Pria Barat Ideal Menurut Pandangan Khalayak Indonesia

Abstract

Romance is a movie genre which always represents an image of an ideal man and a story that is hyper-realistic. A fictional character is always portrayed as the ideal man in an ideal relationship, convincing female viewers that both are attainable. On the contrary, this fantasy found in movies doesn‟t exist in real life and sometimes lead women viewers to make unrealistic expectations. This research, is aimed at understanding how female Indonesian viewers create images of an ideal Western man and how they are influenced by cultural differences between the East and the West. The analysis reception method was used to discover how viewers interpreted their ideal type. A Focus Group Discussion (FGD) method was used, dividing the nine Indonesian female subjects involved into two groups. The FGD was divided into Focus Group A and B. Focus Group A consists of four women, most of whom are housewives, and Focus Group B which consists of five university students. The research has shown that there are differences in how each group describes their ideal Western man. According to Focus Group A, an ideal man should be mature and have a good job, with materialism being one of the group‟s major concerns. Meanwhile, Focus Group B describes their ideal Western man as a romantic bad boy with material possessions being unimportant. Factors that have led both groups to create this image of their ideal man, include a realization that romance movies are just fantasy, which cannot be found in real life.