Female Protagonists Self-Construal in Malay Film

In the history of Malay films there are very limited numbers of films that portray female character as protagonist. U-Wei is the only Malay film director in Malaysia that has produced the most controversial female protagonist. Buai Laju-Laju is one of the four films directed by U-Wei with a female protagonist. This was U-Wei 's third film with a female protagonist but his first in the new millennium. Thus, this article intends to study Zaiton, the female protagonist of the mentioned film by U-Wei. Markus & Kitayama's (1991) self-construal theory was applied to determine whether Zaiton's self=construal is interdependent (Eastern) or the independent (Western) type. As a Malay Muslim character; Zaiton's self-construal was examined based on her responsibility as a daughter; wife and member of the society. Thus, this article intends to answer; `what is Zaiton's self-construal based on her responsibility as a daughter; wife and a member of her society in Buai Laju-Laju?' The data for this article was gathered from a fundamental research with qualitative method. The main instrument for this research was interview with the writer and director of the movie, U-Wei. Content analysis was also carried out on Buai Laju-Laju, previous literatures. The findings in this article is that Zaiton's emotion and motivation is from herself and it is not influenced by other party's point of view, emotion or objective. Zaiton has a Western self-Construal, thus this character appears to be contradictory the social norms, religion and the Malay culture.