ABSTRACT

As a cultural practice, cinema produces, reproduces and represents myths about women and femininity.1 This chapter explores the ways in which women are represented in Indonesian ‘women’s’ films. According to Krishna Sen, under the New Order ‘film wanita’ (women’s films), while sold as films made for and by women and about women’s problems, were in fact predominantly filmed through the male gaze and spoken by male voices.2 The dominant male perspective of the depiction of women in New Order films was partly due to the fact that both the film-makers and their films were constrained by boundaries created by New Order gender politics.