Child singers come of age on TV screens
Cute moppets of both sexes slink across TV screens warbling inane ditties about their fingernails or their nagging aunt. The records sell but is it healthy to have kids grow up before their time? The Jakarta Post's Rita Widiadana and Yogita Tahil Ramani, along with Amorita of Jakarta Jakarta monthly shines a light on child entertainers.
JAKARTA (JP): She wears a black leather jacket teamed with tight pants and a pair of high-heeled boots. With heavy makeup on her young face and red lipstick on her tiny lips, she sings a song taken from her latest album while her body sways to the music just like a lady rocker.
She is not Madonna but 7-year-old Maissy Pramaishella. This energetic and charming little girl, along with other children such as Enno Lerian, Trio Kwek Kwek, Joshua, Chikita Meidy, Innez, Angie and Giovanni currently dominate Indonesia's junior entertainment world.
They are a new generation of child singers emerging after an almost 20-year interval, replacing the 1970s groups of junior artists that included Chicha Koeswoyo, Adi Bing Slamet, Ira Maya Sopha, Yoan Tanamal.
The establishment of private television stations in the early 1990s and the growth of recording companies played a very important part in paving the way for today's child artists to enter a competitive show-business world.
Almost every day, these young artists appear on television to entertain and, of course, to promote their most recent albums, targeting a preschooler to elementary-school-aged audience.
So don't be surprised to find your children sitting in front of the tube, especially between 3 p.m and 5 p.m, when most private stations shower them with children's music and cartoon programs.
Surya Citra Televisi (SCTV), for instance, broadcasts programs Ci Luk Ba and Dunia Anak (Children's World). Rajawali Citra Televisi (RCTI) has Tralala Trilili, and education station TPI screens Klab Klip.
Junior artists range from toddlers, whose verbal skills have yet to develop, well on to preteen girls and boys trying to showcase their singing talents through these programs. Some of them are quite good but many are terrible because they posses neither the talent nor vocal skills required by a singer.
People who deal with children, including psychologists, teachers, songwriters and musicians also feel concern regarding the current development of child entertainers in Indonesia.
A.T. Mahmud, a veteran child songwriter and educator, is one of them.
"The children's world represented by most of these junior artists today is far from a pure and innocent place any normal kid should have live in," said Mahmud, who composed "classic" children's songs like Pelangi (Rainbow).
He said that the lyrics in most songs do not really portray children's lives and lack educative and moral values that any child should absorb.
Some songs encourage children to mock older people, like Trio Kwek Kwek's Tante Cerewet (The Nagging Aunt), which was a favorite children's song last year.
There are also others packed with messages hardly understood by children. Aku Cinta Rupiah (I Love the Rupiah) sang by a child singer portrays the present economic crisis. But how can a child understand the message of the rupiah campaign launched by adults?
The government's development programs are also expressed in a number of songs, such as Si Komo Pulang Ke Desa (Si Komo Returns to His Village), which is charged with promoting a rurality scheme.
"These children are forced to sing "sponsored songs" without understanding the words. What they do is just perform them in an attractive way," Mahmud said.
Fauzia Azwin Hadis, a professor of psychology at the University of Indonesia, warned that many parents of these singers have the ambition to move their kids into show business.
Even if children sing horribly, their parents will keep forcing them because they feel that outside of education, this is a way of striking gold, she added.
As a matter of fact, child entertainment is a major and lucrative business for those involved.
Top singers like Enno Lerian, Giovanni, Trio Kwek Kwek and Ria Enes and her doll Susan receive paychecks of between Rp 4 million and Rp 10 million per show. Writers of children's songs also draw a lot of cash from the business. Papa T. Bob, a pseudonym of Erwanda Lukas, who wrote Si Nyamuk Nakal (The Naughty Mosquito) and Du Di Dam, receives between Rp 10 million and Rp 20 million per song. Other songwriters, like Toto Noor, Ririn S. and Harry Ch get Rp 2 million maximum, according to Theodore KS, a music observer.
TV stations profit from commercial slots. Each company pays Rp 3 million to Rp 5 million per 30 seconds to advertise their products, including candies, fast food, children's wear and holiday packages during children's programs.
Zoemrotin, a leading consumer rights activist, is worried that child artists will be exploited as "commodities" in the show business world ruled by adults who are responsible for turning innocent children into "dolls" that they like to dress up and send out to perform.
Meidy Emde, father of singer Chikita Meidy, however, refuted any charge of exploiting his daughter. "What we are doing now is channeling our daughter's music talent and interest," said Meidy, who spent Rp 130 million (US$13,000) to produce and promote his daughter's debut album Kuku (Fingernails) when she was just three years old.
On exploitation of child artists, Fauzia said there was a fine line between honing a child's skills and exploitation.
"If the child is doing something on a rigorous and regular basis only for the sake of his and her parents, that's exploitation," she said.
Author Arswendo Atmowiloto said that the problems lied with parents and other adults' failure to understand the world of children. "It is up to parents and other adults to decide whether they want to give their children the best world."