BACHELOR OF ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE AND POLICY STUDIES

ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

MOVIE REVIEW (10%):

SEPET (YASMIN AHMAD)

AM225 3B

PREPARED FOR:

DR. ZAFIFA BINTI KAMARUNZAMAN

PREPARED BY:

GROUP MEMBERS MATRIC NO.

AMALIA NAZIFA BINTI ROSIDI 2020957689
ATHIRAH BINTI ABDUL MAJID 2020970889
IZZATI BINTI ISHAK 2020970993
LIYANA FARISYA BT HAIRIN NIZAL 2020974435
ANISAH BINTI ABDUL RAZAK 2020971137
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

NO CONTENTS PAGE

1 1.0 Introduction 1

2 2.0 How does the movie make you feel? 2

3 3.0 What and how do you diagnose the problems? 3-4

4 4.0 What is the message of this movie? Agree/disagree. 5-7

5.0 Four suggestion in minimizing the issues/problems occurred based on the

5 8-10
topics that you have learned in this course.

6 6.0 Conclusion 11

7 7.0 References 12
1.0 Introduction

Sepet is a 2004 romantic-comedy with set of the backdrop of Ipoh, Malaysia, and was

directed by the late Yasmin Ahmad. The film about the love story between seventeen year-

old schoolgirl Orked (Sharifah Amani) and nineteen year-old Ah Loong (Ng Choo Seong), or

“Jason”. In this movies it focused on two young lovers cope with family and social pressure

because of their different races. We choose this movie because it tells about racial values

which is very important to be learned as Malaysia is multicultural country.

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2.0 How does the movie make you feel (5 mark)

First of all, the movie makes me feel reflective of myself because it gives me new

perspective about perception. The movie really portrays the importance and reality about

perception our society has been having within themselves towards each other. This is because

perception has many types and effects as whether we let other people know or not about our

perception once we have in ourselves. For example, it made me realise that if a person looks

like a certain way, it does not define who the person is. This is like saying a person who has

experience in participating in projects and being a leader would secure a good job in the

future. That person may have the criteria needed but personal values are also needed.

Therefore, this movie makes me rethink about how I have perceptions towards other people

in our society that are sometimes not true or different from what I thought. I also learned

from this movie that perception leads to stereotyping which is leaving a characteristic about a

group of people within our society.

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3.0 What and how do you diagnose the problems? (20 marks)

The first problem shows by this movie is about the stereotyping. As this movie is

about the love story between two races which is Malay and Chinese, therefore many racial

stereotyping shown by this movie. Firstly, there was a scene where Keong said that not all

Malays are lazy and not all Chinese people are cheats. However, Orked argued that all

Malays are actually lazy. This shows that Orked is not doing justice by saying this. By

making this kind of stereotype to her own race will make the other races believe with their

stereotypes that Malay people have that behavior. Thus, we can conclude that people are

making and tend to develop negative stereotype rather than positive one when it comes to

race. The next stereotype issue that we found in this movie is when Orked still in her

‘Telekung’ as she continues reciting al-Quran after finished prayer. People will think Orked

as a religious girl but their perception went wrong when Orked opens her closet which is full

with posters of her favorite Hong Kong star, Takeshi Kaneshiro. This contradict with our

perception about Muslim girl. Therefore this scenes tell us that we can be religious and at the

same time appreciate the other cultures. The third stereotyping scene shows in this movie is

when Jason and Keong having a conversation whereby Keong is persuading Jason so that he

will not dating with Orked as he believe that they have no common interest because of their

different races. We believe that Keong was making stereotype as he just make assumption in

a shortcut way without knowing Orked in the first place.

The next problem that we identified from the movie in scene of Orked chilling out

with Loong and his friend, Keong in food stall. At that time, Orked was amazed with Keong

as he said he can play piano. Also, she was shocked that her boyfriend, Loong love to write

poetry. Orked told them that she never thought that Chinese guys like them which earn living

by selling pirate CD in night market love to play piano and write poetry. Then, Keong ask her

not to stereotyping people.

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 Based on the scene of conversation between Orked,Keong and Loong, the problem in

this scene is that Orked made quick judgement on the initial information she received. This is

because Orked first met Loong in night market as she was looking for Chinese movie. We

can assume that Orked may thought that Loong is a Chinese man that working as pirate CD

seller and may done some illegal activities. From this problem, we can relate with perceptual

error which is primacy effect. Primacy effect can be referring as our tendency to rely on the

basis information we receive and quickly form opinion. The problem is that first impressions

—particularly negative first impressions—are difficult to change. After categorizing

someone, we tend to select subsequent information that supports our first impression and

screen out information that opposes that impression. (McShane, Young, & Ann, 2019)

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4.0 What is the message of this movie? Do you agree/dis with it? (30M)

*arguments must relate with the study of OB.

The first message of the movie is about social perception. How we perceive others will

shape our behaviour and thus, shaping the behaviour of the person we have perception

about[ CITATION UNI10 \l 17417 ]. One of the main factors affecting social perception is

stereotyping. According to [ CITATION UNI10 \l 17417 ], stereotyping is generalization based on

group characteristics. In the journal [ CITATION UNI10 \l 17417 ], the author explains that

stereotyping keeps happening because of selective perception. Selective perception means we

only pay attention to the parts that we see among other parts that we do not see. For example,

a man comes into a luxury shop selling branded clothing. He looks rather fashion less and

poor because of his cheap style. However, he came there with an intention to buy the latest

shoes edition at thousands of Ringgit just because he wants to collect it. In the movie,

Orked’s father does not like her to be friend with Jason but he likes Johari because he seemed

like a good boy. However, he did have a bad intention on Orked behind her father’s back.

Here, Orked’s father only see what he wanted to see because he was already blinded by the

fact that Johari is a Malay boy who he supposed would be a good person. Selective

perception makes us see that person based on our background. As such, Orked family is a

nice family so Orked’s father judge based on the people Jason surround himself with. For

example, Orked’s father also used to say that Jason was no good for Orked as he has

association with gangsters. But Jason is smart and decent boy who got 7As in SPM and good

in poetry too. Therefore, I agree with the message that the movie is trying to convey

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 Secondly, the message of this movie is racial stereotype. Stereotype is perpetual process in

which we assign characteristics to an identifiable group and then automatically transfer those

features to anyone we believe is a member of that group (McShane, etl, 2018). Racial

stereotype means that the stereotypes have been categorise in which it into races of people.

In this movie it highlighted the racial stereotype a scene where Keong, a Chinese boys,

said to Orked, the Malays girl, do not stereotypes people which was Malays are lazy, and

Chinese are cheater as Orked is surprise of hobbies that Keong and Jason have which playing

piano and writing poetry. However, in this movie it tried to reject those stereotypes as people

cannot be described based on their races but their personalities matters.

I do agree with the message of this movie which is racial stereotyping. This is because

racial stereotyping always occurred when people are different in terms of skin colours,

languages and so on. Those racial stereotypes not surely accurate in which it not represents

the particular races wholly but only some of the people from same races. The problem with

stereotypes is that people make decision or judgement about a particular person without

actually verifying whether the assumption holds for the person in question. As a result,

stereotypes often lead to unfair and inaccurate decision-making (Bauer, etl, n.d.)

Thirdly, the message of this movie is learning through experience. Learning can be

defined as “the process of acquiring knowledge through experience which leads to a lasting

change in behaviour” (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2010). Learning through experience means

we perceived changes in behaviour in which individual requires concrete experience with a

real organizational problem and individual reflect on their observations about the problem.

In this movies, Orked and Jason’s relationship is going good but suddenly Jason faced

some kind of problem which he needs to carry the responsibilities on his former girlfriends as

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she was pregnant. Jason wrote a letter to Orked and he explained everything, then Orked tried

to avoid meeting Jason anymore as she was frustrated with Jason. Jason felt sad as he could

not talk to Orked again.

I do agree with this message which is learning through experience. This is because when

we faced some experience that effect our lives then we will start to change our behaviour.

This can be seen from Kolb’s Experiential Learning Model which consists of concrete

experience then reflective observation and it goes to abstract conceptualization and lastly

active experimentation.

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Based on your view, give four (4) suggestion in minimizing the issues or problems

occurred in the movie based on what you have learned in this course. (40 marks)

The first suggestion in minimizing the problems occurred in the movie based on what

we have learned is by conducting diversity awareness training. Even though the stereotyping

problems especially racial stereotyping is difficult to avoid but by giving the education to

people can at least minimize or reduce the problem. We need to educate this people with the

benefits of diversity, sensitivity to equality and educate them on how to block inaccurate

perception. As we live in multiracial society, therefore this kind of strategy is important to

make people aware with the disadvantages of stereotyping so that they are willing to change

their behaviour. Imagine if this stereotyping continues, for sure it will lead to the

unharmonious society as people will keep fighting over their perception. In the context of

organization, if this problem continues it will affect employees and decrease the company’s

performance as well. For example, if people in office keep saying Malays are lazy, the Malay

employees will fell demotivated and will perform their job poorly. Therefore, if possible we

need to send this employees for the diversity awareness training as soon as possible so that

we can eliminate this problem from the beginning. We also need to educate our kids from

earlier so that the stereotype behaviour especially on the racial can be eliminated in the future

and the harmonious relationship can be created.

The suggestion in minimizing the racial stereotyping based on SEPET movie by

Yasmin Ahmad is by meaningful interaction. Meaningful interaction is defined as interaction

between heterogeneous and distributed systems that have a large impact on computing,

business and society. (Cambridge English Corpus) Meaningful interaction so important in

minimizing the racial stereotyping because when the different race is interacting with the

other races, they will get to know each other better. This can reduce the stereotyping that they

are assume or hear from the others that they are not know. Contact hypothesis is one of the

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meaningful interactions. The definition of contact hypothesis is prejudice and conflict

between groups can be reduced if members of the groups interact with each other. (Elizabeth

Hopper, 2019) Contact interaction can make the relationship with the other groups become

close. The example of contact interaction is by celebrating the festival of each other races like

Hari Raya Celebration, Deepavali, Chinese New Year, Hari Gawai and so on. As we know

that Malaysia has diversity of races and culture. To make sure each of the groups does not

stereotype with each other, we can introduce to all the Malaysian about the true colour of

each group. This way also can avoid the racism of the Malaysian towards each other. So,

meaningful interaction can minimize the racial stereotyping towards the different groups of

races and cultural.

In my opinion, the problem of primacy effect can be overcome by increasing self-

awareness through Johari Window. Johari Window was developed by Joseph Luft and Hary

Ingram which this model divides four window namely Open, Blind, Hidden, Unknown that

based on your belief, values and experiences that known to you and others. Johari Window

more direct to conversation to ourselves and others. In context of Sepet movie, Orked need to

spend more time talking with Loong and Keong about themselves and get feedback to her

about herself and offer to disclose more about herself to both of them. So, this will increase

the understanding among them and can remove negatives thoughts between them. Thus, this

will create harmoniously relationship between them.

The next suggestion in minimizing the primacy effect based on SEPET movie by

Yasmin Ahmad is diversity in having friends. If we have diversity relationship, we can get to

know the different races better. As we can see from SEPET movie, Orked has stereotype on

the Chinese in that area on not involve in the piano and poem. The perception of Orked is

totally wrong because Jason can write poem and Keong can play piano. Stereotype happen

because we do not know or deal with the unknown. This kind of stereotype happen because

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we hear from the generation or talk of the people towards the different races. We get friends

with the diversity of races, culture, background of people and origin because from this

relation we can know the actual attitude of them. This solution can avoid the

misinterpretation on each of the groups. In make sure the solution on diversity in having

friends are success, all the people need hand in hand to solve the stereotype bias. For

example, by introducing Sekolah Kebangsaan and recruits the diversity of races in the

workplace environment. This way can help the races in Malaysia are more appreciate and

care for each of them without care of the races, culture and different colours of skins. So,

diversity in having friends can minimizing the stereotyping bias in primacy effect.

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5.0 Conclusion

In conclusion, Sepet movie that directed by Yasmin Ahmad can be related to the

chapter 3 of Organizational Behavior which perception and learning in organization. This

movie portrays about people in different races, background of family, religions have negative

perception among each other’s. The director also shows that the hatefulness arises because of

lack of information about their beliefs, values and experiences that known among them.

Therefore, by increasing understanding, self- awareness, empathy between them, the

relationship will become harmoniously and there will be no social and racial pressure in the

society.

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6.0 References

1. Organizational Behaviour, (2010), University of Minnesota libraries Publishing

Edition,701 Retrieved from:

https://open.lib.umn.edu/organizationalbehavior/

2. Organizational behaviour- Learning, (2020, June 04). Retrieved from:

http://www.focusadventure.com/organizational-behaviour-learning/

3. McShane, S. L., Young, V. G. M. A., & Ann, V. G. M. (2019). Organizational

behavior. Dubuque, IA: McGraw-Hill Education.

4. Sepet: A film review, (2017, November 25). Retrieved from:

https://adiosyncrasies.wordpress.com/2016/09/20/sepet-a-film-review/

5. Cambridge English Corpus. Retrieved from:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/example/english/meaningful-interaction

6. Elizabeth Hopper, (2019) What Is the Contact Hypothesis in Psychology? Retrieved

from:

https://www.thoughtco.com/contact-hypothesis-4772161

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