KESENIAN TOPENG MONYET: Suatu Kejadian Kebudayaan dari Perspektif Feminisme Marxis

Abstract

Topeng Monyet (the performance of a dancing monkey) is one of the folk arts commonly found in the island of Java. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the Topeng Monyet as a form of culture using the perspective of Marxist Feminism. This perspective is combined with three steps of giving meaning to a certain phenomenon, namely “reading the text”, “reading beyond/behind the text” and reading off the text”. The step of “reading the text” observes in details the performance of the Topeng Monyet. In the step of “reading beyond/behind the text”, the perspective of Marxist Feminism is applied to dig out the patterns of relation found in the episodes of the Topeng Monyet, namely the relation of power and gender role. The use of “reading off the text” discovers that the three findings refer to idea of patriarchy, the society’s commonly used system.