When images hurt hyper-reality and symbolic violence in Indonesian men’s lifestyle magazines

Abstract In Western culture, the practice of looking has traditionally been perceived as an act of dominance. Enacted by the male gaze, looking implies an active position, whilst to be looked at implies a passive position. However, in the case of Indonesian men’s lifestyle magazines, these practices of looking fuel the internalisation of inferiority on the part of Indonesian subjects. Emerging from its colonial past, contemporary Indonesia continues to be confronted with a persistent colonial order of things—an imaginary structure that is highly hierarchical and rooted in the colonial legacy. Notably, this colonial discourse also impacts men and masculinity. By analysing seven different men’s lifestyle magazines spanning the period from the earliest magazines published in the mid-1970s until 2015 and providing analyses of other sociocultural practices in Indonesian society, in this article I interrogate the internalisation of this colonial discourse and the symbolic violence that Indonesians enact upon themselves in the process. In order to untangle the deep-rooted and complex inlander mentality marked by colonialism, I demonstrate how doxa, in the form of hyper-reality, produce symbolic violence between spectators and spectacles.


Introduction
Seven decades after Indonesia's declaration of independence, colonial discourse and its concomitant gender-and race-specific iconography is still firmly in place and widely embraced by Indonesian popular culture. The men's lifestyle magazines available in Indonesia are crammed with images of the Westernised body as the norm. Ranging from front covers and advertisements to the illustrations used in articles and editorials, no section in the magazines is left untouched by ABOUT THE AUTHOR Desi Dwi Prianti is an assistant professor in the communication department Universitas Brawijaya Indonesia. She obtained her philosophical doctorate in gender studies from Utrecht University, The Netherlands. Her research interest covers the topic of media, gender, and cultural studies. She also considered the postcolonial state of Indonesian society as a significant factor in foregrounding Indonesia's social dynamics. Her current publication discusses the topics of masculinity, fatherhood, gender relations, and visual studies all intertwined with the experience of being colonized. Now she is also a researcher at the Centre for Culture and Frontier Studies, Universitas Brawijaya as well as part of Atgender, The European Association for Gender Research, Education and Documentation the narrative of Western superiority. Despite the diversity of ethnic groups present in contemporary Indonesia, popular media fail to represent Indonesian ethnic groups living in the Eastern periphery. While most of these ethnic groups happen to have a dark skin colour, most sectors of Indonesian popular entertainment are dominated by lighter-skinned ethnic groups-those that look most typically Westernised.
The exclusion of Indonesian bodies that do not and cannot live up to the Western ideal crystallise in the production of what are considered undesirable bodies. From their first emergence in the mid-1970s onwards, men's lifestyle magazines in Indonesia have constantly advocated the discourse of Western superiority. Not only is this discourse persistently embraced by Indonesian popular media in general-and men's lifestyle magazines in particular-it has also grown to the extent that it has become the norm. During several academic presentations I gave on the subject of men and masculinity in Indonesia, which were attended by modern educated Indonesian men and women, no objections were raised toward the idea of Western modernity as the ideal standard for life in general, and for men and masculinity in particular. It was accepted as the norm; as aspirational, leading towards a better life. Henk Nordholt's (2011) analysis of a variety of advertisements and school posters looked at the indigenous middle class during the colonial period and identified the narrative of Western modernity as a key sign of empowerment and emancipation for the colonised subject. On the one hand, Nordholt's research identified the meta-structures that exist between the modern and the traditional-in which the former implies progress and the later implies backwardness. On the other hand, it polarised the indigenous subject into those who aspire to modernity (the middle class) and those who do not. Unfortunately, neither of these categories of indigenous subjects qualified for citizenship during the colonial period. Outlining the complex psychological effects as the result of colonialism induced in the colonised subjects, Franz Fanon in Black skin white masks (1952) explained how the identity of the colonised subjects were dominated by the language and culture of the coloniser and in the process the internalised sense of inferiority inflicted on the colonised subject. When it comes to the Western(ised) male bodies portrayed on the covers of men's lifestyle magazines, we-as spectators-either fail to reject, or do not question the superiority of these bodies and taken it for granted. Throughout the article, my use of "we" and "our" is carefully considered, and its use stems from my own subject position as an Indonesian scholar. During my presentation in a discussion session held by Indonesia Students Association in the Netherland, Perhimpunan Pelajar Indonesia (PPI). One prominent comment from the audience made by one of my Indonesian colleagues working at a Dutch university illustrates this phenomenon. He tried to make a joke by pointing towards the similarity of his own physical characteristics with the Western(ised) male bodies presented as the ideal on the covers of the magazines when he suddenly realised that he could not compare himself to them, he felt he had violated the bodies presented in the magazines (see Figure 1). His self-representation, as representing a threat to the image, caused laughter in the audience-myself included. For me, his response was not uncommon, yet I was struck by the reason that it made me laugh in the first place, namely, my own inlander mentality-an internalised feeling of inferiority, upon which I will elaborate later in the article. This mentality is not only accepting of the fact that he was the opposite of what the magazines presented as the ideal 1 or ideal-lighter skin tone; pointed nose; a tall, mesomorph body-but even worse, it supports the idea that he felt he was disrespecting the ideals presented on the cover by comparing himself to them-as he considered himself to be the supposedly "inferior" being. The superiority of the Western body is utterly ingrained in him and in everything that he considers to be visually appealing. This illustrates a typical response by Indonesian subjects when forced to make a comparison between themselves and the Western ideal in which bodies, lifestyles, or other modern Western practices are presented.
Our encounter with a visual order imposed by the media-in this case, men's lifestyle magazines -is demonstrative of the ways in which images can, and do, cause harm both psychologically and physically. The mechanism in which the coloniser has used visual representations in order to do harm to the colonised has been argued by Said's (1979). According to him, the West has been fabricated the representation of the East as the primitive "other" in contrast with the civilised as a justification for the West occupation. In the Indonesian context, first exposure to Western media representations was an inherent part of a colonialism that imposed its own narratives to the extent that the colonial order of things-an (ongoing) imaginary structure that was highly hierarchical and part of this colonial legacy-became the norm (Henk Nordholt, 2011Desi Prianti, 2018. This order, to this day, normalises the hierarchy between the west (as the former coloniser) and the Indonesian subject (the colonised), in which the latter was placed at a profound disadvantage. Acknowledging the work of Seppänen (2010) on visual literacy, I use the term "media visual order" in order to refer to the structure of visual entities in media representations that are accessible via the gaze. It involves the choices made by the magazines to foreground certain physical characteristics, or to employ a specific editorial layout utilised to build their narrative-or indeed, any material that is used to articulate this narrative through visual means. Hence, by the word "image" I do not refer only to the object represented, but also to the editorial choices that surround it. Throughout this article, I will highlight the visual mechanisms that assert certain standards as the ideal, as well as elaborate upon other discursive practices in contemporary Indonesia in order to show the concomitant relation between social reality and that which the media are trying to assert.
In doing so, I will unravel the nexus between colonialism, eurocentrism, and the representation of the west in contemporary Indonesian media, specifically in the field of men and masculinity. I achieve this by posing two questions: to what extent does the representation of the west in Indonesian lifestyle magazines imply an (Indonesian) inferiority, and to what extent does the internalisation of inferiority work through this visual order? In order to answer these questions, I will offer a discourse analysis of seven different lifestyles magazines-spanning the period from the earliest men's lifestyle magazine published in Indonesia from the mid-1970s until 2015. Discourse analysis allows me, not only to uncover the associated meanings of the visual order, but also to offer insights into the cultural context of those associated meanings. Although there exist different methodologies related to discourse analysis (Jørgensen & Philips, 2002), instead of applying one specific methodological approach related to one particular discourse analysis, I use discourse analysis in Foucauldian terms. I treat men's lifestyle magazines as a site of power-as an arena in which particular narratives can be naturalised, to the degree that the reader accepts them as self-evident or, in the words of Foucault (1975), as a regime of truth. In this way, men's lifestyle magazines produce and authorise practices and knowledge regarding men and masculinity, serving as the dominant hegemonic narrative (Gauntlett, 2002). Although Foucault is perhaps the most influential thinker concerning discourse, throughout his entire oeuvre he never introduced a specific research method or design for doing discourse analysis. Hence, following Foucault's understanding of discourse, my study not only stresses power relations and power formation within specific historical periods, but also applies discourse analysis as a theoretical and methodological approach without necessarily adopting a specific technique for that analysis. In my research, I translate this into using different techniques of textual analysis, both quantitative and qualitative. The magazines analysed are: Best Life Indonesia (BLI); Da Man (DM); Esquire Indonesia (EI); Fitness for Men Indonesia (FMI); Maskulin; Men's Health Indonesia (MHI); and Men's Folio Indonesia (MFI). In addition, further texts, such as the first and most recent editions from 2018 of the sample magazines, were studied as secondary data in order to provide a broader analysis. Whilst the first question focusses on the level of message production, the second question regarding the internalisation process of our inferiority stresses the cognitive level. Writing from the standpoint of a "colonised" subject myself, I aim to unveil the psychological process that leads other colonised subjects to succumb to the colonial discourse fed by the magazines' visual order. Following Fanon's work on the wretched of the earth (1961), acknowledging the mental distraught brought by colonialism is part of the struggle to build our own culture of opposition, our own image to be free from the repression of colonialism.
Indonesia is emerging from a colonial past that implied certain standards and has been confronted with a colonial discourse that inevitably impacts men and masculinity. Despite having been an independent nation for more than seven decades now, we are still not free from this colonial order of things. Indeed, a number of sociocultural practices in contemporary society strongly evidence the existence of this colonial discourse. The vast range of magazine representations portraying the Western body as the ideal; the visual public space that is reserved for the Westernised body; the privileging of artists of European descent in the Indonesian entertainment industry; and the belief in marrying foreigners for the sake of genetic improvement, all echo our longing for a Westernised entity, as well as the internalisation of inferiority. By tracing the engineering of a colonial discourse in contemporary Indonesia, I argue that the practices of the media's visual order seduce us to legitimise and reproduce the colonial hierarchies.

The colonial discourse
The first acts of racial classification in Indonesia were introduced during Dutch colonisation. Dating from the Culture System (cultuurstelsel, also known as the Cultivation System) circa 1820, various discriminations were enacted upon Indonesia's indigenous population (Breman, 2010;Fasseur, 1997) or Tanam Paksa (enforcement planting, in crude English), as it is referred to in Indonesianwas a Dutch policy that required indigenous Indonesian farmers to grow products such as coffee on their most fertile land specifically for the European market, and for those without their own land to work on the farms belonging to the Dutch colonial administration (Breman, 2010;Klaveren, 1953). To meet the demands of the European market, several policies were implemented to ensure the indigenous farmers were able to meet the quotas imposed. These policies ranged from a brutal tax system and restricted mobility to the imposition of heavy sanctions (Breman, 2015). The farmers were not allowed to consume the products they grew for the European market. These practices marked particular beverages as "prestigious" and to be consumed only by the "prestigious" race-namely, white Europeans. These differing everyday realities were created to separate coloniser and colonised and were intentionally constructed by the Dutch colonial administration to exploit the indigenous population. One of the architects of the Culture System, J. C. Baud, once suggested: "Language, color, religion, morals, origin, historical memories, everything is different between the Dutch and the Javanese [the indigenous population]. We are the rulers, they are the ruled" (as quoted in Fasseur, 1997, p. 85). The indigenous population, considered primitive and childlike (Frances Gouda, 1995), effeminate and lacking virility (Gouda 2007), as well as traditional and lacking modernity (Nordholt, 2011), were thus not treated as citizens by the Dutch colonial government. Indeed, in the nieuw regeeringsreglement (new government regulation) of 1854, Article 109 legalised this racial classification. Based on this law, the Dutch colonial administration divided society according to a three-class racial system. The first class was comprised of Europeans, the second class being those of partial European ancestry as well as "Foreign Orientals" (Vreemde Oosterlingen), including Chinese, Arab, and Indian people. Finally, the third and lowest class was reserved for the indigenous Indonesian population, known as inlanders (Fasseur, 1997, p. 87). In contemporary Indonesia the term inlander mentality is used to describe our internalised feelings of inferiority when confronted with Western ideals. It is a widely accepted pejorative term used to refer to our state of cognition, attitude, and behaviour-considering any Western entity as better, more advanced, and "worthier"-whilst we consider ourselves as primitive, outdated, backward, and "unworthy." A prominent Indonesian writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer (2006) considered Indonesians are "still backward" (p.90) and"simply stupid" (p.102) due to their inability to think rational and the pattern of adopting foreign language into Bahasa Indonesia. Though he never considered his vilification influenced by his inlander mentality, he confessed "From my personal experience, the impact of colonialism was that in the past, we-even I-felt inferior to people from the West. I only lost my inferiority complex, because I was then living in Holland and had a Dutch girlfriend." (Toer, 2006, p. 54) In Rethinking Indonesia, Philpott (2000) describes how the narrative of the flawed (indolent, dull, lazy, backward) native served both as a moral justification for Dutch colonialism and as a model by which to justify the production of European or Western culture and identity as superior. In a similar fashion, the media's visual order -in particular, its celebration of eurocentrism-further frames this feeling of inferiority.
The discourse of supposed Western superiority lives on in the day-to-day reality of Indonesian subjects, at the cognitive level of our everyday lives. Thus, it takes more than simply a conscious intention to challenge the taken for granted fallacy of this colonial discourse. In the everyday life experiences of Indonesian subjects, the Western body is the epitome of the ideal, superior body. At the representational level, there are no public spaces that escape from representations of western bodies (including those of babies). These spaces range from billboards on high-end shopping malls (see Figure 2), premium laundry services (see Figure 3), Indonesian traditional Cajeput oil for babies (see Figure 4). Similarly, contemporary fashion magazines are crammed with images of Western bodies, leaving almost no place for the indigenous Indonesian body. Even when the latter is represented, it is either in the context of an inferior comparison such as in the before-after section, or the indigenous body has undergone digital alteration in order to look Western(ised). In a national context, official photographs of Indonesian presidents and their vice presidents, from the very first in the 1940s up to and including the seventh and current president, always show them in Western dress wearing a suit and tie. Both in colonial and postcolonial Indonesia, men in suits and ties epitomise the image of the modern educated man (Nordholt, 2011;Prianti, 2018). Yet this internalisation of inferiority is not only reflected in the visual order; it is also evident at other representational levels. For example, Vice President Jusuf Kalla in a speech once expressed support for interracial marriage between Indonesian women and foreigners for the sake of genetic improvement (Post, 2006), since pointed noses and lighter skin colour are deemed to enhance beauty. Indeed, genetic "improvement" emerged as one of the motivations held by Indonesian women pursuing interracial marriages with foreign men (Zikri Nurhadi & Yandini, 2016Marita Perdana & Nuryanti, 2015. It thus becomes evident that old colonial values did not evaporate once Indonesia declared its independence from the Dutch in 1945.

The supremacy of lifestyle magazines
Research has shown that across cultures, contemporary lifestyle magazines often function as upwardly biased comparisons and set the standard, defining what the ideal is, although that ideal is mostly unattainable and more liable to create adverse outcomes: consumptive lifestyles, negative health behaviours, and acute body dissatisfaction (e.g., Pompper & Koenig, 2004;Ratilainen, 2015;Stibbe, 2004). Thus, it is evident that we are involved in an unequal relationship with the imagery presented in lifestyle magazines. We allow them to tell us what to do-what and how to think-and we put them in a position that allows them to dictate ideals to us. Indeed, by positioning themselves as lifestyle magazines, they already assert their position as superior agents in defining a modern lifestyle. We become voluntarily subservient to them, which in turn leads us to succumb to their visual order. Interpellation itself is a process through which texts and images construct a social position for their subjects (spectators)-a position that compels them to situate themselves exactly in the way the image's message intended (Jørgensen & Philips, 2002;Sturken & Cartwright, 2009). In Indonesia, lifestyle magazines are one of the most influential agents in shaping men's knowledge of modern lifestyles, as well as introducing and defining ideals of Western masculinity.
However, interpellation does not necessarily mean that we are directly influenced by the intended messages of lifestyle magazines, as suggested by a simplistic view of the effects of media called hypodermic needle theory. This popular media effect theory was developed during the 1920s and posited that messages delivered through the mass media persuade all people powerfully and directly (Turow, 2009). On the contrary, generally speaking, we are not so easily swayed by magazine advertisements into impulsively consuming the products they advertise or diligently following their advice to improve our sex lives as argued by two step flow communication effect introduced by Katz and Lazarsfeld (2006). Yet, whilst we are fully aware of, and alert to, those intended and explicit media messages, we are more vulnerable to those that are more latent. We are weak in the face of the magazines' hidden narratives-such as the way they construct a certain social reality-due to their implicit character, which works at a subconscious level: the specific bodies they choose to put on the front cover; and the particular topics they choose to discuss in the articles. All of the hidden narratives framed by the intended messages powerfully interpellate us as spectators. We do not necessarily have to be magazine subscribers, or even readers, to believe that their narratives are representing an ideal standard.
As discussed previously, despite the diversity of physical characteristics of Indonesian people, the Indonesian popular media forms a universal narrative of the ideal desirable male body. When the media do decide to use different archetypical bodies, they seldom portray those bodies as ideal. In fact, darker-skinned Indonesians are either used as "clown" figures or as the archetype of inferiority. Ade Juwita-an Indonesian actor and comedian during the 1990s whose physical traits typified the Eastern periphery-became famous because his physical characteristics were considered the epitome of the inferior archetype (see Figure 5). 2 Notably, he was also known for his feminine attire. Leaving his self-identification aside, it is noteworthy that precisely this expression of gender and race enjoyed such popularity in an otherwise gender-normative society. Another Indonesian actor, Fanny Fadilah, gained fame and recognition for playing the legendary character of Boim, a dark-skinned, curly-haired teenage boy from the well-known teen novel Lupus who experiences little luck with women (see Figure 5). Whilst the main character Lupus plays the popular boy, his best friend Boim serves as a character to be laughed at, both due to his lack of fortune in love and his physical characteristics. The hierarchical structure related to skin colour, pervades multiple layers of social reality. It not only touches upon the issue of one's presumed physical attractiveness, but also one's intellectual capability, assumed primitivity, and social status. This is evident in the stereotypes associated with Indonesians from the eastern periphery, who tend to have a darker skin colour and are also considered to have low intellectual capacities. They are generally considered backwards and poor-despite living on the richest island of Indonesia in terms of natural resources. This stereotypical view is supported by several studies that have examined media representations of Indonesians living in the Indonesian province of Papua (Larasati, 2014;Rato, Lukmantoro, & Hasfi, 2013). The Indonesian entertainment industry tends to be dominated by men of European descent as well as "Foreign Orientals"-the first and the second categories in the Dutch class racial systemwho build successful careers in Indonesia despite only having a mediocre career or indeed no history of working in the entertainment industry in their country of origin. Not only did most of them start their careers as professional models, but they also regularly filled magazine pages, being portrayed as "ideal" men. Miller Khan-an Indonesian celebrity of Foreign Oriental descentacknowledged that he had a second-rate career in his home country until he moved to Indonesia, stated in the interview published by one of the magazine I studied -Best Life Indonesia. He frequently appeared as the cover model for other men's magazines. A similar path was followed by other male actors with prominent Westernised physical characteristics. The dissemination of the Western body's superiority as the universal narrative in Indonesian popular media exhibits the media's efforts to normalise the hierarchical structure between the desirable and the undesirable. This practice is a vicious circle, blurring the line between supply and demand, as the demand will not exist without prior exposure. The recurrent use of the same figures and the universal characteristics of the models chosen by Indonesian popular media stand testament to this fact. Thus, longing for the Western body echoes the continuation of the colonial relations between the coloniser and the colonised, yet this time the coloniser resides within us.
Men's lifestyle magazines shed light on the kinds of norms and values that are celebrated by the dominant public within a particular society. The term "dominant" here only refers to those most represented in the media and it is in this dynamic that the greatest threat of popular media with regard to representation lies. The reflection of dominant values often fails to leave any space for the representation of other values held within a given society, a point that is illustrated in only modern, white, Westernised men are allowed to have bodies in the narratives of Indonesian men's lifestyle magazines. Despite this singular representation, lifestyle magazines' narratives are no less significant in shaping everyday life discourses.

Men's lifestyle magazines as a hegemonic intervention
All of the magazines studied in this research target middle-to upper-class readers in Indonesiathose with substantial disposable income, as well as those who aspire to the lifestyles of the middle and upper classes. Whilst today the circulation of lifestyle magazines in Indonesia remains concentrated in the larger cities, during the colonial period, the low levels of literacy caused by the Dutch racial system, which restricted the indigenous population's access to education (Kroef, 1952), made access to print media only possible for the indigenous elite. In contemporary Indonesia, lifestyle magazines are designed only for those who see or aspire to a certain lifestyle as one of their basic necessities-namely, the urban middle class. This is a very small, niche market compared to the sheer size and diversity of Indonesia. However, throughout the history of Indonesia, both print media and the urban middle class have played a key role in determining national narratives (Ariel & Adi, 2001;Budianta, 2000;Nordholt, 2011).
As an additional note, I would like to highlight the magazines' capacity to create a hegemonic intervention. In explaining the relation between discourse and the social actions of individuals, Jørgensen and Philips (2002, p. 48) use Ernesto Laclau's concept of hegemonic intervention. They emphasise the struggle inherent in discourse, namely the fact that no discourse can ever be fully established; it is always in conflict with other discourses that have a different interpretation of reality, necessarily resulting in antagonism. When different discourses collide and create such antagonism, it may be dissolved through hegemonic intervention-an articulation that, by means of force, reconstitutes unambiguity (Laclau, 1993, p. 282). Both men and masculinity are, in the words of Weeks (1991), invented categories or cultural products, and we need such identities in order to be able to function in our social environment. In order to situate ourselves in relation to others, we have to define who we are. Here, the system of representation plays a role in constructing how we give meaning to both men and masculinity. Applying this concept to my research, I argue that men's lifestyle magazines work as a hegemonic intervention in defining men's identity. It fixates them on a particular interpretation of social action. Although targeting only middle-and upper-class men, the magazines' ability to promote a particular narrative of what it means to be a man has led to the naturalisation of a single perspective, leaving no space for alternative understandings, let alone for the possibility for the Indonesian middle class to change Indonesia's social narrative.
Via his concept of hyper-reality, Baudrillard (1976Baudrillard ( /2001 has explored the power of media imagery in replacing our actual experiences. This happens not only through explicit messages, but also-and more significantly-through implicit messages or the ideological content underpinning media products. In the case of men's lifestyle magazines, it is their uniform formula that is so successful in defining the modern-western(ised) entity as the ultimate and superior ideal to which one should aspire. The same mechanism by which everyday realities are repressed and replaced by a westernised ideal can be observed in the magazines' disapproval of non-urban settings, such as warung-the most common type of small, family-owned business in Indonesia. Whilst research has demonstrated that warung continue to be the most important places to get food (e.g., Minot et al., 2015), it is still considered shameful to be seen frequenting them because of their association with a rural, backwards lifestyle. The hyper-real narrative of the modern lifestyle thus pervades everyday Indonesian life-a point demonstrated in several articles (Chamim, 2016;Jayaraman, 2016;Muhidin, 2016) that, addressing the topic of "social climbing" in modern society, discuss the pressures of living a modern lifestyle as experienced by urban individuals.

The consumption of images as a form of symbolic violence
Rather than focusing on the violence of representation that is imposed upon us by the Western Other, I would now like to elaborate on the internalisation and symbolic violence enacted by Indonesians upon themselves. I believe this mechanism to be the primary reason why we continue to be subject to a colonial discourse. The media's portrayal of the west-specifically men's lifestyle magazines' portrayal of the "ideal state" of being-has involved us as spectators in a form of violence that we experienced unconsciously. The persistence of the colonial legacy-what is considered desirable and undesirable bodies throughout the history of Indonesia-is in itself a normalising force. The narrative promoted by the Indonesian media industry ensures that the violence is normalised and thus imperceptible. Whilst this may not have been surprising in a colonial context, as was shown by Nordholt's (2011Nordholt's ( , 2015 analysis of print media during the colonial period, it is, however, disconcerting that it continues to occur even after Indonesia gained independence in 1945. The magazines studied in my research were created and written by Indonesians, not least because of Press Law No.40/1999, which requires international publishing houses to either be legally formed, or build cooperation with, Indonesian publishing houses. Yet, they use the same formula in presenting the "ideal." Ironically, as spectators we subject ourselves to the narrative of our own inferiority and act as if there were no alternatives to the symbolic order between the coloniser and the colonised. Thus, not only are we subservient to the discourse of Western superiority, but we also advocate it without objection. In the context of Western feminist and cultural studies, the act of looking has been conceived of as an active practice that implies an act of dominance over the object of that looking-as evidenced by the white male gaze in media representations. Historically speaking, the consumption of media imagery has put men in a powerful position over the objects they see. Indeed, numerous scholars (e.g., John Berger, 1972;Buikema & der Tuin, 2009;Mulvey, 1975) have discussed the act of looking as superior to being the object of that looking. This is also true in the context of postcolonial studies. Said's (1979) explained how the colonial practice of looking operated. The coloniser has portrayed the colonised as "irrational", 'weak', "strange", "primitive" and other inferior criteria. In doing so, the coloniser has imposed a language and a culture, whereas cultures, histories, values, and languages of the colonised subjects have been ignored and even distorted by the colonialists in their pursuit to dominate the native. Therefore, looking traditionally implies an active position, whilst to be looked at implies a passive position. However, for spectators subjected to the visual order of men's lifestyle magazines, the practice of looking is key to the internalisation of our inferiority, as I will explain below.
Consuming images and being the spectator do not always imbue men with a position of superiority. Indeed, in the case of contemporary men's magazines, the spectator is subjected to what Bourdieu (2001) refers to as symbolic violence through the practice of looking-this time, at the images presented by the magazines. Bourdieu (2001) defined symbolic violence as "a gentle violence, imperceptible and invisible even to its victims, exerted for the most part through the purely symbolic channels of communication and cognition" (1-2) with its victims' complicity. However, this definition does not imply that power comes from below, or that the victim desires the violence (Bourdieu & Eagleton, 1992, p. 166). To capture this conceptual nuance, Bourdieu used the term "misrecognition," which points towards violence that is enacted imperceptively (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 168). From our very first encounter with magazine narratives, we are implicated in a form of symbolic violence by resting our gaze on the magazines' covers; by complying with the magazines' own positioning as the definitive lifestyle experts. We then legitimise the narrative by considering and reproducing it as the ideal. As mentioned previously, in postcolonial Indonesia the western superiority has been taken for granted to the extent that we agreed to the western standard as the "ideal". This predisposition then turns into practical action (which does not necessarily be conducted consciously) that translated into what seems like "natural" action nurtured within a particular social environment or what Baudrillard (1994, p. 9 as cited in Haryatmoko, 2016) called as Habitus. Habitus itself then works as a distinction between social class. In postcolonial Indonesia, the ability to perform a westernised lifestyle marks one's higher social status. Indeed, men's lifestyle magazines heavily advocated westernised bodily practices as a superior habitus for Indonesian men (Prianti, 2018). Moreover, in explaining how domination operated, according to Bourdieu, meaning and symbol were influential in forming symbolic violence. This is the reason why in symbolic violence the dominated accepted and unquestioned the dominant (Haryatmoko, 2016).
Generally, there are two major categories of consumer magazines-women's magazines and men's magazines-yet these categorisations do not necessarily reflect the magazines' audiences. Indeed, according to MFI's 2013 media kit and MHI's 2015 media kit, the average number of female readers of MHI, MFI, and EI is 20%. As previously stated, we do not necessarily have to read the magazines in order to be subjected to their narratives, as these can be communicated via cover pages. Indeed, Igani's (2013) research on magazine newsstands shows that our visual consumption of magazines starts with magazine retail displays, which provoke our gaze and demand our attention.
With its focus on the reproduction of culture and social power-both of which are colonial in nature-Bourdieu's works were dedicated to deconstructing domination in society. His main works on habitus, capital, arena, distinction and symbolic violence prove that Bourdieu's intellectual journey was indeed influenced by his concern for social life and social transformation (Haryatmoko, 2016). Bourdieu's original work on symbolic violence does not operate at the level of representation per se. However, studies that apply Bourdieu's concept of symbolic violence in the context of visual representation have begun to emerge. Eilerass (2007) explores the relation between representation and identification as a form of symbolic violence experienced by women during war and colonisation. McRobbie (2004) examines forms of symbolic violence found in television programmes following the so-called "make-over" format-the transformation of the self with the help of experts, often undertaken in the hope of status improvement and life change through the acquisition of cultural and social capital. Meanwhile, Richardson (2015) explores the concept of symbolic violence by comparing the work of artists who use large-scale, public, visual representations to destabilise those tropes of marginalised urban space that are considered menacing and hostile. Richardson uses the notion of symbolic violence to understand the reason people expect to see certain things in media images, questioning how these beliefs shape the ways in which individuals internalise and behave in their surroundings. Elaborating upon this, David Swartz (2011) discusses how naturalisation and misrecognition are two key elements in explaining how symbolic power can be exercised. Swartz further elaborates on the fact that naturalisation creates a situation in which dominated subjects misperceive the real origins and interests of symbolic power when they are interpellated by the dominant order. The dominated subject, therefore, accepts definitions of social reality that do not correspond to his or her best interests. Therefore, the misrecognition goes unchallenged as appearing both natural and justified (Swartz, 2011). The magazines' narratives impose particular understandings of social worlds that are deeply internalised by their consumers in the form of practical, taken-for-granted understandings, considering "the modern" as the ultimate lifestyle, and the Western body and Western habitus as an "upgrade" (Prianti, 2018). In the following section, I expose how magazines successfully interpellate their spectators, positioning them as their subjects in such a way that the symbolic violence they enact goes unquestioned.

Looking as a process of subjectification
The spectators become subject to the magazines' visual order from the very moment they rest their gaze on the front cover. By using a close-up shot and looking directly at their spectators, not only do the magazines' front covers demand to be engaged with, but they also ask their viewers to enter into some kind of imaginary relation with the spectacle (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006). Combining this with text that implies superiority-such as "the true gentleman" (see Figure 6); "the next generation leading man"; and "man at his best"-implies an imbalanced relationship in which the inferior spectator is asked to desire the image presented as superior. Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) elaborate further on the use of the frontal angle to increase the feeling of being drawn towards, and into, the spectacle. By having the spectacle look directly at the spectator, the feeling is evoked that the spectacle is part of our world-our everyday reality. The same meaning is also generated by the use of close and medium photographic shots on the front cover of magazines (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 124;Lacey, 2009, p. 21). It is here that I suggest lies the danger of hyper-real imagery-the more we believe that it is part of our everyday life, the more we see it as "reality." Images presented by the magazines ask us-as spectators-to participate via our gaze, thus implicating us into particular worldviews that provide a definitional characterisation of certain things (e.g., body, lifestyle, taste) as better than others, as well as defining the kinds of individuals who deserve those things. In this way, not only does the visual order successfully capture binary oppositions, but it also perpetuates meta-structures between those binaries. Through the visual order found in the magazines, men are categorised as either fat or thin; six pack or fat belly; modern or old-fashioned; tall or small; white or dark, etc. These descriptive categories imply secondary binary oppositions that contain various meta-structures, for example: a muscular body is the ideal body; modern is better than old-fashioned; every man wants to be tall rather than short; having a six pack can definitely boost a man's confidence, whilst a fat belly obviously makes a man's life miserable; a dark skin tone is undesirable, so whitening products are essential to get a lighter skin tone. The magazines' ability to entice and draw in spectators and then reinforce their own visual order provides the worst possible scenario for those spectators. Spectators use the magazines as their model for self-evaluation, subjecting themselves to a constructed visual order that does not reference their everyday realities-a mechanism that can be further explained through the concepts of Baudrillard's hyper-reality and Bourdieu's doxa.

Hyper-reality and doxa
Unreality no longer resides in the dream or fantasy, or in the beyond, but in the real's hallucinatory resemblance to itself.
- Baudrillard (1976, p. 148) In "The Hyper-Realism of Simulation," Baudrillard (1976) asserts the consequence of media imagery in shaping and altering our authentic everyday experiences to the point that "reality" is recognised only when it is reproduced in a simulation. Truth and reality are mediated and interpreted to such an extent that culture can no longer distinguish reality from fantasy. Baudrillard terms this blurring of mediated experience and reality, created by the work of representation, "hyper-reality." The continuous narrative of the modern Western lifestyle is in many ways detached from our everyday realm. For example, portrayals of Westernised bodies do not represent the bodies of Indonesian men, and in a similar way, the use of digital manipulation does not portray an authentic body-whether Western or Indonesian. Taking into account Indonesia's tropical climate with average temperatures of 28° Celsius, the magazines' editorials choices seem rather incongruous: "Six Styles of Autumn and Winter 2014 from London Fashion-Month," and "During [the] 1970s [the] American Army Wore It [referring to a winter coat] for Extreme-Weather Field Combat" in EI, October 2014; "Long Coat: The Esssential and the Stylish Fashion Element During Winter" in EI, November 2010; "The Biggest Fall/Winter 2014/2015 Report" in the DM style premiere issue (see Figure 7); and "Ready for Fall" in FMI, August 2012. Similarly, tag lines such as "Taste Hunter: Typical German Authentic Dishes Are Present Again" and "Hushed Brunch" in MFI, January-February 2014, lose their original context-especially as there is no Indonesian translation for the word "brunch." Hence, the narratives presented by the magazines only exist within the reality of their own simulation.
The explicit positioning of Western individuals as "the" standard began with the very first introduction of men's lifestyle magazines in Indonesia during the 1970s. For example, by using the word "maskulin" as its title, Maskulin magazine attempted to pigeonhole its readers and inscribe them into a narrative of modernity of which (Western) masculinity is an integral component. From its first edition, Maskulin regularly featured stories about Western public figures-either as in-depth style articles or as general interest articles. Not only do these articles use large, prominent pictures of Western figures, but they also contain messages advocating the superiority of Western modernity. The problem in the case of Maskulin was compounded because Western bodies were not only portrayed in sections focussing on public figures, but also in general interest articles, advertorials, advertisements, and how-to articles-every single page was crammed with physical representations of Westernised modernity. These constant acts of reproduction ultimately replace actual experience, becoming more "real" than everyday life itself-becoming hyper-real (Baudrillard, 1976).
Through these mechanisms of hyper-reality, doxa emerges-the "taken for grantedness" of prominent societal narratives. Bourdieu (1977; see also Bourdieu & Eagleton, 1992) explained the concept of doxa as those aspects of social practice that appear self-evident; aspects of the everyday that are rarely questioned. By embracing norms as evident and suitable-even if those norms are in reality destructive-populations position themselves within those structures and further legitimise them (Bourdieu & Eagleton, 1992;Bourdieu, 1977). Thus, populations become involved in forms of symbolic violence. Through the magazines' visual order, the idea of Western superiority is constructed to such an extent that it attains the status of doxic belief and is thus never challenged. Our longing for a modern Western habitus, our feelings of inferiority in comparison to Westerners, and the obedience we show towards that which the magazines position as the "ideal" all infer the continuing existence of the colonial symbolic order. Narratives of Western superiority are thus established and in turn become our own desires, to such an extent that it becomes almost impossible to discern where reality ends and doxa begins. Through narratives of representation, men's lifestyle magazines construct their own unquestionable doxa, which in turn secures the hegemonic status of the west.
In Simulacra and Simulation, Baudrillard (1994) proposed (albeit not specifically aimed at the field of photography) the hyper-real quality of simulation. Baudrillard proposed that a simulation, such as an image, can in fact bear no relation to any reality, becoming in essence a reality of its own (simulacrum). Photography lies at the editorial core of most lifestyle magazines, with cover photographs being crucial to newsstand sales (McCracken, 1993). Not only does the cover attract potential consumers and advertisers; it simultaneously functions as a branding strategy. Compared to other pictorial representations, photography is considered the most realistic form of representation. In his 1980 Camera Lucida-considered to be a canonical work on photography-Roland Barthes explains the indexicality feature of photography. Unlike a painting, which can produce fictional representations, and language, which has no direct relation to its referent, photographs portray something that was there at the time the photograph was taken (Barthes, 1980). This, however, is often not the case for contemporary magazine photography. Whereas news photography is more constrained with regard to the use of digital manipulation, magazine photography is often heavily augmented. To enhance aesthetic appeal, digital retouching is commonly used in magazine images in areas such as fashion, advertising, and celebrity photography. As a result, "everything looks better in the magazines," via a process that creates its own hyper-reality, not least because the "thing" as it appears in the finished image was never really there. For example, that perfect muscular six-pack body never existed-it was simply the magazine's promise of youth, beauty, and all the "good" things in life.
Indeed, as visual representations have the ability to construct particular social realities, they hold the most pervasive form of power in society. As such, they are capable of legitimising understandings of the social world, which are then internalised in the form of "taken-forgranted" doxic understandings. Furthermore, McRobbie (2004) demonstrates how symbolic power finds expression in everyday classifications, labels, meanings, and categorisations that subtly implement both a social and a symbolic logic of inclusion and exclusion. In terms of prevalent consumer culture within men's lifestyle magazines, this process of classification is applicable to the privileging of certain things-goods, tastes, lifestyles, representations. Making it appear as if there exists a general consensus regarding the fact that a modern lifestyle is the only possible lifestyle that must be considered as most desirable for everyone, aspiring to it is perceived as something natural and legitimate. The same is true for the ways in which the Western body is seen as more attractive in comparison to the "other" body, which is in turn seen as something lacking and in a constant state of "becoming"-aspiring endlessly to achieve "the ideal." The use of images that fetishise specific parts (or the entirety) of the male body is a common practice employed by lifestyle magazines when building their narratives. Fitness magazines such as MHI and FMI use fragmented images of the male body in order to emphasise the importance of having a particular body shape. Images of the upper parts of a muscular, nude body, weightlifting, shot with dark tones and using selective focus and lighting, dictate what we are allowed to see. The juxtaposition between the images and hyperbolic phrases such as "Form Steel Arms" in MHI (May 2008); "Sturdy Body, Abs and Steel Legs in Just Six Weeks" in MHI (June 2008); and if possible with Western references, such as "As Strong as Hercules in Six Weeks" in FMI (October 2015); and "Getting Your Arms as Big as Hulk's" in FMI (November 2015) draws the superiority of the imagery to the reader's attention. Gadget, fashion, accessory and grooming fetishes are all practices found, not only in the fitness magazines, but also in other genres of men's lifestyle magazines (for example DM, MFI, EI, and BLI). The deployment of the same photographic techniques-selective focus and selective lighting-in order to highlight the object being promoted is also found in images portraying fashion products and accessories. Texts such as "His Brilliant Career" and "The New Masculinity" in EI (October 2014); "Discreetly Elegant" in MFI (July-August 2014); "True Masculinity" in EI (November 2010); "Aging Gracefully" in DM (July-August 2007); and "The Style Guide" in BLI (November 2008) (see Figure 8) position the objects on offer as highly desirable whilst emphasising the reader's inferiority. By positioning the simulationrepresentation-that has no original-both as the ideal and as the goal, the magazines' visual order implies our state of lack, positioning looking like the simulation-i.e., Western(ised)-and having a life like those described in the magazines-i.e., performing a Western(ised) habitus-as the ultimate way to overcome our apparent lack.
Moreover, the magazines' editorial style also dictates that we are supposed to digest the information they provide. A full-page studio photographic shot of a male body juxtaposed with the magazine's masthead and anchoring texts telling men what to do, suggest to men viewing the image that they are inferior: "Get the Ideal Body" and "Modern Active Men" in MHI, December 2015; "The Secret of a Sturdy Body" in FMI (May 2015); "Men Have to Be Smart, Period!," "Gorgeous Man, Taking Care of His Appearance," "Make Your Own Style," "The Best Strategy to Prevent Obesity," and "The Sexiest Da Man Darlings Shoot Ever" in DM (April-May 2014); and "Make Her Wild: Sex-Fantasy Come True" in MHI (May 2015) all provide examples of how the magazines frame their superiority through orders, suggestions, and seductions in the form of cover mastheads and anchoring texts. Positioned as superior, it is far easier for the magazines to encourage imitation and a desire for personal distinction. On the one hand, the imitation of the superior by the inferior is built upon desires towards everything presented in the magazines in order to become the superior, whilst on the other hand, it is fuelled by the need to be distinct from the "other" body-because no one wants to be seen as inferior. These mechanisms promote a sense of lack, forcing people to want to imitate the imagery offered to them.
Taking the notion of imitation further, in 1961 René Girard introduced the concept of mimetic desire. Girard suggests that human beings constantly imitate each other's desires. Indeed, one's desire towards another's desire is a process of personal learning-we want what others want, or we want it because everyone else seems to want it (Palaver, 2013). This concept is also applicable to the realm of magazine imagery. As discussed above, the visual orders, editorial styles, and other framing techniques used by the magazines portray a single narrative-the "ideal state"-and build it up as the one superior narrative that everyone wants to achieve in life. Drawing upon Girard's concept, Falk (1994) explains the role of media representation in creating a sense of radical incompleteness-we have no idea about our desire until we see it through the gaze of others. Men's lifestyle magazines thus function as the primary driving force behind those desires. They direct our gaze towards all the "necessary requirements" in order to become the ideal being-the desire for the ideal body; the desire for luxury products; the desire to be seen; the desire for a modern lifestyle; the desire to be the ideal man. Paradoxically, this mimetic situation could result in self-exclusion from one's "own" group through a denial of one's own social identity. For example, the lightening of skin colour exhibits an innate belief that darker skin symbolises an association that they do not want to represent-unattractive, lower-class, non-modern, or indigenous. Yet, if we consider skin colour to be part of an individual's genetic heritage, any such refusal via skin lightening in order to be part of a white group represents a rejection of that heritage.

Conclusion
The vast array of photographic images in contemporary Indonesian media that (re)produce homogenous representations of the colonial symbolic order can be considered instrumental in the experience of what Bourdieu terms symbolic violence. Through the visual order presented by the (in this case, print-) media, we are regulated and subjected to the discourse of Western superiority, which implies the internalisation of our own supposed inferiority. It has become evident that the hierarchical concepts that tension the link between the west and the colonised have been built and modified throughout Indonesia's colonial history, in which the latter were afforded only the lowest position. Over decades, and in step with the expansion of men's lifestyle magazines, discourses of Western superiority have found their way into the everyday reality and cognitive field of Indonesian subjects. We adhere to doxic beliefs in a hyper-reality that has little to no correspondence with our everyday lived realities as if there were no truths other than the symbolic order between the west and ourselves as the colonised.
Whilst we have begun to understand the hierarchical meaning of skin colour and race as facets of Dutch colonialism, in today's post-independence Indonesia, our inlander mentality is compounded through the power of media representations to portray ideals and values. Images, articles, advertisements, and cover photos in glossy magazines selling ideas of western superiority all adhere to the ideals of western beauty-including gender roles. The magazines function as an arena in which the colonial legacy and its influence on Indonesian social knowledge are prolonged.
In order to untangle the nexus between colonialism, Eurocentrism, and the representation of the west in contemporary Indonesian media, specifically in the field of men and masculinity, I draw upon Baudrillard's (1976Baudrillard's ( /2001 concept of hyper-reality to explain how the representation of the west in Indonesian lifestyle magazines implies (Indonesian) inferiority. Furthermore, in order to answer how the internalisation of inferiority works through this visual order, I work with Bourdieu's (2001) concept of symbolic violence, which helped me to uncover the relationship between the spectator and the spectacle, whilst his concept of doxa allows me to make connections between the levels of production and cognition in order to justify the main premise of the article-namely, that the pervasive western imagery that Indonesian people and men in particular are subjected to, has harmful effects and compounds the inlander mentality. The practice of looking is key to the internalisation of Indonesian inferiority. Images presented by the magazines ask us-as spectators-to participate via our gaze, thus implicating us into particular worldviews that provide a definitional characterisation of certain things (e.g., body, lifestyle, taste) as better than others, as well as defining the kinds of individuals who deserve those things. In this way, not only does the visual order successfully capture binary oppositions, but it also perpetuates metastructures between those binaries. Thus, I place my emphasis not on the imperialist relationship between the coloniser and the colonised, but on the abusive relationship that exists between the work of representation and us as the spectators-a relationship fuelled by Indonesian internalisations of inferiority. Whilst this inferiority is part and parcel of colonialism, the abusive relation is a characteristic of capitalism.
I can put myself in Franz Fanon's shoes when, in The Wretched of the Earth (Fanon, 1963), he describes the psychological destruction wrought by the colonial experience. However, 70 years