The irony of Islamization: sexuality, piety and power on Malaysian screens

ABSTRACT

This article examines the wider social and political contexts for film reception in Malaysia, focusing on the ways that religious themes interact with social hierarchies around gender, class and ethnicity. Despite the prevailing phenomenon of state-sponsored Islamization in Malaysia, didactic Islamic-themed films produced in Malaysia are relatively unpopular among local audiences. At the same time, Malay-language television drama series and commercial films that feature overt physical intimacy between heterosexual couples have garnered huge public support, even when seemingly at odds with Islamic teachings. This article argues that audiences’ broad preferences for films with more sexual content do not necessarily indicate wavering commitments to Islam. Rather, the turn away from didactic films is shaped by local articulations of Islam in relation to specifically Malaysian sensibilities, cultural identities and ethical norms. Furthermore, the ways in which sexual films and dramas frame physically intimate scenes through hierarchies of ethnicity, class and gender make them acceptable and attractive, despite their ostensible transgressions of religious norms.

KEYWORDS:

• Islamisation
• Malaysia
• Islamic
• Sexual
• Films
• Dramas

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Timothy Laurie and the anonymous reviewers for their useful feedback on this article. She is also grateful to Maznah Mohamad and Kamaludeen Mohamed Nasir for their comments on earlier drafts of the article.

Disclosure statement

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and publication of this article.

Notes

1. At the time of writing, Mahathir has recently been re-elected as prime minister, defeating Najib and displacing the long political tenure of the Barisan Nasional party.

2. Parts of the body that normative Islamic law requires Muslims to cover in order to protect their moral decency.

3. These sessions are often held in shopping malls in Kuala Lumpur, where the main casts will also sign autographs on the novels from which the films or series have been adapted.

4. For production costs and box office revenues, see FINAS (2018).

5. Dato’ or Tan Sri are honorific titles conferred to distinguished (and often affluent) individuals in Malaysia.

Additional information

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and publication of this article.

Notes on contributors

Humairah Zainal

Humairah Zainal is a Research Fellow at Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology in 2018 from NTU. Her Ph.D. dissertation explores how educated youth in Malaysia engage with interethnic themes in Malaysian films. Prior to pursuing her doctorate, she was lecturing courses on Malay films at Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS). Humairah’s research articles have also appeared in Marriage and Family Review, South East Asia Research and Indonesia and the Malay World, among others.