'Meteor Kampus' comedians avoid pornography, prejudice
'Meteor Kampus' comedians avoid pornography, prejudice
A. Junaidi, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
For Bagja, a student at Bandung-based Padjadjaran University
(Unpad)'s animal husbandry department, his study has greatly
assisted him in planning his play for the comedy competition,
Meteor Kampus, at the Anteve television station.
Bagja's group Bedak Tabur will this week perform a 10-minute
comedy sketch against the backdrop of a pet shop.
"Because I know more about animals than my friends, I
contributed much to the planning of the play this time. Probably,
on other occasions, my friends would contribute more," the 21-
year-old Bagja told The Jakarta Post recently.
Along with four friends, Arsal, 20, Fian, 21, Jobang, 23, and
Bambang, 21, he established the group in order to participate in
the Anteve competition whose selection started in July.
Arsal, Bambang and Jobang are students of the Bandung Islamic
University (Unisba) while Fian is a Unpad student.
The group, along with others, were chosen from a total of 35
groups in Bandung, West Java, to join the preliminary selection
in July.
Asked why they named the group Bedak Tabur (face powder),
"Because many said that we are very pretty when we play the role
of women," Asral replied.
However, he revealed that the group had decided not to mock
any gender and to avoid sexual harassment and pornography in
their plays.
"If we play the role of a woman, we will play it as a woman,
not as a transvestite. If the role is a transvestite, we will
play it as a transvestite," he stated.
Another group from Bandung, Kerabat, agreed with Bedak Tabur,
saying that the group would avoid pornography, sexual harassment
and gender bias in their plays.
"We do not make jokes from people's physical disabilities, as
many comedy groups do," said Subagja, a student of Parahyangan
Catholic University (Unpar).
The 25-year-old Subagja said the group uses music, songs,
sound effects and parody as materials for their comedy.
Besides Subagja, the group consists of Anas Wirayasa, 25, a
Unisba student, Rian, 23, from Unpar, Lingga, 20, a student of
Pasundan University, and Galih from Unisba.
Kerabat and Bedak Tabur are among 12 comedy groups that have
passed a selection audition in Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta and
Surabaya for Meteor Kampus.
Starting this week, the 12 groups will compete in the comedy
reality show produced by the Avicom production house and which
will be aired live on Anteve every Saturday at 6:30 p.m.
Avicom's operational director Maman Suherman said that the
groups were required to avoid pornography, sexual harassment and
gender bias in their plays.
"They are smart students. Without using such material, they
can still make their plays smart and funny," said Maman, who is a
former chief editor of Citra and who is presently head of the
research division of the newly established Indonesian Comedians
Association (Paski).
He said the program was quite different to another competition
called "API" run by the TPI television station as his program
involved only students.
He said the students were also required to perform solo stand-
up comedy routines.
"We do not depict their daily lives as students. It's just
about them as comedians," said Maman.
He said the first, second and third winners of the competition
would receive cash prizes of Rp 100 million, Rp 50 million and Rp
25 million respectively.
Maman said winners in the preliminary selection were decided
by the judges, who are all senior comedians.
"In the grand final, the winners will be based on the number
of SMSs they get," he said.
Anteve's planning and scheduling manager Asaf Antariksa said
the winners in the competition, which is expected to cost the TV
station Rp 5 billion, would get the opportunity to perform for
the station on a regular basis.
"We could also hire them on a long-term contract. But we will
have to look at their performances first," Asaf said.