Childism and its threats to Filipino children during the Duterte administration’s COVID-19 response
Article
While the policy responses of President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration have been subject to much criticism, little has been said about Filipino children and their families who were directly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. What is common, however, is the explicit use of the child as a metaphor to criticize Duterte’s actions. This metaphor is inherently childist and prejudiced towards children and their well-being. Thus, this paper examines the views of the media and the general public regarding Duterte and his administration, highlighting expressions of childist language. It also uncovers the systemic neglect of children under the Duterte administration, through a desk review of documents, reports, and implemented mandates that directly impact children and their families, specifically in the context of COVID-19. With these, the paper illustrates how childism and the metaphor of Duterte as a child poses a threat of neglect towards the Filipino child, resulting in policies crafted by a government and society that is prejudiced against children. Ultimately, a call to elevate the discourse is presented, urging greater care in how we contextualize children, as they are often overlooked but significantly affected by policy decisions. Reducing the pandemic response of the Duterte administration as “infantile” subverts the imminent threat of further neglecting the needs of children, which has yet to be addressed by robust government action that highlights a more responsive shift towards children’s development.
The melodramatic children: The representation of children in Ratapan Anak Tiri [Lament of Step-Children] (1973), Ratapan Anak Tiri [Lament of Step-Children 2] (1980), and Arie Hanggara (1985)
Article
The New Order’s cultural politics of development of national identity were applied to Indonesian films made during this period as a form of cinema politics. The New Order conceived of cinema as a medium for ideological propaganda which could and should be controlled in order to maintain political stability. Most Indonesian films made during the New Order regime depicted children as part of a discursive strategy to promote national identity within an ideological framework defined by theories of social development and discourses of social and political stability. This article focuses on Ratapan Anak Tiri [Lament of step-children] (1973), Ratapan Anak Tiri [Lament of step-children] 2 (1980), and Arie Hanggara (1985), melodrama genre films that featured suffering children among the main characters was the result of a narrative shift initiated to avoid political problems with the regime. The typical narrative of these films includes the representation of a family with the father figure as the apex, a demonised woman figure, and helpless children at the bottom of the family structure. Primary child characters are predominantly depicted as weak, dependent, and less imaginative. These melodrama films emphasised this pattern in their narrative by presenting an image of the state’s apparatus as a solver of family domestic problems.
