High Schooler Identity: Re-examining Power Relations of Self-ImageConstruction and Rangga’s Alienation Amidst Mass Teen Culture Based on Film Rangga dan Cinta 2025
Abstract
This study investigates the construction of adolescent identity and power relations in the film Rangga dan Cinta (2025) by employing French and Raven’s (1959) theory of social power within a post-structuralist discourse analysis framework. Addressing the limited discussion of power dynamics in Indonesian teen cinema, this research conceptualizes adolescent identity not as a fixed psychological attribute but as a discursively constructed and socially negotiated process. Using a qualitative case study approach, selected scenes, dialogues, and character interactions are analyzed to examine how different bases of power operate within peer relationships. The findings reveal that dominant peer groups exercise referent, reward, coercive, and legitimate power to normalize conformity, sociability, and visibility as ideal identity standards, thereby regulating mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion. In contrast, Rangga constructs a counter-hegemonic identity through expert and informational power grounded in intellectual autonomy, linguistic control, and reflective silence. However, this resistance simultaneously produces alienation as a structural consequence of non-conformity. The study concludes that adolescent identity in the film emerges as a dynamic and contested process shaped by unequal power relations, contributing to cultural and film studies by highlighting how Indonesian teen cinema represents identity formation as a power-laden social practice.
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References
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