<i>Berita Filem</i> , Malay fan magazines, and modernity in the early 1960s

Abstract This article investigates Berita Filem , one of the key Malay film magazines published in the 1960s, through the lens of minor fame: a form of temporary, localized celebrity status granted to aspiring actors, beauty pageant contestants, and other participants in the magazine’s interactive features. It charts some of the ways in which Berita Filem constructed fandom as a participatory endeavour, and how that participation was tied to ideas of modernity and Muslim belonging. Fan magazines were instructive in circulating images of stars, as well as forging a sense of collective culture for moviegoers before the advent of social media. While the last decade has witnessed a proliferation of historiographies centred on fan magazines and their content, both visual and textual, such studies remain largely limited to the Global North. In aiming to close this gap, this article examines three of Berita Filem ’s regular columns, which took distinctive formats. ‘Our autograph column’ ( Ruangan autograph kita ) modelled itself after school yearbook pages, ‘Queen of Berita Filem’ ( Ratu Berita Filem ) was a beauty pageant, and ‘From heart to heart with Latifah Omar’ ( Dari hati ke hati oleh Latifah Omar ) was an advice column written by a movie star. At the core of this investigation is the question of historical readership at a time when Malaysia was a newly independent and rapidly changing nation.