On January, 24th 2023 (GMT +7) Center of Southeast Asian Social Studies (CESASS) Universitas Gadjah Mada held the agenda called SEA CHAT. The #SEACHAT37 entitled ‘If I Was the Director: Breaking the Eurocentric in Postcolonialism and Transnational of Film De Oost’ was presenting by Syfa Amelia as internship student at CESASS from Master Program in Communication Science, Universitas Gadjah Mada.

The discussion was started from Syfa that explained the synopsis of the movie De Oost (The East). This movie was directed by Jim Taihuttu and released in 2020 but it’s still interesting to be discussed until today. Syfa explained the critics from her perspective as a part of post-colony country. Those, from her analysis the movie De Oost (The East) was glorifying the white perspective which made the movie looks un-relevant to the history. Further, cited from Syfa’s explanation she found that there were some scenes that stereotyping Indonesia. Other than that, Syfa choose the movie De Oost (The East) because it is still has its correlation to the Southeast Asian country, especially Indonesia.

Syfa as the presenter on the #SEACHAT37 also explained the important point of postcolonialism theory that can be analyzed in a movie. Other than that, she hoped that from this topic the participants or society can understand the use of postcolonial critics in the movie. Those, we can understand that movie has its goals not only for entertain the consumer but also for the media of commodity, history, hegemony and etc. Moreover, Syfa explained her findings on the movie De Oost (The East) about the meaning of the setting of place, the different color in some scenes such as contrast to the yellow tone, blue or etc. The previous findings have its function to define the movie and its correlation to the postcolonial terms.

The topic on #SEACHAT37 was invited some questions from the participants and interns. The question that turned to the floor such as, how the society can identify the ‘postcolonial value’ in the movie? Then, we can analyze the movie instead for the entertainment media. Also, is there any indicator we can use to determine a movie to postcolonial analysis? In add, to answer the question Syfa said that actually there is no specific indicator to see a movie with ‘postcolonial value’ but then we can see if there are two countries or more in a war to get an authority or power. An example of this movie is Indonesia and Western countries. Furthermore, Syfa said that a movie actually has its goals for entertaining the viewers but in the other part a movie also has its goals to deliver a value, hegemony or maybe serve a fictional or add a factual history. Although, the postcolonial value will find to the viewer if the viewer know about ‘postcolonial theory’ in the movie. 

In last, before #SEACHAT37 end there were also some questions that turn to Syfa. For the further information about SEA CHAT and the upcoming agenda in the Center of Southeast Asia Social Studies, please to check the official account CESSAS on @pssatugm or on the website http://pssat.ugm.ac.id/. 

By: Dyny Wahyu Seputri

Meningkatnya pengguna internet berimplikasi pada peningkatan eksistensi portal berita online. Dilansir dari data Kominfo tahun 2018, sebanyak 43.000 portal berita online telah beredar dan hanya 200 diantaranya yang terverifikasi sehingga media online kini bias akan post-truth. Pusat Studi Sosial Asia Tenggara (PSSAT) menggelar SEA CHAT #23 oleh Lucia Yuriko dengan tajuk “Fenomena Post-Truth di Media Online” dengan fokus bahasan pada pemberitaan Livi Zheng dalam portal berita tirto.id.

“Post-truth adalah keadaan di mana fakta objektif kurang berpengaruh dibandingkan dengan opini atau emosional pribadi” tutur mahasiswi Ilmu Komunikasi, UPN Veteran Yogyakarta tersebut pada Rabu (11/03/2020) di Perpustakaan PSSAT UGM.

Pemberitaan Livi Zheng ramai sejak akhir tahun 2018 hingga 2019. Nama Livi Zheng mencuat sejak adanya klaim dari dirinya sebagai sutradara Hollywood. Selain itu, Livi juga menyatakan bahwa filmnya masuk dalam nominasi Best Picture di Oscar. Heboh pemberitaan diberbagai portal berita, termasuk tirto.id, yang turut membanggakan Livi, di awalnya, berkat klaimnya tersebut.

Lucia meneliti empat artikel yang ditayangkan oleh tirto.id. Dua diantaranya artikel yang membanggakan Livi dengan berbagai klaimnya, sedangkan lainnya, artikel selepas menguatnya kabar bahwa klaim yang dilontarkan Livi hanyalah bualan belaka. Menurutnya, dua artikel pertama yang diterbitkan dengan membanggakan pencapaian Livi ini tidak ada marjinalisasi. Selain itu, tirto juga mengajak pembacanya untuk turut serta melihat kesuksesan pencapaian Livi.

Berbeda halnya dengan dua artikel yang diterbitkan oleh tirto pasca pemberitaan ‘miring’ tentang Livi. Artikel tersebut menyoroti publisitas berlebihan, melakukan marjinalisasi, dan banyak kalimat sindiran. Perbedaan konstruksi bahasa yang digunakan dalam pemberitaan awal dan akhir tersebut berpengaruh besar terhadap persepsi yang diterima pembaca.

Beberapa fakta ini menunjukkan fenomena post-truth yang menerpa Tirto. Menurut Lucia, Tirto terkena terpaan post-truth karena abai verifikasi data. Tirto hanya mengikuti tren yang beredar di mana hal ini kontradiksi dengan tagline yang disandang oleh tirto “mengalir jernih mencerahkan”. Padahal di sisi lain, Tirto dalam pemberitaan Livi Zheng memiliki posisi yang dominan.

“Media seharusnya punya kesadaran bahwa memiliki peran besar dalam membentuk pandangan dan keadaan sosial. Selain itu, masyarakat harus lebih selektif dalam membaca berita dan jangan mudah percaya karena belum tentu kebenarannya.” Ujar Lucia sebagai penutup.

As a region that is growing rapidly from various fields, Southeast Asia has similarities with Latin America. These 2 regions share the same historical background as colonialism, cultural pluralism, and spiritualism. The Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CESASS) of Gadjah Mada University (UGM) held SEA CHAT #22 “Regional Literature Between SEA and Latin America, What Makes the Differences?” by Gladhys Elliona Syahutari, on Friday (02/28/2020) at the PSSAT Library. Attended by the public and intern students from Singapore, Belgium, and the Philippines.

In fact, 4 out of 11 countries in Southeast Asia can understand each other’s languages. Namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei with Malay or Austronesian roots. Likewise, Thailand and Laos, although they can’t understand each other, but it comes from the same language family (Kra-Dai). In fact, in the Latin American region, the majority of countries can communicate with each other using Spanish, or Portuguese and Brazilian which are still one family. This explains a little more why literature in Latin America is unified when compared to Southeast Asia.

From the colonial point of view, the majority of countries in Latin America were already independent earlier than the average of Southeast Asia, which had just gained independence in the 20th century. The use of the colonial language makes Latin America easily understood by Europeans, which is the center of science. Supported by the Latin American academics who have studied and worked in Europe, to bring home the rich of science. This geographical advantage is certainly not obtained by Southeast Asia which is located far from Europe or America.

Some of these facts certainly show the uniqueness or challenges of Southeast Asian literature. “How many Southeast Asian writers study other Southeast Asian languages?” asked Gladhys, a UGM Graduate Student in Performing Arts and Fine Arts Studies. This question provokes active discussion between participants. Of course, the answer is not much. Southeast Asian writers tended to translate his work into English, then circulated it between the Southeast Asian region, where actually there were not many demands. For example, the famous novel Laskar Pelangi was translated into many languages, but none of the languages ​​of Southeast Asia.

Gladhys’ interest in this topic began when she became an assistant curator of literature in the arts community. For her, this rich Southeast Asian literature has various challenges that must be resolved immediately. One of them is the ability and willingness to learn from each other in Southeast Asian languages. “I’m also curious to read Thai literature. But of course, it is difficult to find here and language differences, ” she concluded in closing.