Imagined Subjects: Polygamy, Gender and Nation in Nia Dinata’s Love for Share
2012; Bridgewater State University; Volume: 13; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1539-8706
Autores Tópico(s)Philippine History and Culture
ResumoIn this paper, I explore polygamy in Nia Dinata's Indonesian film, Love for Share, and how it can be used as a key signifier to analyze the construction of gendered subjects, identities and relations in the phallocentric discourses of family and nation. In Indonesia, the family structure is inherently patriarchal and hierarchical in nature, one which exhorts wives to stay at home while husbands are seen as breadwinners and whose roles are nondomestic. However, women are doubly marginalized in Indonesia as their subordinate status in the domestic space is reified at the national level through the ideology of the nation as a united and inclusive family. Moreover, using the doctrine of Ibuism, or Motherhood, the government encourages women to stay at home and conform to the ideal roles of wife and mother, thereby restricting their rights as citizens. Using Benedict Anderson's theory of the nation as an imagined political community, I will consider how Love for Share ideologically constructs and imaginatively situates its characters as gendered subjects in the spaces of family and nation through the representations of polygamy, and how the film imagines and expresses female desire, agency and freedom. In this manner, the film both reflects and contributes to the ongoing discursive negotiations and transformations in gender identities and relations occurring within the sociopolitical landscape of contemporary Indonesia. Keywords: Indonesia, polygamy, gender, nation, imagination Introduction Polygamy was a subject of heated discussions and irreverent gossip among my family members, relatives, and friends while I was growing up in Malaysia. As a young girl, I had witnessed the distressing scene of my cousin's first wife crying and screaming over his second marriage, and my aunt's attempt to console her, having gone through the same experience herself (1). My uncle had a secret, second family who, on the day of his funeral, suddenly made their first public appearance, much to the shock and dismay of my aunt and cousins. At university, one of my Muslim friends married an aging professor as his second wife. Considering her outspoken and strong personality, our circle of friends was taken aback by this development; however, she pragmatically pointed out that she had gained financial security and more freedom this way. (2) Whilst living in the southern of Johor Bahru, I had also heard stories of Singaporean Chinese men who came across the southern border to marry a second, Malaysian, wife behind the backs of their Singaporean wives. Later, I was informed that nay Singaporean cousin had followed this trend by taking a second wife in Malacca, located north of our state. The same phenomenon also occurred in the northern borders between Thailand and Malaysia. The laws, I realized, did nothing to deter straying husbands from committing polygamy illegally; they merely found a convenient loophole by avoid[ing] the laws in their own state (Zaitun Mohamed Kasim, 2002, p. 6). Having lived abroad for so many years, I had all but forgotten what I had heard and seen where polygamy was concerned. Then I watched Nia Dinata's satirical take on polygamy in Love for Share (or Berbagi Suami in Bahasa Indonesia), and the memories came flooding back. Set in Indonesia's post New Order era, this 2006 award-winning film adopts a woman-centered viewpoint to tackle the thorny subject of polygamy and its effects on women's lives through the intersecting narratives of three women: Salma, Siti and Ming. All three protagonists, who differ from each other in terms of age, class, education, race, culture and religion, meet as acquaintances or strangers through brief encounters in the crowded urban spaces of Jakarta. Alone in their personal experience of polygamy, each character offers a distinctive viewpoint and voice about the subject. Salma the gynecologist represents the first wife angered by her politician husband's secret second marriage, but she eventually accepts his other marriages and even endorses polygamy on national television. …
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