UNAIR Cinema Studies expert sees ‘Success’ of Tilik from considerable criticisms

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UNAIR NEWS – In the last few days, a short film entitled Tilik (Ladies on Top) has gone viral in social media. The film was produced from a collaboration of Yogyakarta Culture and Tourism Office and Racavana Film. The hashtags #Tilik and #BuTejo were also trending for a few days on Twitter.

The film, which takes place in Yogyakarta, tells the story of a journey of women who want to visit the village head at the city hospital. Travelling by truck, Bu Tejo and other village women exchange gossips about Dian, one of the residents who is still single. It was Bu Tejo’s character who was talkative and spoke frankly that attracted a lot of of viewers reaching 17 million.

The film directed by Wahyu Agung Prasetyo has raised various criticisms from the public. Many consider that the film perpetuates the women stereotyping from a habit of being gossipers, misogynistic, without giving any quality moral messages. In this regard, Igak Satrya Wibawa, S.Sos., MCA., Ph.D., a lecturer in Communication Sciences, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences (FISIP) Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR) gave his response.

The lecturer of Cinema Studies course saw that these various criticisms mean the film succeeded in developing public awareness on the issue of stereotypes and the weak position of women in a patriarchal culture. Awareness of this kind should be provoked, one of the ways to do it is through a film.

“There are concepts and descriptions of women that need to be questioned and interesting to discuss in the film, Tilik. That is precisely what deserves appreciation from a different perspective because the concept has succeeded in becoming a dialectical space, “he explained.

Furthermore, the lecturer known well as Mas Igak stated that a film must be ready to be criticized and interpreted or read differently by the wider community. In cinema studies, criticism is part of the a good film to show that the audience does not only act as connoisseurs, but they also pay attention and are able to respond to it. According to him, the emergence of various criticisms indirectly shows the ‘success’ of Tilik’s film in disturbing the audience’s mind and provoking awareness of various phenomena in society.

“I am not in a position to confirm or deny the criticisms because each individual has a different context and background in interpreting it. In fact, I saw the dialectic showing the ‘success’ of the film in disturbing the audience’s mind, raising many questions, doubts, criticisms, and also praise at the same time. But unfortunately, many people still cannot accept the criticism of film as a useful part of filmaking “he said.

Overall, Igak considered the 32-minute film to be very interesting because it was able to generate waves of creativity such as the emergence of memes, Bu Tejo’s stickers, new terms, and became the talk in various media.

“As a short film, Tilik shows an interesting dialectical process. Hopefully after this many people will make other interesting short films, ” he concluded.

Author: Nikmatus Sholikhah

Editor: Khefti Al Mawalia

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