Javanese Paternalistic Culture in Keluarga Somat Animated Film Episode “Eating Together” and “Failure of Romance”

Abstract

Culture became one of the approaches in animated film. Having position as a part of social structure, allows it to be a way of speaking and visualized. Keluarga Somat is a name of animated film series, which shows the involvement of Javanese culture in it. The series describes the activities and way of life of a Javanese family today. Family consisting of father, mother and two children is an ideal picture of Indonesian family, which proclaimed by the government. Javanese ethnic background, the basis for determining the attitude of the family. Tradition-based viewpoints collide with modernity, produce small frictions, then packed into humorous material. This is the representation of life shown in the film, which is facts nowadays society. Research on the depiction of cultural contrast through this family life, departs from a search for the cultural system. What is shown are translations of representations of cognitive, structural and symbolic systems. The films show the mix of knowledge, myth, language, art, kinship and symbols also meaning. It further illustrates how a collection of symbols can be read and interpreted. As a film which is a parallelization of Indonesian society, then the object that is revealed is a merger between material and immaterial. The deepening of the Keluarga Somat animation film in the context of the cultural system will complement the direction of Indonesian animated film making.

Keywords: culture, system, film, animation, Java