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pega-chan · 2 years

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First Impressions: Sri Asih (2022)

i have waited 2 years for this movie and it did NOT disappoint. quick thoughts after i watched it yesterday:

i understand it is the movie so they have to pack everything in, but some of the exposition feels clunky. this also leads to some of the dialogue being unnatural

the pacing in the beginning of the movie was a little too fast

there are some scenes that i wish would've lasted longer or had more purpose, like the charity ball. yes it was fun to see Al and Kala dress up but ultimately nothing happened there and the real showdown happened in Adinegara's office

some scenes didn't have a smooth enough transition but i can overlook it

i do wish they would've given more exposition for Alana's age and career/life in the movie. i'm sure she's an adult, otherwise she wouldn't have all that free time. but is she a full time professional fighter? why did her mother decide to have her be one? at the end it's revealed Al's adoptive mom knew she was the next Sri Asih and decided to take her in because of it, but why mold her into a professional fighter and not some other athlete that gives her similar capabilities to fight, like a silat athlete? with silat, Al could've had actual practice using a selendang in battle bc a selendang is a silat weapon

so is Alana's mom part of Jagabumi or something? Kala never explained his connection to her

how did Al adapt to her new powers so quickly? she wasn't even briefed on what they are. her experience as a fighter gives her a leg up, but Eyang Maryani just did not explain that she can fly, use the selendang, have enhanced srength and durability, or multiply, at any point during the movie

she didn't even use all of her comic canon powers, like growing to giant size or purifying dark spirit energy were not utilized at all. they gave her super speed i guess, which is a new power

i am glad romance just does not exist in this movie. Alana is an aroace icon driven by rage and bloodlust just like i've always hoped she'd be <3

no mentions of Ganis :'''''''''''' like okay Ganis and Al are one timeline but i just want my Sundanese homegirl acknowledged

i'm not a big fan of Al being the next Sri Asih by virtue of being directly descended from Nani Wijaya. i don't think superheroes should be chosen by blood relation, they should be determined randomly based on if they're capable or not, bc anyone can be a hero if Dewi Asih decided they are one

casting Najwa Shihab as Nani was GENIUS btw. Nani was a journalist so it makes absolute sense to cast an actual journalist as her!

you know what would be cool though? they could have referenced the 1954 Sri Asih movie by finding someone that looked like Mimi Mariani and referencing the plot of the movie too. if only the movie wasn't lost media :'(

i will say Nani's costume looks absolutely nothing like in the comics and i'm disappointed by it, but hey, you gotta connect Alana's cameo in Gundala to this movie somehow. my advice is they could've made it similar to Nani's costume by adding her batik and then having Al choose not to wear the batik when she suits up to help Gundala

let's talk fashion! Al has a very practical and utilitarian wardrobe in muted colours. its mostly sporty with many sleeveless shirts which she tends to wear bc she sweats while fighting so often. it reflects her priorities as a professional fighter, and she has some high-end/more expensive pieces (like the combat boots and a significantly less utilitarian backpack) that screams of her wealthy background. i'm disappointed none of her clothes seem to have any wear or tear pre-battle, bc you would think some would look pretty ratty if Al has a habit of getting into scuffles, but that can perhaps be chalked up to her having a rich parent that can replace worn out clothes easily. i don't mind the amount of crop tops in her wardrobe, bc Pev Pearce absolutely deserves to show off those abs. the leather jacket was my fave fit.

not a fan of the multiple braids. bro that's cultural appropriation

i love love love her friendships in this movie. with her fellow pro fighters Gilang and that high school kid, Tangguh, and even Kala

i love that Gilang and the high schooler are like, not fair skinned and not with conventionally attractive features. there's a lot of diversity in this movie and i love it

what happened to all her pro fighter friends, anyway? they just up and disappeared after the hospital blew up. i get Al has bigger things to worry about, but the fighter's ring is her mom's work and those and her friends who are threatened by Adinegara. Gilang and co. are just replaced by Tangguh and Kala

Pev did a phenomenal job embodying Alana's character, but i can't understand why they would cast a half-white actor. i'm not being ethnocentric /gen, but i think Sri Asih should be represented by the ordinary class that doesn't have white privilege. biracial Sri Asih is an interesting concept to explore, but i wish they would've cast someone fully indonesian or even a minority. a chindo sri asih would be so cool

Tangguh is MY poor little meow meow. he's doing his best, truly! just a wimp of a man who tries to get context but fails every time. i support him going feral and tasing that guard.

i lowkey want more female characters in this movie. like if you compare it with the amount of guys (that play a significant role) it's just disproportionate, and doesn't make sense for there to be such an imbalance in a girl power film

Kala. has little personality. he's a tool that helps Al take down the bad guys and we only start to see a glimpse of his character when he interacts with Tangguh. official sources describe him as "charismatic", "kalem", and "mysterious". the REAL mystery is his personality babes.

speaking of, while Al is aroace for sure. the tension and chemistry between Kala and Tangguh has more romantic weight than anything they have going on with Al

Eyang Maryani is also just there as a tool. it's her job as a mentor, sure. but i wish she embodied the mentor part more

how did they get Al's mom out of the hospital in the first place??

it's also unrealistic how quickly Al decides to trust Kala tbh. "i know your mom" does he have proof?? girl he could be lying

this film has a lot going on, and there are some threads i wish they would've tied up more neatly. who murdered Mateo? are we supposed to assume Jatmiko did? how did Jatmiko get his hands on the Roh Setan necklace? what was Adinegara doing with HIS necklace, and what was it for? what about the businessmen working with Adinegara who were in on the plot to sacrifice a thousand souls? why are they concerned with Dewi Api and want to bring forth her army? did they know Jatmiko was behind the mask? did they know the necklace Adinegara had wasn't the real one? who are they in the grand scheme of things other than scummy rich men stepping all over the poor?

also Giselle. what happened to her and what was she hiding about Mateo's murder?

is Adinegara even stopped in his tracks?

i honestly wanted Tangguh to be placed in more imminent danger. if he already has a target on his back for being too intrusive, then maybe have Adinegara send goonies after him. this could connect him more solidly to Al, who is also being hunted down by Adinegara. it would work out better than randomly meeting each other in the rusun.

Tangguh does end up helping Al by having the motive to help out his neighbours and the working class in the rusun, who are being mistreated by the rich. but considering his whole gig was as a journalist, he should've had a mission about documenting the whole story and could've introduced Al to the public after she saved them

the ACAB plotline could've been done better. Jatmiko was the villain disguised as a grey character but he's not grey enough imo bc he didn't have a solid intention for playing both sides

the action scenes were spectacular btw, i usually get bored at action scenes if they go on for too long but this movie did not make me sleepy

that's all i have currently. i'll be watching the movie again next week, so i'll be adding onto this after a rewatch as i think of more stuff. overall the movie was a 9/10! totally worth the wait

#sri asih #pegapersonal

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classic-queeries · 7 years

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Holden C*ace*field: Asexuality and Representation

Some background: At the end of my junior year of high school we read Catcher in the Rye in my American Lit class. A friend pointed out a quote to me and said “hey, Holden kinda seems asexual to me.” I hadn’t been particularly interested in the book before she pointed it out, but once I read the quote I saw what my friend saw. Further reading absolutely convinced me that Holden was demisexual.

My English teacher however, did not have the best history with queer coding. When we read The Great Gatsby many in my friend group were convinced that Nick Carraway was gay. When one friend brought it up in class, however, she got shot down almost immediately. The teacher only brought up queer coding once, in reference to The Scarlet Letter, saying that Chillingworth was gay because there was subtext that he sexually assaulted Dimmesdale. Which, if you’ve read the book? Not the conclusion I’d jump to. He kept using the words “homoerotic subtext” which also did not sit well with us.

Needless to say, I did not bring up my demi-Holden theory in class. I did not want to deal with the teacher shutting me down like he had my friend. So instead, after AP tests and I’d handed in my last major paper for the year, I wrote an essay. Full semi-formal style, MLA formatting, definitions of everything, multiple sources and examples all correctly cited. Nothing he could fight me on.

And you know what he did? He fought me on it by throwing my argument back at me without the label. What followed was a few days of me stomping around, ranting to my friends that had helped me with this about how he wasn’t listening to me. I stopped the communication after a few back and forth exchanges. I was getting nowhere.

I’m still proud of the essay. I would classify it as one of the better things I’ve written, simply because it was an argument I actually cared about. So I’d like to share it, share why I relate to Holden even in a small way, because maybe it’ll help someone else.

–Mod Sherlock

When I first ran across the word asexual I didn’t think it applied to me. But it turns out whatever definition I had read was wrong. Asexual simply means that one does not experience sexual attraction. I’ve come to terms with that, and embrace my being asexual, or ace, proudly. You’ll see me down at Pride in June having fun with my friends, decked out in purple, black, and white. Problem is that not many people know about us. The last GLAAD survey had aces as about four percent of millennials (Accelerating Acceptance 2017). That is a bigger estimate than the last one we had at one percent back in 2004.

Of course, asexulaity is kinda an umbrella term. That GLAAD survey involves aces, demisexuals, and graces. I myself identify as asexual because I cannot conceive of what exactly sexual attraction is. People look at someone else and go, “I’d hit that,” or they appear in sexual fantasies? I literally cannot make sense of it. Many people have tried to help, none succeeded. I know a few people who identify as demisexual, which means that they only experience sexual attraction to someone once they form a deep emotional bond. They have to be dating the person, or close friends, or any other number of meaningful relationships, before they experience sexual attraction. There are others who identify as grey-asexual, grace, which means that they have only limited experience with sexual attraction. They may only experience it intermittently, maybe only once or twice in their life. This differs from demi in that they may experience it without the deep emotional bond. Asexuality is best thought of as a spectrum. The ace spectrum is from allosexuals, those who do feel sexual attraction, to aces, with demi and graces somewhere in the middle (AVEN).

The fact that we don’t experience sexual attraction doesn’t mean that we aces can’t have meaningful relationships. The split attraction model (SAM) is about the difference between sexual and romantic attraction. People can have two different orientations for different attractions. I have several panromantic asexual friends, who experience romantic attraction to all genders, yet no sexual attraction. There are homoromantics, biromantics, heteromantics, every sexuality has a romantic equivalent. This of course includes asexuality as well; those who don’t experience romantic attraction identify as aromantic. I identify as an aromantic asexual because romance is an enigma. Like, what the hell even is romance? Going out on a date with someone? Movies are more fun with more people, why not bring a couple friends? Ice cream or food? How is that a date? Romance is entirely dictated by societal norms and I, for one, am tired of it. Why should I be expected to date anyone if I don’t want to? And why is it that everytime I walk home with a male friend I get people asking me if we’re dating the next day and every time I think “oh my god no we’re neighbors he’s gay and I’m aroace what the flippity fuck people.” But I digress.

The SAM stems from the fact that there are many different types of attraction, some of which are easy to confuse with sexual attraction. Sexual and romantic attraction exist and are often conflated. A common attraction variation for aces to use is aesthetic attraction, which is simply thinking that someone looks nice. I can think that someone looks pretty in a military dress uniform without being sexually attracted to them. In addition there is sensual attraction, which means that someone experiencing it wants to interact in a tactile but non-sexual way. For instance, Carrie Fisher? Was very huggable. Both aesthetic and sensual attraction are extremely easy to confuse with sexual attraction and are often so intertwined that a person cannot tell them apart. Sensual has a sexual connotation for some people but i’ve never seen it used in a sexual way. In addition, I know that before I realized I was ace I would categorize who I considered ‘sexually attractive’ by who was aesthetically pleasing and just called that sexual attraction.

Enough with the SAM, though we’ll get back to it. A common misconception about asexuals is that we don’t have sex as a rule. That’s blatantly wrong, that’s the definition of celibacy. We have different levels of comfortability with sex. Some are sex-positive, which means that they enjoy or even want sex. Others are sex-ambivalent, meaning that they don’t particularly care either way. Still more are sex-repulsed, which means that they viscerally consider sex gross and do not want to participate in it or even talk about it depending on the extent of their repulsion. Like everything, this is a spectrum. Allos can also have these opinions on sex, they are not limited to aces.

The major problem that most asexuals face is ignorance. The estimated number of asexuals was so low in 2004 partly because there just isn’t wide enough knowledge about us. That number rose three percent in the past thirteen years in part because AVEN, the Asexual Visibility and Education Network, was formed and started to help spread word. Yet we are still ignored and pushed aside, even pathologized:

“….because sexuality is taken for granted as necessary to normalcy and normative bodies….asexuality is and has been historically diagnosed as a problem in need of medical reress and treatment….[the DSM has] “hypoactive sexual desire disorder” (DSM-III-R 1987)….”female sexual interest/arousal disorder” and “male hypoactive sexual desire disorder” (DSM-V 2013). Such labels indicate that low levels of sexual desire were seen by sexology and continue to be regarded by scientific medicine as ‘unhealthy’ and abnormal, reflecting more broadly on society’s negative attitiudes toward asexuality” (Przybylo 186).

Sexual attraction is so pervasive in our society that when someone doesn’t feel it they’re treated like they have a mental illness. I’m sure there are more examples of this, but I don’t have the stomach to go looking for more. I had to talk myself out of looking through the DSM for myself, I don’t need to find more examples of bigotry and prejudice.

Even so, I find unintentional (I hope) examples of aphobic attitudes in my own classroom. Calling sexual attraction “normal” hurts. That tends to imply that anything against the norm is bad, to be shunned and destroyed. I’m reminded of a song by my favorite band, called “We Are the Others,” which has the lyrics: “Normal is not the norm/ It’s just a uniform/ Forget about the norm/ Take off your uniform/ We are all beautiful”(Delain). “Normal” is not a thing. Everyone is weird to someone else, but that doesn’t give one reason to be a bigot.

On top of this ignorance is the fact that erasure is so common in what little media we have. There was a recent TV show based of a series of comic books from Archie called Riverdale. One character, Jughead Jones, was an aroace in the comics (Riseman). In the TV show they erased Jughead’s aromanticism by placing him in a clearly reciprocated relationship with Betty, and his asexuality is up in the air, but likely erased as well (Alexander). Riverdale is just one of a few that erase ace identities. Most a-spec characters are in obscure books that you would never hear of if you didn’t go looking for them, or in webcomics which are unlikely to gain a mainstream audience. There has not been a mainstream confirmed ace character. Ever. This erasure and ignorance is what makes headcanons so important. I headcanon many of my favorite characters as ace because I relate to them so well, so why shouldn’t they share my sexuality as well? That’s why when I find a character that has a wealth of canon evidence that they might be aspec, I find the bandwagon and start driving.

So when I realized that Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye might be asexual I hopped right onto that bandwagon and hit the gas. It was actually one of my friends that pointed out that Holden might be asexual. I read the quote they sent me, and immediately poured myself into the book. I kept notes on everything that Holden did, everything he said, that seemed like he might be aspec to me. As I read I related more and more to Holden, and I am convinced that Holden is aspec. I propose that Holden is a heteromantic demisexual who, having never seen the terms, confuses sensual and aesthetic attraction for sexual.

Before I get into the meat of it, let’s clear up one thing: asexuals can still get aroused. I mean, it’s a little hard to have sex without that and some of us do have sex no matter what some people seem to think. There is an important distinction for aces, however. In her article “Introducing Asexuality, Unthinking Sex,” Ela Przybylo writes that “Scholars who study the physiology around asexuality suggest that people who are asexual are capable of genital arousal but may experience difficulty with so-called subjective arousal. So when the body become aroused, subjectively-at the level of the mind and emotions-one does not experience arousal”(183). This is a very important distinction. Aces may have general arousal, but we have nothing to direct it at. Our mind is separate from our body in this case. There’s one line in Catcher about Holden feeling horny: “After a while I sat down in a chair and smoked a couple of cigarettes. I was feeling pretty horny. I have to admit it” (Salinger 63). This is after he walks into the hotel and sees several indiscrete people doing rather sexual acts on the balcony. What strikes me about this is that, despite feeling some general arousal, he just sits down and smokes a cigarette. This may be just me misunderstanding, but people do not just sit down and have a smoke when horny? That doesn’t seem like something an allosexual would do. In addition to that, Holden does not seem to be reacting to a particular instance and has nowhere to direct his attentions. His body may be reacting to the ‘perverts’ on the balcony, but his mind is completely clear. Holen is not experiencing subjective arousal. As stated above, this is generally an ace thing.

Another very ace thing Holden does is hire a prostitute then ask her to talk with him, not have sex. In general, when one hires a prostitute, one does so for sex. Holden goes into the fiasco with the thought: “I figured if she was a prostitute and all, I could get in some practice on her, in case I ever get married or anything. I worry about that stuff sometimes”(Salinger 92). This on the surface seems like a typical thing for a young adult to worry about, but, really? Who the hell worries about sex? Holden goes into this so objectively, thinking about getting married in the future and getting practice on her. This is a typical thing for a confused ace who has no idea that they are ace to worry about. After he thinks this the prostitute, Sunny, shows up. They talk for a bit and then Holden is very surprised when Sunny just up and pulls her dress off: “…she stood up and pulled her dress over her head. I certainly felt peculiar when she did that. I mean she did it so sudden and all. I know you’re supposed to feel pretty sexy when somebody gets up and pulls their dress over their head, but I didn’t. Sexy was about the last thing I was feeling….Boy, was I feeling peculiar….All she had on was this pink slip. It was really quite embarrassing” (Salinger 94-95). Yes, Holden, according to societal conventions one will supposedly feel horny when met with a mostly-naked person of the opposite gender. But people go against those societal conventions all the time. Asexuals, for instance, would not feel ‘sexy’ when met with a naked girl. Holden’s peculiar feeling may be the fact that he doesn’t know Sunny, and thus has no chance of feeling sexual attraction towards her. It may also be caused by possible sex repulsion of some degree when faced with someone he doesn’t know. This is, of course, ignoring the fact that he hired a prostitute then proceeded to ask her to just have a conversation with him. That is such an ace thing to do I mean, come on, who would do that.

Even more critical beyond Holden’s uncomfortableness when faced with sex, is the fact that he self-admittedly doesn’t get what sex is all about. Contemplating the people doing ‘crumby’ stuff on the balcony of the hotel he’s staying in, Holden thinks:

“Sex is something I really don’t understand too hot. You never know where the hell you are. I keep making up these sex rules for myself, and then I break them right away. Last year I made a rule that I was going to quit horsing around with girls that, deep down, gave me a pain in the ass. I broke it, though, the same week I made it - the same night, as a matter of fact. I spent the whole night necking with a terrible phony named Anne Louise Sherman. Sex is something I just don’t understand. I swear to god I don't”(Salinger 63).

Holden’s opinion on sex is that it’s confusing. He just simply doesn’t understand how to go about it. He makes himself rules for gods’ sake. He doesn’t understand why people do the do, why people go beyond ‘necking.’ Sex is so centralized in our culture that for an ace person, navigating the world is a problem. Centralization of sex in culture includes the beliefs that sex is needed for romance, the act of sexual intercource is key to adulthood and maturation, and sex is important for a healthy life (Przybylo 181). The key bit here is that Holden seems to believe that he should want sex with people, but he doesn’t understand sex. The centralization of sex confuses him and he ends up reaching for ways to make sex make sense to him, like a set of rules that he immediately tosses aside. He ends up doing the same thing that many aces do before they realize their sexuality: pretending just to fit in. He hires the prostitute because he thinks that might help him with his sex game. He feigns a desire for sex as real life aces often do: “As one participant from a study on asexual masculinity discusses, as an adolescent he had to “play along” with his male friend who “were all into porn mags” and checking out girls, feigning a desire for sex in order to fit in but ultimately “los[ing] out socially because…. A lot of social activities seem to be … centered around sex (Przybylo 2014:229)”” (Przybylo 188). Holden doubts that everyone has these desires and questions people that have sex just for the hell of it. He tells Carl Luce during their conversation: “[i regard sex as] a physical and spiritual experience and all. I really do. But it depends on who the hell I’m doing it with. If I’m doing it with somebody I don’t even-….This is what I mean though. I know it’s supposed to be physical and spiritual, and artistic and all. But what I mean is, you can’t do it with everybody-every girl you neck with and all-and make it come out that way. Can you?”(Salinger 146-147). Holden sees people like Stradlater going and having sex with basically random girls just because they want to. He sees them doing it with girls they’ve only known for a couple hours, and questions, “you can’t do it with everybody?” He simply doesn’t see how people can just essentially randomly hook up and have a desire for the other person. This is a very common thing for aces to question. How do people just hook up if they don’t even like the other person? What underlying attraction is there? Don’t you have to know the person? The concept of a one-night-stand doesn’t exist to many aces.

This brings me to my crowning jewel: Holden basically explicitly states that he is demisexual. Just after the previous quote, while he’s talking to Luce, Holden says this: “You know what the trouble with me is? I can never get really sexy- I mean really sexy- with a girl I don’t like a lot. I mean I have to like her alot. If I don’t, I sort of lose my goddamn desire for her and all. Boy, it really screws up my sex life something awful. My sex life stinks”(Salinger 148). Holy. Fucking. Crap. That is the definition of demisexuality. Holden only has desire for a girl when he “likes her alot.” Demisexuality is only experiencing sexual attraction when a deep emotional connection is formed. Holden just almost explicitly said he’s demi. To back me up even further, I sent this quote to a few ace friends with the caption “if this isn’t aspec then idk what is.” Their responses: “HECK U RIGHT,” “Wow that’s practically explicit,” “If you can’t see the ace-ness inherent in this you need to get your eyes checked,” and “That’s one of the most canon ace things I’ve ever read and [I’m] willing to throw down with both teacher and author in the parking lot over this” (Fuck Yeah Asexual). If I have friends, demi friends who know the definition and use it all the time, willing to freaking fight Salinger and my teacher over this, you know it’s good.

Part of the reason that my friends may be so willing to fight people for Holden to be demi is that we have basically no representation in popular media. I found a total of five major canon ace characters in pop culture when I went looking. Every single other character I found was minor or from something that hasn’t inundated pop culture yet. Of those five, only two explicitly used the word asexual. Luffy from One Piece is commonly believed to be asexual, as is Maya from Borderlands 2 (SBS Volume 54, W.). One of these is a manga, the other a video game. While they do have very large audiences, neither character is confirmed ace in their media, purely by the creators word. Todd from Bojack Horseman is asexual as well(season four ep 3). Raphael from Shadowhunters is ace in the TV show, and aroace in the books, and I already mentioned the fiasco with Jughead (“By the Light of Dawn”, Alexander). Because we have so little representation, interpretations of famous literary characters like Holden as aspec really helps with overall awareness of the ace community. Awareness is coming around, slowly but surely, but every little bit counts.

So I will fight for ace Holden. I will drive this bandwagon right over anyone who objects, throwing my heaps of evidence and definitions out the windows. Maybe I’ll wrap the definition of demisexuality around my little crowning jewel and lob it at anyone who wants to fight me. Y’all are entitled to your opinions, but if you come say I’m wrong and ‘ruining books with my queer characters’ you’re gonna get a great big ball of demi-Holden evidence thrown at you. And I’m gonna wrap it all up nice and pretty in the demi flag.

#asexual #demisexual #literary essay #we're here we're proving they're queer #ace #demi #ace spectrum #mod sherlock

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