Euphoric Indonesia: A nation of stage idols

B. Herry-Priyono, Jakarta

One day a few weeks ago, an acquaintance of mine shared a grievance about the behavior of her 14-year-old son. A few days earlier, he went with her to a friend's birthday party at a cafe. A stage was set up and guests were welcome to take a turn at the microphone. When the time came, the boy jumped onto the stage.

He began to sing in the posture and style of AFI contestants. AFI is shorthand for Akademi Fantasi Indosiar, a televised singing contest aired on Indosiar, adapted from the Mexican L'Academia.

All the guests knew that the boy's voice was hopeless. But for merriment's sake perhaps, they gave him some applause. The boy refused to get down, and the more applause he heard the more he persisted in singing in the style of an AFI contestant. Now he has no interest in continuing his education. His only dream is to get on AFI and become a star. That to him is what success is.

Singing contests are the latest craze to hit television stations in Indonesia. In following the trend, another TV station, RCTI, is airing a similar singing contest called Indonesian Idol, adapted from American Idol. The home of AFI, Indosiar, is also running AFI Junior, that is, AFI for children. Another station, TPI, has its own singing contest, called Kontes Dangdut Indonesia (KDI), with its motto "Be a Star". And a whole slew of similar programs are waiting in the wings.

The craze has spread like wildfire through Indonesia. All of the programs are shown during prime time. Indeed, we have suddenly been struck by the eerie fantasy that this nation is uncommonly blessed with an abundance of singing talent. We are entertained to the point of ennui. Of course, as expected, Indonesian tabloids and other gutter papers are capitalizing on the craze by feeding the hysterical public further crazes. A new public hysteria is born.

Where will all this lead us? Some respectable papers like Kompas, Tempo and The Jakarta Post have begun to question the merit of these fantasy programs. Nevertheless, these papers, as if caught by surprise by the whole thing, also shy away from offering us some direction. Indeed, if only for some modest concern over what deeply shapes the collective psyche of our children and youths, it is no crime to raise further questions about the issue.

First, there will never be any acceptable study on the impact of these programs on our children and youth. If a case as plain as the Buyat case (an environmental disaster in Buyat Bay in North Sulawesi) can be fiercely denied, any research on the negative impact of such TV programs, which invariably would involve less exact psychoanalytical diagnoses, would surely be dismissed as nonsense.

Predictably, the most vocal in dismissing any such studies would be those who profit most from these programs, i.e. TV stations, commercial sponsors, cellular phone providers, etc. These dismissals would also be backed by a chorus of well- intentioned-but-naive crusaders arguing that the programs are a core part of freedom of expression. Of course, no one is likely to dare face such accusations.

Second, the problem is that freedom of expression in this respect seems too lofty a term. We surely value freedom, but usually only because of what it is we have the freedom to do. So, the importance of freedom of religion, for instance, derives entirely from the importance of religion, and not from the importance of freedom.

Seen from this cautious angle, things start to bog down. What sort of freedom is so significantly embodied in programs like KDI or AFI? If any, it is less likely to do with the freedom of expression than with the freedom of media businesses to create whatever programs they want to yield the highest number of commercial advertisements.

Second test: If indeed these fantasy programs are inseparable from freedom of expression, why not hold the contests in Monas Park and not televise them? So, on closer scrutiny, things are not what they first appear.

Third, behind the veil of freedom of expression, what seems to happen is rather odd. These programs have become an extremely powerful societal force in instilling into the minds of our children and youth a bizarre definition of success. Success is about being stage celebrities, stage idols and stage performers.

More than a decade ago, a keen observer of the condition of our cultural space offered this incisive comment: "Television has probably contributed as much as bribery to the degradation of civic virtue. It has invited and projected on to the ... stage a set of self-promoting personalities concerned above all else to get themselves noticed and admired, in total contradiction with the values of unspectacular devotion to the public interest ...."

This was suggested in 1991 by the late Pierre Bourdieu, that great French scholar, who was deeply concerned about the abysmal state of our public space and media in carrying out the civilizing project for society.

This verdict may have been given in a rather different context, but it is likely to ring a loud bell to the latest hysteria engulfing Indonesian television. The craze, of course, is taking place in tandem with other, more bizarre, programs aired during prime time: Orgies of violence, gossip, horror, programs on ghouls and supernatural beings, and the like.

Public culture is a very elusive issue. I don't think that censoring such programs is a virtue. I was fortunate enough, however, to experience living many years in Europe to witness how concerned citizen groups jealously guarded the quality of programs shown to the general public, on air as well as on screens -- of course, private cable stations are another matter. They never see it as nonsense to regulate the quality of prime- time television programs.

Indeed, they know that their nations have to remain competitive. In safeguarding this goal, they do not want their public television stations (private or government-owned) to instill into the minds of the general public the idea that success is about being stage entertainers. Perhaps here lies our latest cultural predicament: the hysteria created by these singing contest programs reflects our journey toward being a nation of entertainers, and nothing else.

The writer is a postgraduate lecturer at the Driyarkara School of Philosophy, Jakarta.