<![CDATA[This study examines how Indonesian teen drama films, from the New Order era to the digital age, position romantic narrative as the central conflict through which utopia and dystopia are represented. Drawing on Stuart Hall's theory of representation (1997) within a qualitative descriptive approach, seven films are read through a single five-column matrix: form of power, object of control, mechanism of control, character response, and remaining possibility. The corpus was selected according to Indonesia's political-media periodisation: Ali Topan Anak Jalanan (1977), Gita Cinta dari SMA (1979), Ada Apa dengan Cinta? (2002), Dilan 1990 (2018), Dua Garis Biru (2019), Like & Share (2022), and Dear David (2023). The two New Order films occupy the position of paternalistic dystopia, the two post-Reform films that of relational utopia, and the three digital-era films that of critical dystopia. The study argues that utopia and dystopia do not operate as a binary opposition but as an affective and discursive spectrum. What changed across five decades is not the extent of power over adolescent love, but where the possibility of living otherwise comes from: first absent, then given, and finally something the characters must bring about themselves.]]>
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