ABSTRACT
Bruno Latour (1993), along with Williams, argues that socio-cultural phenomena, for instance media such as film, are not just ‘reflections’ of society, but are part of society. Through the course of this chapter, I attempt to employ Latour’s exhortation, and to demonstrate how such an approach might be informative. In order to do so, it becomes important to trace changes that the officially sponsored processes and discourses of modernity have had on social ideals and ideologies. In particular, I am focussing upon issues of gender, propriety, and sexuality. If Latour is correct, the cinema will not simply mirror these developments, but these developments will be manifesting in films in novel and diverse ways. The difference is significant. I will argue that understanding the specific interchange of modernity in the Malay-Malaysian urban environment provides new vistas from which to analyse Malay-language cinema. Crucially, this new understanding of the cinema may then also lead us to new understandings of Malay-Malaysian society. Therefore, through the course of this chapter I will trace developments in various social institutions in Malaysia, and make some suggestions as to how changes to these social institutions interact with their filmic counterparts. Perhaps the best place to begin is with a brief recitation of political events in Malaysia.
