slit-eyed, or slit-moralism?

Last Saturday I invited a friend to my house to spend a night over as it was quite long since we last met and chatted. Basically it was an invitation to 'catch-up things' as both of us were busy with exams and such before. On the way home we stopped by at her house to pick up things, and not to forget any means of 'pleasuring the eyes'. We were flipping through the collection of CDs she has and came about this famous Malay movie on-screening now, 'Sepet'. Without a doubt I took it and brought it home. Texting fellow comrades asking them to join in the premier screening at my house, I was overthrilled to finally get the chance to watch this so-called most likable Malay movie history has told.

The fact was, all joy turned sour. We had series of mini-heart attacks and neurogenic shocks of the inappropriate scenes depicted in the movie. A sweet girl with long straight (rebonding-techniqued) hair wearing baju kurung cotton putih bunga-bunga kecil suddenly rolled up her kain baju kurung revealing her thighs when she was taking pictures minah-rempit style, that was certainly jaw dropping. I don't mind if they want to put an actress go clubbing in minis, but please, just don't tarnish the image of people wearing baju kurung with that attitude, wear the already-revealing mini-skirts or hot-pants instead.

Our jaw dropped even wider when we came to the scene where the parents were in the mode of 'making-love'. Disgusted, have they no shame of acting in such ways. I do understand some might say it is normal-lah people acting like that, alah berlakon aje, macam tak biasa pulak (artis Malaysia, biasa-lah!), what I don't understand is the uproaring fans of this so-called cerita-Melayu-yang-lain-daripada-yang-lain, don't they get the point? They are downgrading the Malay race in there, out-loud or unsurfaced. To be fair, I'm not 100% detesting this movie, yes there are some good points counted, it's just the way they are conveying the points is arguable. Why put a scene of parents discussing about their growing daughter in bed, under one blanket, berkemban, when they could do that over a normal breakfast? And yet, that's still what we, Malaysia's ordinary youths love most, aren't we?

I am no Malay movies fan, like any other Malay movies, this one amazingly dissapoints me. I'm still searching for one which is temperate, have good moral values, good production, and suitable for all-age viewers. I don't expect some complicated, mind-teasing Minority-Report-like movies, we have long failed doing that when Aziz M. Osman's XXRay failed. Admit it, we're still using a funny looking puntianak when our neighbour has produced a good horror like Shutter. Come to think, every good Malay movies that's been produced are the ones potraying the British Colonial times or else Zaman Jepun, or even old-myths like Puteri Gunung Ledang or Hang Tuah. The rest would be as cheezy as skateboarding gang wearing knitted snowcaps and triple layered tops in the midst of humid KL, the life of a terlanjur minah motor who wears tight leather pants, or even a remaja university who fell in love with this popular abang senior and they had a full-course dinner complete with table skirting on top of a university building, you know what I mean. It is at this time of the era where all movies with good moral values failed, imagine what would happen in the next 10 or 20 years, when we don't have anything good that our kids could learn from.

Nonetheless, I'm still a little confused when people are fighting their hearts and souls for de-moral policing in my beloved homeland. Is it because we're eating wrongly, or the education system is a bleak, or everyone's just too overwhelmed with demoralize movies, that we're blinded to appreciate the 'haq' and the 'batil'. So much for the freedom to choose, are we considered freed when we chose to idolize people like Dr. Amina Wadud? Tepuk dada tanya iman..