in both public and private spaces, was common practice in Indonesian cultures, and did not carry any suggestion of homoerotic desire. In this Riri Riza’s film, Soe Hok Gie, however, cinematic technique, narrative and dialogue all contribute to an eroticising of same- sex relationships that is particularly perceptible in cultures that previously regarded physical and emotional interactions between persons of the same-sex as unremarkable. This article based on Benshoff and Griffin’s (2006) theory on queer film. Key Words: queer spectatorship, homoeriticism, Soe Hok Gie Abstrak: Perkembangan film Indonesia setelah tumbangnya rezim Soeharto menunjukkan adanya fenomena di kalangan sutradara muda untuk mengeksplorasi tema tentang gender dan seksualitas. Isu tentang seksual minoritas seperti seksualitas gay dan lesbian adalah salah satu ciri yang cukup menonjol dalam film-film yang diproduksi setelah tahun 2003. Pada saat yang sama, penonton queer (seksualitas nonnormatif) terutama yang berasal dari komunitas queer membaca scene sebuah film terutama yang menampilkan kontak fisik dan keintiman antara orang-orang sesama jenis dengan cara yang baru. Dalam tradisi budaya Indonesia, kontak fisik dan keintiman itu tidak diterjemahkan dalam sebuah hubungan homoerotika . Pembacaan yang berbeda ditunjukkan pembaca dalam film Soe Hok Gie karya Riri Riza. Artikel ini menggunakan teori Queer Film yang dikemukakan oleh Benshoff dan Griffin (2006). Kata-Kata Kunci: queer spectatorship, homoerotisisme, Soe Hok Gie INTRODUCTION the rise to power of Soeharto’s New Gie is a dramatization of the life of Soe Order. Hok Gie, a student activist at the Univer- In Riri Riza’s film, Gie is represent- sity of Indonesia in the mid 1960s, who ed as an idealistic youth who constantly came to prominence through the battles for justice and truth, regardless of publication of his diary Catatan Seorang race, religion and ethnicity. In the film’s Demonstran in 1983. The diary itself is opening scene, the young Gie is a smart an intimate record of the thoughts of a and critical student at the Xin Hwa student activist in the turbulent period Elementary School who appreciates phi- between the end of the Soekarno era and losophy, literature and politics. Growing 1 up in a lower-middle class Chinese- prominent newspapers. He dreams of Indonesian family in Jakarta, Gie has a meeting up again with Han, and again great concern for justice and human enjoying the carefree times they used to rights. When Han, his close friend, spend together. The film ends with Gie’s experiences domestic abuse, Gie strives untimely death during a mountain to save him from mistreatment. Gie also climbing expedition to Mount Semeru, criticizes the unfairness and the lack of one day before his twenty-seventh integrity of his teachers both at the birthday on 16 December 1969. Strada Junior High School and Kanisius Released on 14 July 2005, Gie won College. He criticizes the corruption, awards in Indonesian and international social inequality and power abuse under film festivals, including best movie, the government of Soekarno, which actor and cinematography at the 2005 causes the poor and the oppressed to Indonesian film festival. It was also suffer. awarded the Hubert Bals Fund prize at At the time of the fall of the the Rotterdam International Film Soekarno regime in 1966 and the rise to Festival for its content and artistic value. power of Soeharto, Gie refuses to form Eric Sasono (2005) argues that Gie is an alliances with any political party, and important film since it includes continues to fight for his idealism, even communist symbols such as the hammer as some of his fellow student activists and sickle, and it uses the genjer-genjer come to adjust to the new regime. As an song that is associated with the PKI as eternal oppositionist, he challenges all of part of its soundtrack, both of which kinds of establishments. An avid would have been impossible in the New proponent of living close to nature, Gie Order era.2 The film is also important spends his leisure time hiking and since it tackles a controversial period in watching films. His involvement in the Indonesian history, involving the student movement and his destruction of the PKI and the rise to uncompromising idealism has a negative power of Soeharto’s New Order. In the effect on his personal life. His intimacy history of Indonesian cinema, there is with his two female friends Ira and Sinta only one other film, the 1982 never develops, since the girls’ parents government-sponsored Pengkhianatan are worried about their daughters’ G30S/PKI (The Indonesian Communist involvement with someone well-known Party’s Betrayal of 30 September), that for his rebellious spirit.1 One day, Gie deals with this sensitive theme. Directed meets Han, his childhood friend, who by Arifin C. Noer, this film is viewed by has become closely involved with the contemporary Indonesian film critics as Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), an epic propaganda film, centring on the while Gie has remained politically role of Soeharto as a military leader and neutral. Gie suggests that Han should his defeat of the attempted coup of 30 abandon his ties with the PKI, but Han September 1965 that was led by Colonel refuses. At the time of the conflict Untung, a Communist Party sympathiser between the military and the PKI, Han’s (Kristanto, 1995:244). political affiliation is very dangerous. Coming twenty-three years after Finally, Han and a band of PKI Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI, Gie followers are massacred by Soeharto’s immediately provoked controversy New Order soldiers on a beach in Bali, because it was produced without an event which outrages Gie’s sense of government sponsorship. Many film humanity. Gie then criticises the brutal critics applauded its content and artistic massacre in articles published in some value, but expressed reservations and 2 disappointment about its lack of focus Indonesian, with English translations and weak screenplay and dialogue. For provided in a footnote. example, an article by Hera Diani In the analysis of film text, the study has entitled “High Expectation overwhelms used published film screenplay where it Gie” criticised the film’s superficial is available. This publication is very portrayal of the main characters. Diani useful, as they contain significant argues that “Gie concentrates too much supplementary data on the film on the political movement aspect and not production process. The published script on the human relationships between its of Gie describes the fascinating but also characters”. She suggests that Riri complicated process of adapting Soe should have focused on the friendship Hok Gie’s biography Catatan Seorang between Gie and Han, who was a victim Demonstran to the cinema screen. It of the massacres of PKI supporters, or includes notes on the re-drafting process, maybe on the friendship between the which reveal that the script went through activists, or Gie as a rare-breed activist eight drafts before reaching its final hailing from the Chinese Indonesian form, as well as analyses of the script by community (Diani, 2005). Eric Sasono (Riza, 2005: vi). Like film reviews and other METHOD media reports, this screenplay contribute As a film study, the primary data is Riri to the secondary data that assists in film Riza’s Soe Hok Gie which is studied as a analysis. Qualitative methodology has cinematic text, taking into account both been used in the collection of other form and style. As part of a film’s form, forms of secondary data. In-depth narrative is the key element in shaping interviews with the filmmakers were the film’s overall meaning. As a system, conducted to gain supplementary data on it includes plot, story, space and time. their perceptions of gender and sexual However, as an art form, film differs diversity. Interviews were conducted in from other aesthetic products, in that person interview or electronically. It is form is not its only aspect. Unlike the acknowledged that the electronic novel or painting, for example, film is a interview format provides a more limited total experience (Bordwell and opportunity to explore the filmmaker’s Thompson, 2008: 111). This introduces arguments and opinions. Where relevant, film style, or the non-narrative aspects of data from film posters and form, as the second area of analysis. advertisements have also been included Style, in this context, includes cinematic in the body of secondary material techniques such as mise-en-scène, analysed. cinematography and sound. By taking into account both these areas of analysis, DISCUSSION the study attempts to see the complete Between Queer Spectatorship and film as a coherent and integrated text. Queer Text However it also recognises the need for One interesting aspect of the reception attention to specific shots and scenes that and criticism of Gie was the perception can challenge the film’s overall among some observers that the film has meaning.