Introduction
Since 1994, Malaysian government has significantly
improved its effort to spur the growth of its animation
industry which produces local content and reflects its own national identity. The
effort was triggered by the fact that Malaysian television had been flooded with
foreign animation movies.The promotion Malaysian animation industry is part of the
Government effort in improving its Information and Communication Technology
(ICT) in a way to be a developed nation by 2020(Isa, 2012).
Some actions have
been taken. Inspired by the success of Silicon Valley, Malaysian government built
Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) in 1996 (Isa, 2012). Malaysian government also has been
providing alot of grants through its agencies for animation business
practitioners (Mohamad, 2010). And through its national state television,
Government bought Malaysian-made animation products with high price compared to
private televisions (Muthalib, 2007).
However, until
2007, all of those efforts haven’t changed the landscape dramatically. The
quality of the animation products cannot compete successfully in the global
market. More importantly, Malaysian animation hadn’t showcased its own national
character. Japanese and western animation still highly influenced Malaysian
animation products.The production was also unstable due to the low price offered
by most Malaysian TV station. The better price that was offered by Government’s
TV station still was considered too tight to finance the production continuously.
The new era of
Malaysian animation industry began in 2007 when “Upin & Ipin”, a
Malaysian-made animation TV series, has become an instant hit, not only in
Malaysia but also in many countries.Since then, Upin & Ipin has become the
pinnacle of Malaysian animation industry. Upin & Ipin has opened the gate to
the global stage for Malaysia animation industry. Furthermore, Upin & Ipin has
been expanding from merely an animation movie business to other sectors, such
as merchandise, restaurant, café, and theme park.
Uniquely, Upin & Ipin successful
story was achieved with a very minimum role of the Government. The creation of Upin & Ipin relied
on its producer’s own capacity such us funding, ideas and human resources. Moreover,
Upin & Ipin has been created without foreign influences either through technical
assistance or animation concept.
Understanding the
phenomena, I will discuss the success story of Upin & Ipin through the narration
of hegemony, counter-hegemony, and critical theory with its “culture industry”concept.
To elaborate it, I will explain: a glimpse of the history of Malaysian
animation industry; the influence of foreign animation to Malaysian animation products;
the role of Malaysian government to promote its local animation industry; and
the process of the creation of Upin & Ipin as a commodified cultural product.
Hegemony, counter-hegemony, and the culture industry
Hegemony and
counter-hegemony that was introduced by Antonio Gramsci is based on an
understanding that the dominant group in a society has the ability to subtly
impose a certain intellectual and moral direction to a society in order to gain
support of its aims (Thussu, 2000). Therefore, counter-hegemony
is a response to the hegemonic ruling class order. Gramsci also stated that
counter-hegemony is a revolutionary, psycho-cultural ideology campaigned by the
subjugated class to overthrow the standing dominant order (Simms, 2003).
On
the other hand, the concept of culture industry was introduced by Adorno and Horkheimer
in 1944. They argued that in a capitalist society, the production of cultural
goods, such as films, radio, programs, music, and magazine, tends to be a commodification
of culture (Thussu, 2000).
Upin&Ipin:
from the local to the global
Upin and Ipinis a
Malaysian-made animation series. Introduced in 2007, Upin & Ipin has
attracted public attention not only in Malaysia but also in other countries (mainly
in a country with a strong Malayan culture, such as Malaysia, Indonesia,
Brunei, and Singapore). In its first year, Upin & Ipin was awarded as the best
animation at the Kuala Lumpur International Film Festival 2007 (KLIFF)(Les'Copaque, 2008).
Its popularity keeps
on growing as Upin and Ipin has been widely broadcasted by Disney Channel Asia since
2009 in 17 countries such as Cambodia, Myanmar, Philippine, Thailand,
Timor-Leste, and Vietnam. It is also broadcasted on TV9 (Malaysia), MNCTV (Indonesia),
Suria TV (Singapore), and Hilal TV (Turkey)(Ansari, 2011). Its rating in
Malaysia and Indonesia competes with other import cartoon films such as
Doraemon and Sponge bob Square Pants. In Indonesia for example, an episode of Upin & Ipin
was watched by over 10 million people (Les'Copaque, 2009).
As of 31 October
2012, Upin & Ipin series on Les’Copaque Youtube channel has been watched by more
than 50 million times with 23 thousand subscribers (Les'Copaque, 2012). In addition, Upin & Ipin series on
TV9 Youtube channel has been watched by more than 56 million viewers with 17
thousand subscribers (TV9Malaysia, 2012). Based on Youtube’s statistic, Upin & Ipin are
mostly watched in Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, and Singapura. With all of those
achievements, Upin & Ipin is considered as the best Malaysian animation that has
ever been made. It is also considered the best animation using Malayan culture
as its main setting.
Upin & Ipin tells
a story of twin brothers who live in a village, namely, Kampung Durian Runtuh.
Upin is the name of the older brother, while Ipin is the name of the younger
brother. They are an orphan and are taken care by their elder sister whose name
is sister Ros (KakRos) and grandmother Uda (Opah). Upin and Ipin attend a
kindergarten namely Tadika Mesra. In the school, they have friends with
different characters, backgrounds, and cultures such as Mei-Mei, Mail, Jarjit,
and Susanti. Mei Mei is a smart and rational Chinese ethnic girl. Mail is a Malayan
boy with high entrepreneurship. Jarjit is a funny and poetic Indian ethnic boy.
And Susanti is an Indonesian girl who moves to Malaysia with her family.
The
representation of a Chinese, an Indian, a Malayan and an Indonesian character
in the story is depicting the real condition in Malaysia. In, 2005 Malaysian
citizen is 23.9 million people (Indexmundi, 2012). It has three major ethnic groups: Bumiputera
66 %, Chinese 25 %, and Indian 8 %(Shafii et al., 2009).Foreigners in Malaysia are dominated
by Indonesian. There are 1.9 million Indonesian who are working in Malaysia in
2012 (Nurhayat, 2012).
Upin&Ipinis easily
accepted because this movie is using local setting, culture, values, and cultures.
It is also originally presented in Malayan language.
Malaysians who have grown up watching Mickey
Mouse and Dragonball may find the emergence of local animation
content as refreshing to the eyes. As Upin & Ipin portrayed a more
local environment, it provides an idea to various characteristics that defines
the country that we live in (Omar, 2011).
Upin & Ipin
also has spurred the growth of the animation industry in Malaysia. There was no
animation movie completed in 2005 and in six years the figure has changed dramatically.
In 2011, there were 1,757 animation films completed in Malaysia with about US$
100 million in revenue (Lau, 2012).
Upin & Ipin was originally
a spin-off from the first Malaysian-made blockbuster animated movie “Geng: the Adventures
Begins” which also reflects Malaysian environment setting, values, and
cultures. Upin & Ipin is minor character in the movie. However, it has attracted
the most attention. Based on the consideration, the producer of “Geng” decided to
make Upin & Ipin into mini-series (Lau, 2012).
Upin & Ipin is
created by Les’Copaque Production which was founded by Burhanuddin and Ainonin
2005. The name of the company sounds like derived from French. The fact is that
the name derived from local slang “last kopek” which means “final chance”(Deentrepreneur, 2010c). The choice of the name may be
analyzed as an effort to globalize the local and/or localize the global at the
same time.
These all started
when in 2005 Burhanuddin met up with three graduates from Malaysian Multimedia
University (MMU), Mohd Nizam Abdul Razak, Mohd Safwan Abd Karim, and Muhammad Anas
Abdul Aziz. Burhanuddin previously wanted to make a Pokemon-esque online game.
But the students refused it because it was not their expertise. Instead, they
gave Burhanuddina seven minutes animation movie, namely “MisiMustahak”. Burhanuddin
was impressed by the movie. He agreed to finance the students to produce the animation
movie. To start the business, Burhanuddin sold all of his shares in his petroleum
company and invested US$ 700 thousand to build Les’Copaque Production(Lau, 2012).
In its early
year, Burhanudin had been advised by experts that the key to be successful in
the animation industry is by creating a global character and story. However, no
one could give him a definite answer when Burhanuddin asked them to explain what
the global character and global story are.It forced him to attend many trade
shows and film festivals all around the world.From his observation, he found
out that everybody wanted to copy European and American characters. He
concluded that making a similar animation will only make the product not feasible (Deentrepreneur, 2010b).
Finally, he decided
to make an animation movie with more local content. They develop the animation
setting based on a Malaysian traditional village with its local architecture and
tropical atmosphere. He reassured his employees that to penetrate global market
they need to be popular first in Malaysia. The first Upin & Ipin episodes were
five short series with Ramadhan (Islamic fasting month) theme.Using Islamic culture
and values, the movie had become an instant hit in Malaysia (Deentrepreneur, 2010b).
We can analyze
that Burhanuddin’s finding about the domination of European and American characters
in the animation global market as the projection of the dominant ruling class
in the world. That is the hegemonic. Furthermore, his decision to use local content
can be explained from the ‘culture industry’ perspective. As Burhanuddin said,“we
want to catch the Malay market. So [the] best subject to catch all these people
is Islamic. That is why we choose the Ramadhan… Once we put the kampong [Malaysian
traditional village] environment, the children love it. Because they think they
are actually friend of Upin and Ipin,” he explained (Deentrepreneur, 2010b).
However, Burhanuddin
realized that having an Islamic content had limited Upin&Ipinglobal
penetration. The Islamic style might be suitable for middle-eastern countries. But
Burhanuddin saw the market is too small. Moreover, the price that was offered
by those countries was also very low. This condition forced him to shift its Upin&IpinIslamic
concept to be more universal whilestill maintaining itsoriginal setting(Deentrepreneur, 2010a).This phenomenon can be defined as the
surrender to the global: the hegemonic.
What makes
Upin&Ipin different from other Malaysian animations is that it has been
designed as a total business rather just an animation business. In a way to do
that, Les’ Copaquecopies Disney’s business model. They are aware that Disney biggest
income is not coming from the film but from other sectors such as merchandise,
park, and resort(Deentrepreneur, 2010a). In 2011, Disney’s revenue reached
US$ 40.8 billion. It turned out that 55 per cent(US$ 22,1 billion)of its
revenue came from other business sectors such as parks, resorts, studio
entertainment, consumer products, and interactive media(Disney, 2011).
Learning from
Disney, Les’ Copaquealsohas been developing other businesses that are related
to Ipin&Ipin character, such as, merchandise, restaurant, café, and theme
park (Deentrepreneur, 2010a).Despite of its foreign-less product, Les’
Copaquecannot avoid copyingforeign business model which was introduced by
Disney. I want to point out thatUpin&Ipin is marketed under the influence of
the Disney, the global brand: the hegemonic.
It
is not the first, but might be the best
Upin&Ipinis not the first in
Malaysian animation industry. Malaysian animation was started in 1946 by the
founding of the Malayan Film Unit (MFU). It had made simple animation for
documentary movies, public service short film, and commercials. In 1978, Hikayat
Sang Kancil(The Tale of Mousedeer) became the first short animation film that
was made by MFU. While in 1995, UsopSontorian was the first animation series
that had been broadcasted on Malaysian television. Since then, Malaysia has had
many animation products in many categories, such as, movies(Puteh, 2001), telemovies
(Kartini, 1997), tv-series (Kumang, 2003), and feature(SilatLegenda, 1998) (Muthalib, 2007).
That phenomenon
might be impossible without the role of Malaysian Government. It was Malaysia’s
fourth Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohammad, who had pushed the animation industry
to grow as part of his grand vision to bring Malaysia to be a developed country
by 2020(Isa, 2012).Therefore, since 1994, Malaysian government
has been promoting locally made animation with local content for mass
consumption. This is also a response to the high number of foreign animation filmsbroadcasted
in Malaysia(Muthalib, 2007). The government’s policy can be seen
as counter-hegemony to the dominant at that time.However, being
counter-hegemonic in the global context has made the Government itself being hegemonic
to Malaysian animation industry.
The hegemonic
gestures could be seen from the Government’s strategies to spur the animation industry
to grow. For example, through Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM), the Government
bought half an hour animation film for US$ 12,000. In contrast, other TV
stations only could offer US$ 500. This phenomenon had attracted practitioner
to rely its production based on the government’sscheme. However, the government
price wasn’t enough to create of a world-standard animation product, let alone
to maintain its production in the long run(Muthalib, 2007).
Malaysian
government also provides grants for those who want to develop a successful
animation business. The grants are channeled through its agencies such as Suruhan jaya Komunikasi dan
Multimedia Malaysia (SKMM), Perbadanan Kemajuan Filem Nasional Malaysia (Finas), Multimedia
Development Corporation (MDeC) and Ministry of Finance.However, people will
only have the grants if they can give collateral and properties. Whilst, the
fact is that people who work in creative industry only have creativity,
talents, and intellectual property which are not recognized by the conventional
financial practices (Mohamad, 2010). Because of the scheme, many
production houses couldn’t expand their animation business.While in contrast, Upin & Ipin
was independently funded.
Besides of budget
problem, local animation industry also had been much influenced by Japanese and
the American influences. Anak-Anak Sidek (1999), Yokies (1997), and Sang Wira (1996)
have the same characteristics with the Japanese animation. It is plausible as
those products were created by Malaysian animators who had been trained by
Japanese animators.In addition, Keluang Man (1997) was basically an adapted
version of Batman and Robin (Muthalib, 2007). In contrast, Upin&Ipin has been
successful only by becoming independent from foreign influences.As it has been
pointed out that it has been created by local people, using local setting,
cultures, and values and without any foreign assistance (Deentrepreneur, 2010c).
Conclusion
This essay has
pointed out that Upin & Ipin success story is a result of a complex narrative
that can be elaborated by the theory of hegemony, counter-hegemony, and “culture
industry” concept.
Malaysian
government’s effort to spur the growth of local animation was triggered by an ideal
to uproot the dominancy of foreign animation products in Malaysia. This
phenomenon explains the hegemony of the global as well as elaborates the counter-hegemony
played by Malaysian government.
However,
the Government’s counter-hegemony has transformed itself to be a hegemonic dominant
ruling class in the local context. It has been argued that in a way to spur the
growth of local animation industry, Malaysian government set up some strategies
that make Malaysian animation practitioners are playing in the Government’s
rule of the game. Therefore, this is also a story of the hegemony of Malaysian
government towards the local animation industry.
In
the context of counter-hegemony as well, Upin & Ipin is a local animation
triumph against the domination of the foreign animation influences which brings
its foreign setting, values, and cultures. However, at the same time it is influenced
by the hegemonic ruling class through the adoption and adaptation of Disney’s business
model and through the shifting theme from Islamic to be more universal. It also has
been argued that the creation and industrialization process of Upin & Ipin is
a reflection of how cultures are commodified as explained by the culture
industry concept.
Finally,
the creation of Upin & Ipin is occurring in a dynamic and a dialectical process
of the global and the local. This is an example of the contemporary global
media.
References
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The
Entrepreneur Media EXpose - Tuan Hj Burhanuddin Md Radzi Part 3, 2010c. Directed by DEENTREPRENEUR. www.youtube.com.
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