Racial Hopes/Dreams/Fantasies: Negotiating Race, Class, and the Nation in Sepet

This essay will examine how a recent popular Malaysian film, Sepet, functions within local political discourse and the ongoing project of nationbuilding, and at how this film in particular—unlike other contemporary Malaysian films that are garnering acclaim in foreign film festivals—makes it onto the big screen in Malaysia and becomes a part of mainstream discourse on race. As part of the national discussion on race relations and what it means to be “Malaysian,” the film’s depiction and portrayal of race relations—few mainstream Malaysian films even broach the topic—has been controversial. Some conservative parties in the country, as I show later in the paper, have labeled the film “liberal”—a derogatory label in their worldview—while others have defended the film and lauded it as a “brave” intervention that promotes further inter-racial and inter-cultural understandings. However, I argue that Sepet in and of itself is a commodity within the cultural politics of Malaysia; it exists in a dialectical relationship with the state-appointed caretakers of national culture and the state’s moral or religious systems, as well as with those who position themselves as being more radical or “tolerant.”