LGBT Organisation, the Media and Cinema in Southeast Asia

1-5pm on 10 November 2009
B102, Brunei Gallery, SOAS

Speakers
Dr Dédé Oetomo (GAYa NUSANTARA Foundation)
Cristobal Catalan
Atit Pongpanit
Dr Ben Murtagh (SOAS)


The LGBTIQ Movement in Indonesia (Dédé Oetomo)
The presentation will chronicle organizing based on gender identity since the late 1960s and on sexual orientation since the early 1980s in Indonesia. We shall look into how emancipatory community development and the HIV program were the initial impetus to organizing, and how after the change of governments in 1998 the increasingly conducive conditions for democratization and human rights have facilitated the growth of a movement diversifying into film and arts, feminism, health and human rights. Special consideration will be given to knowledge production and alliance building as strategies for strengthening the movement.

Biography
Dédé Oetomo co-founded Lambda Indonesia, Indonesia’s first gay organization, in 1982, and GAYa NUSANTARA, the longest-running Indonesian gay organisation, in 1987. He is now an organisation trustee, undertaking research, training, advocacy and mentoring second- and third-generation Indonesian LGBTIQ activists and others concerned with studying sexuality critically. As a gay activist, Oetomo argues that in addition to community mobilizing and provision of safe space, it remains important to engage in contestation of knowledge with opponents of gay emancipation. To this end he is a prolific publisher of articles for the print media in Indonesia.

Oetomo holds a PhD in linguistics from Cornell University. His thesis examined issues of language and identity in an ethnic Chinese community in East Java Province, Indonesia and paid particular attention to phenomena such as diversity, contexts, and situationality—phenomena which he later brought into the study of gender and sexual diversity.

Protest and Pride in Filipino Cinema: Homosexuality and the Gay Identity in the Philippines (Cristobal Catalan)
Since the 1970s, Filipino cinema has presented internationally distinguished narratives on same-sex sexuality. Contemporary films from the Philippines dealing with issues of sexuality demonstrate an increasing interest in Filipino men who identify as gay. Looking closely at recent films sponsored and commissioned by LGBT organisations in the Philippines, this paper examines how Filipino men engage with (or disengage from) the global gay identity. Drawing on ethnographic research, queer theory and post-colonial discourse it analyses how these filmic texts reflect the changing diversities of incumbent homosexual and global gay subjectivities. What is the relevance of classic dichotomies (global/local or metropolitan/rural) in understanding appropriations of the gay identity by characters tied to globalized spaces? The paper explores if and how these images illustrate how LGBT identities are recontextualized, visually and diegetically, through self-peripheralization of the body and of the self.

Biography
Cristobal Catalan, a film critic and filmmaker, graduated from SOAS with a Masters Degree in Global Cinemas and the Transcultural in 2008. His research interests include transnational flows of identity and representation; majority-minority relations; cultural imperialism; Orientalism and sexuality. Cris's current research project focuses on the developments of the gay identity, as an Anglo-American cultural product, on men in the Philippines.

The Portrayals of Sexual Minorities in Thai mainstream and Off-mainstream Cinemas (1969-2009)(Atit Pongpanit)
Exploring the mainstream cinematic representations of genders and sexualities beyond the heteronormative system in Thailand from the very first age (1970s) until the most recent (2009) reveals repetitions in attitudes towards sexual minorities, characterisations and endings. The most significant repetition shared by almost all of the films is the difficulty, impossibility and invisibility of same-sex desire, love and relationships. These static cinematic depictions construct what the mainstream (heteronormative) audiences feel familiar with and, to a certain extent, help the films survive among mainstream spectators when portray the imagery of sexual minorities accordingly. Those films which fail to follow the provided spectatorship are often unsuccessful and face difficulties being shown in mainstream cinemas. The limitation of expressing the diversity of genders and sexualities drives many filmmakers to produce and show their films in other cinematic forms such as off-mainstream and short films. Not being manipulated by mainstream spectatorship, off-mainstream and short films deconstruct repetitive cinematic representations and provide different dimensions that help reflect more of the lives and identities of Thai sexual minorities.

Biography
Atit Pongpanit, a PhD candidate at SOAS and film critic, completed his Master Degree in Translation, Media and Cultural Transfer at University of Warwick. His dissertation focused on translating and transferring the British and American versions of Queer as Folk into Thai and the Thai context. His PhD research concentrates on Thai cinema with a focus on sexual minorities in relation to the themes of “coming out” and “staying out” from 1980 to 2010.

Transsexuality and Transgenderism in Indonesia Through the Lens of 1970s Film: The Cases of Vivian Rubianti and Betty 'bencong extraordinaire' (Ben Murtagh)
Biography
Ben Murtagh is lecturer in Indonesian and Malay at SOAS. His current research focuses on the history of the representation of non-normative sexualities in Indonesian film and literature. He has already published several articles as part of this project and his book on 'gay, lesbian and waria representations in Indonesian cinema' is in progress.

Further information: http://www.soas.ac.uk/events/event53636.html

Registration
The event is free and open to the public but registration essential to guarantee a place.
To book a place please contact Centres & Programmes on events@soas.ac.uk or Tel 020 7898 4892 /3