Women's Whispers to the World
UNIVERSITY OF MALAYA
FACULTY OF EDUCATION
B.Ed.TESL
SESSION 2012/2013
SEMESTER 1
PXET 3109
LITERATURE AND POPULAR CULTURE
ASSIGNMENT 1
LECTURER:
Miss Shalini A/p Nadaswaran .
PREPARED BY: LEONARDO DAVID NG (PET100015)
DATE OF SUBMISSION: 23rd November 2012
WOMEN’S WHISPERS TO THE WORLD Inequality has been rightfully and unquestionably entitled to women for as long as I can remember. Back in those days, women were restrained to unofficial profession as mere housewives and glued to house chores and kids. Women were muted from voicing out equal rights, and their minds were handicapped of intellectual development and reduced to only serving husbands obediently and babysitting. Now those are just the tips of the icebergs if we are to compare them to the reality of women’s hardships and problems in these days, though I am not sure whether the problems existed long before this age. One thing for sure, women are suffering both physical and emotional abuses which result from all sorts of discrimination that befall them. Now let us bring this matter into Malaysian context and see how women’s problems emerge from the life of a high-spirited teenager, Orked, the heroine in Yasmin Ahmad’s controversial movie, “Sepet”. Basically “Sepet” is about a story of interracial love that revolves around Orked and Jason, the hero in the movie. Orked struggles in living by her free will and identity because of the stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination made by her friends and even her own father. The stereotypic belief that Malay women deserve no one to fall in love with but men of their own race is totally rejected and despised by Orked. In one of the scenes in the movie, one of her friends proudly proclaims that Orked is “…one of the most stupid Malay girl[s] [who thinks that she is] too good for [her] own race”. Ironically enough, her “Mat Salleh celup” friend, Izwan, calls Jason as her “… stupid, mata sepet boyfriend” when he himself did not even manage
FACULTY OF EDUCATION
B.Ed.TESL
SESSION 2012/2013
SEMESTER 1
PXET 3109
LITERATURE AND POPULAR CULTURE
ASSIGNMENT 1
LECTURER:
Miss Shalini A/p Nadaswaran .
PREPARED BY: LEONARDO DAVID NG (PET100015)
DATE OF SUBMISSION: 23rd November 2012
WOMEN’S WHISPERS TO THE WORLD Inequality has been rightfully and unquestionably entitled to women for as long as I can remember. Back in those days, women were restrained to unofficial profession as mere housewives and glued to house chores and kids. Women were muted from voicing out equal rights, and their minds were handicapped of intellectual development and reduced to only serving husbands obediently and babysitting. Now those are just the tips of the icebergs if we are to compare them to the reality of women’s hardships and problems in these days, though I am not sure whether the problems existed long before this age. One thing for sure, women are suffering both physical and emotional abuses which result from all sorts of discrimination that befall them. Now let us bring this matter into Malaysian context and see how women’s problems emerge from the life of a high-spirited teenager, Orked, the heroine in Yasmin Ahmad’s controversial movie, “Sepet”. Basically “Sepet” is about a story of interracial love that revolves around Orked and Jason, the hero in the movie. Orked struggles in living by her free will and identity because of the stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination made by her friends and even her own father. The stereotypic belief that Malay women deserve no one to fall in love with but men of their own race is totally rejected and despised by Orked. In one of the scenes in the movie, one of her friends proudly proclaims that Orked is “…one of the most stupid Malay girl[s] [who thinks that she is] too good for [her] own race”. Ironically enough, her “Mat Salleh celup” friend, Izwan, calls Jason as her “… stupid, mata sepet boyfriend” when he himself did not even manage