The Jakarta Post - Weekender

Fashion designer Ivan Gunawan’s camp antics are out of the closet and proving a ratings success on prime-time television. The latest in the long line of gender-bending Indonesian entertainers, he tells Bruce Emond about not playing it straight.

Judging the singing ability and performance prowess of the celebrities – a random assortment of mostly young soap actors and starlets – and their moms is among the secondary reasons for the popularity of Supermama Seleb Show.

It is the rest of the lineup that garners the attention on the hit Indosiar variety program. Out front on stage is irrepressible host Eko Patrio, mugging for the camera at every opportunity like a slightly sedated Robin Williams. Next up is his short, wisecracking co-host Ruben Onco, and the rotating group of judges, including singers Hetty Koes Endang, Maia Dhani and Tri Utami.

Last but not least is “Madam”, the resident fashion consultant whose ostentatious fashion choices – on any day they may include ruffles, furs, sequins, in-your-face false eyelashes and teased red hair – and run-on repartee with the two hosts keeps viewers tuning in.

Madam is Ivan Gunawan, a fashion designer who has parlayed clever comebacks and a gorgeously androgynous face into a parallel career in entertainment.

He acted in a couple of teen movie comedies, hosted a TV gossip show and, after a much-publicized weight loss, did a bit of soap acting. But even the 26-year-old Ivan, someone who appears to have considerable self-confidence, expresses surprise at the latest venture’s runaway success.

He has gone from regular celebrityhood to a full-fledged household name, which is to be expected when one is a regular on a five-hour show broadcast three times a week in this TV-obsessed nation. At the end of 2007, it was the top rated show in the country according to AGP Nielsen, with a 30 percent share in major urban centers.

So what is the deal with Madam?

“I’m just being me, not covering anything up and the makeup is part of the character of Madam,” says Ivan at his plushly decorated boutique in South Jakarta. “I think an [effeminate] character like mine is rare, because usually they are made to look ugly, they are the laughing-stock and the target of insults, which I don’t want to be. I want to be the whole package, with depth to my style.”

Always one of the easiest ways to get laughs in Indonesia has been to put a male actor in a dress and heels and have him camp it up on screen: such iconic comedy figures as the late Benyamin, Trio Warkop and more recently Tessy did it to their advantage.

The difference with them and Ivan’s Madam (as well as many of today’s group of young male emcees who spout the popular transvestite-inspired slang) is that there was no doubts about their heterosexuality.

With Ivan, the “is-he-or-isn’t-he?” question mark is always there.

“Indonesians are so stereotypical,” Ivan says with a smile. “They’re very easily deceived. They’ll never think that a macho-looking man is gay even if he is, while I just have to put on some false eyelashes and people immediately say, ‘Ah, he must be’”.

He jokes that he enjoys “playing with the emotions” of the public by camping up the character of Madam but still keeping them guessing about whose team he is actually playing on. In January, he introduced “Madam’s son”, appearing in a designer suit and with his hair slicked back.

In 2006, after the towering 1.85-meter Ivan emerged slimmer and sans makeup following a diet and fitness program, some people believed that he had changed his ways. That perception grew when he acted in one of the popular religious repentance shows, playing a transvestite who finds God.

“Actually, I was still being me, it was just that it was what other people thought was happening to me, judging the book by its cover. I was just following Madonna in always looking to reinvent myself,” he says with a laugh.

Indonesian society’s own “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy persists, even if gay men are an increasingly recognizable part of the urban landscape in Jakarta and some other major cities. To publicly admit to being gay risks derision and losing face with family and friends.

As we talk the radio is playing in the background, with a reality comedy spot called Salah Sambung (Wrong Number): today’s segment, coincidentally, has the host calling up an unsuspecting man and declaring, “Did you know your son is a bencong (sissy)?” The poor man stammers and stutters, lost for words, before he is let in on the prank.

“I always say that everybody wants to have a relationship. I don’t know who will propose to me, or who I will propose to. Of course, we all need love, and one day to have a family,” Ivan says in repeating his standard answer to infotainment journalists.

“But I don’t want to marry just for my parents. One day, without having to be told to, I will get married.”

He pauses and chuckles. “Now, whether it will be a woman or a man, I don’t know. Let the viewers and readers guess that. All I am trying to do is give my best to them.”

Ivan admits he was not a typical little boy. Toy action figures and cars or rough-housing it with the gang were not to his liking, but he found his calling with a neighbor’s Barbie collection.

He would dress the dolls up, brush their hair and, like many effeminate boys, dream a little dream about one day looking pretty like them. “I felt different very early on, really as long as I can remember.”

The youngest of three children of a diplomat, he spent most of his childhood abroad, first in Hong Kong in elementary school and then Russia. He graduated from playing dress-up to a full-fledged passion for fashion, combing popular designer stores for new additions to his wardrobe.

A sensitive young boy with a love of clothes seems like a prime target for the schoolyard bully, but Ivan says he escaped any major teasing. He returned to Indonesia in his teens and was taken under the wing of his maternal uncle, the designer Adjie Notonegoro, to learn more about fashion design.

“From the time I was a kid, my uncle already knew what my talents were,” says Ivan, who adds that he never liked studying at school. “He saw that I loved to perform, that I would give 1,000 answers to one question, that I loved modeling, fashion and celebrity. Everything, really, that has to do with being a star.”

He was spotted by the director Richard Buntario, who cast Ivan in the movie comedy Lima Sehat, Empat Sempurna in 2002. His look and style was noticed early; The Jakarta Post, in an otherwise negative review, wrote that the newcomer “managed to make the film watchable”. It was then that he started developing his prissy stage persona, including as an infotainment host.

“Indonesian people really enjoy effeminate characters but there is that hypocrisy that makes them scared of loving them,” he says. “But they like them because they are fun. An office is always livelier when you have a gay person there, it’s that special queeny touch ... If everybody was straight things would be very rigid.”

But not everybody is mad about Madam; some find the camping around a bit too close for comfort, too threatening, even embarrassing. Ivan says that his father, now Indonesia’s consul-general in Toronto, refused to watch him in the early years of his career because he said he was “ashamed” in front of his colleagues.

His father has come around to his son’s career decisions, and Ivan is close to his mother; on his 26th birthday in December, he called his mother on-air.

“I always tried to explain to my parents that not every child my age has the opportunities and the good fortune that I have,” he says. “I work according to my talents, with all my heart and I don’t want to lie to anybody ... And they can see that I have made myself somebody.”

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