All Made Up

I'm reluctant to criticise the kind of Malay dramas that Noi enjoys watching. Apart from anything else, she enjoys them and it seems to me that any form of entertainment that someone, anyone, can wholeheartedly enjoy has value, and some degree of expertise of craft must be involved in the making of such programmes, even if it's not a craft conducive to what I would want in a tv drama. Also I enjoy a fair few of the series she watches myself, especially those originating in Singapore (as opposed to Malaysia or Indonesia.)

But there's one aspect of these dramas, which seems consistent across all types & genres that I find genuinely puzzling. I'm referring to the heavy application of make-up for all the ladies involved - though I should qualify that and specify all the ladies who are meant to look attractive in any degree. And I'm talking about the application of such make-up in every scene - including those when the character being played is lying on a hospital bed in a coma. Of course, something suspiciously similar is the case in, say, those American series that have at their heart a kind of aspirational glamour. I'm thinking of those old warhorses Dallas and Dynasty - because I don't watch anything like that on the telly these days - but I'm guessing there are modern equivalents. But it's the consistency of this phenomenon in pretty much all Malay drama that's so striking.

And, most striking of all for me, is how the make-up is still applied to the ladies even when they are supposed to be dwelling in rural kampongs and the series they are in revolve around the contrast between simple village life and that of the sophisticated city. This is probably the most common trope in dramas produced in Malaysia, and it's easy to see why, given how relevant that contrast is to the actual experience of many Malays (and Chinese and Indians, for that matter.)

It just seems so obvious to me that this kind of drama would be hugely enhanced in its impact if the producers chose not to glamorise the young ladies assigned to a difficult life in the rural backwaters. I'm sure that a fair number of those involved in the creation of such work must feel the incongruity themselves, which is an indication, I suppose, how just how powerful the conventions are that dictate a sometimes comical level of unreality. Isn't it strange that most viewers somehow don't see what is there, even when they are in some sense admiring what they see?