Entertainer Dorce goes it alone
Entertainer Dorce goes it alone
Bruce Emond, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
If acceptance were measured by how full an entertainer's schedule
is, then Dorce Gamalama is doing all right.
There are upcoming dates in Padang, West Sumatra, the province
where she was born, then a show in West Nusa Tenggara, then back
to Jakarta for various TV commitments.
She also has private engagements, called to the homes of
people like tycoon Sudwiktamono, the half-brother of former
president Soeharto, to sing a couple of songs and tell a few
jokes, pack up and head off to another date.
It's her beguiling stage persona -- teasing, sometimes a bit
edgy, with humor verging on the ribald but not quite crossing
over into vulgarity -- that has won her a place in the nation's
hearts and now brings her into living rooms as the host of
several TV shows every week.
She turns 40 on Monday, a day which she will mark with the
private publishing of her autobiography, written with cultural
observer Norca M. Masardi.
Success tastes sweet after a long, difficult struggle to the
top, during which she has had to prove herself beyond being the
country's most famous transsexual.
"I think that people see that, whatever great sin they may
think I've done by changing my sex, I haven't added to that,"
said Dorce last week.
"They can see that I'm closer to God, that I'm keeping to the
straight and narrow."
She is dressed demurely in a gray jilbab (headscarf),
decidedly different from her stage appearance of heavy makeup,
garish evening gowns and bouffant wigs.
But Dorce also knows that her popularity, her public
declarations of religion, her foundation for orphans or the fact
that, legally, she is a woman will never silence those who cannot
see beyond the issue of her gender.
Dorce, who has talked in the past about having an uncle who
hated her but whose expenses she still paid to go on the haj,
said that she took consolation from the example of Prophet
Muhammad in facing those who reviled him.
For at least 10 years she has kept to a pragmatic philosophy
of life: God will not change somebody's fate; the person must be
willing to do it for themselves.
It's a belief that comes from her own hardscrabble existence.
Born in Solok, West Sumatra, Dorce was raised by her grandmother
after both her parents died before she was a year old.
The couple moved to Jakarta, living a nomadic existence of
moving from one relative's home to another and feeling, Dorce
remembers, like "lodgers". Her grandmother died when Dorce was
eight, and she tells of picking through garbage and selling
newspapers on buses in order to get by.
In 1981, she moved to Surabaya (she identifies herself as East
Javanese), gradually building a career as an entertainer in small
clubs and bars. But it was her choice to undergo a sex-change
operation in 1984 and marry a local man that got headlines.
Until then, waria -- the polite term used for both
transvestite homosexuals and transsexuals instead of the coarser
banci -- were figures of fun, looked down upon as a highly
strung, flamboyant community whose members either became
beauticians or ended up prostituting themselves.
Even as her singing career took off, her status as a
transsexual dogged her as her defining point. When Dorce went on
the haj in 1990, a power outage provoked a stampede in a tunnel
in Minna, killing several hundred Indonesian pilgrims. The
entertainer took the blame in some quarters for "inviting God's
wrath".
But, with her newfound success and acceptance, she has put
those hurtful snipes behind her.
"God doesn't look at you as a lesbian, or homosexual or
transsexual, but at the deeds you've done and what you've done
for other people," she said.
"God created me this way, even though some religious people
will say, 'ah, look, you're an infidel'. How can they say that
when I've been a Muslim since I was born? I'm not afraid of what
people say, only what God says."
She returns to the fact that she considers herself a "real
woman ... I have breasts and a vagina, the only thing I cannot do
is conceive a child".
But she does have concerns about the way that some
transvestite entertainers, such as Tata Dado of the Silver Boys
comedy troupe and Avi, most famous from the Naif video clip
Posesif, are selling themselves by pandering to the banci
stereotype.
After so many years as an entertainer, she also has the clout
to criticize Inul Daratista, the singer whose gyrating dancing
has made her a popular hero for the man and woman in the street.
"Inul has been made big by the print and electronic media,"
Dorce said. "Long before she became famous, I supported her,
because we're both from East Java and she even calls me bunda
(mother).
"But, and it's a big but, I said to her, 'we're in a country
where 90 percent of the people are Muslim, so think about what
you're wearing'. The thing is that right now anything she does
sells ... but her experience is nothing compared to my
journey ...."
She added: "Inul is really not that good as a singer, neither
am I, but it's about her performance and the audience ... she
needs to go to a voice coach ... "
From her own career, Dorce knows that it's better to be slow
and sure in building a career than rocket to stardom and have it
all fizzle out in the proverbial 15 minutes of fame.
"Our singers have a short shelf life -- you can see that
Krisdayanti is already going down -- except for Titiek Puspa ....
But, I'm glad that my career has been step by step and it has
never dried up."
Although her marriage broke up after her husband decided he
wanted children, Dorce has raised three adopted children and now
employs 11 teachers for her orphanage of more than 1,000 children
in West Java.
She knows that she could be considered a catch for many men --
"I have a house, a car, money, who wouldn't want me?" -- but she
is more concerned about humanitarian activities.
"What I'm really interested in now is doing good for the
people," Dorce said. "I've read a lot about Mother Theresa, who
cared about others regardless of their religions. I'm a Muslim,
but we have to help others without thinking about who they are."