Binary Inversions and Gender Fluidity in the Malay Sitcom Senario

Abstract

This article examines the performance of non-heteronormative modes of gender in Malaysia’s longest-running Malay sitcom, Senario. My close textual reading centres on two episodes to identify the show’s linkages with broader Malay socio-cultural attitudes about gender fluidity. Three facets of Senario’s non-heteronormativity are foregrounded: (1) the religio-cultural belief that gender fluidity, sexual deviancy, and non-heteronormative identities are ‘conditions’ that can be ‘corrected’; (2) that this gender ‘correction’ is a recourse that privileges the masculine, and (3) that heteronormative binary roles are sustained even when imagining inversions of gender. By correlating these performances with wider religious and cultural beliefs/practices, and historical developments, it is observed that Senario’s gender performatives were heavily influenced by, and inflected with, real-world biases towards non-heteronormative communities. This work represents a meaningful step towards addressing the present lacuna of critical scholarship on Malay television representations of non-heteronormative gender identities.