Prakosa, Postcolonialism and Western Feminisms

I initially could not find the link between Gotot Prakosa and Cixous. I wasn't comfortable using western theory to analyze films produced in the Global South. But I think that by using a postcolonial lens, we can tease out some of Cixous ideas about power and autonomy, then we can begin to talk about sex and gender. The idea of a speech action for oneself initially struck me. Obviously this does not transfer ideally into post-colonial theory, but I think its important to recognize a call for autonomy among oppressed people.

Prakosa's films then work in two ways. Initially at a local level, as a resistant speech act. As Cixous calls for women to write women, Prakosa is writing post-colonial Indonesia. Through an appropriation of traditional Indonesian art forms, he speaks as and to a particular Indonesian identity. Then again by interjecting into western discourses on film, he reasserts this speech act. However, Cixous complicates this idea, it cannot fully be transferred to post-colonial theory. While I'm not particulalry comfortable speaking about Islam or Indonesian culture, I think some of Cixous's ideas can illuminate how we talk about sexism within Prakosa's works.

There is, undeniably, a serious lack of women in Kantata Takwa and virtually no female speaking characters. However I think a discussion about problematic representational practices would be totally unproductive. The question, using the frameworks of Cixous, is where are the Indonesian female authors? In this sense, Prakosa almost avoids or adheres to the prescription set for by Cixous, demanding that men speak men only.

“Write your self. Your body must be heard. Only then will the immense resources of the unconscious spring forth. Our naphtha will spread, throughout the world, without dollars—black or gold—nonassessed values that will change the rules of the game” (Cixous 262). Cixous calls for autonomous, transformative art by decentering male authorial dominance. So Prakosa's films are incomplete records of female representation because we do not look at feminine speech acts. To truly deconstruct any of his films, we have to have a counter point. How does the Indonesian female speak herself? As we are critical of patriarchy we must be simultaneously critical of colonialism and white/Western privilege. Because just as white, Western women have been “muffled throughout their history” (Cixous 268), so have colonized peoples. It is important to look at how the anti-colonial, anti-fascist content of Prakosa's films intersects with the voices of Indonesian female filmmakers.

There are quite a few contemporary female Indonesian filmmakers. Many of them critically acclaimed, especially on the festival circuit. If we want to talk about Prakosa's representations of women I think it would also be helpful to understand how women filmmakers, trained in the same institutions are speaking themselves. I think its dangerous to apply Western theory, to films made not in the West. And that instead of deconstructing Prakosa's work through an unfocused lens, it would be more helpful, in this instance especially, to look at feminist filmmakers in the area and to observe how they speak themselves. What are the poetics of their revolution and how do they articulate their own autonomy?