Representasi Sosok Transjender dalam Film Mendadak Bencong

Abstract

Social construction of transgender people that developed in our society is mostly shaped by what is drawn within films. Almost films still stigmatized transgender people as a dumb and abnormal. Mendadak Bencong is a film that portray the lives of three young man that being transgender only for making money. This study is aimed to describe the representation of transgender people and the dominant ideas of Mendadak Bencong relates with ideology and myth. This study used qualitative methods of semiotic to analyze the object. The technique of data analysis was done through the use of lexia analysis and reading of five major codes of Roland Barthes which was combined with the codes of television by John Fiske. The film was explained syntagmatically through lexia analysis which every aspect was explained on the reality and representational level. And the ideology level was explained paradigmatically through five major codes of Roland Barthes. The results showed that transgender people in Mendadak Bencong was represented as an abnormal people. Their disobedience against the dominant norms makes them punished as the normalization for their clawback to the normative gender which was possessed by the majority society. The dominant ideology of the film was patriarchy with its heteronormativity that naturalized the gender system that consider the heterosexual relationship as the only normal way of relationship and thus consider transgender people that is claimed as homosexual as an abnormal. These results are expected to give contribution about the transgender issues particularly in film media. Finally it is also expected to raise gender awareness that can give media literacy to society. Keywords: Representation, Film, Transgender