'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.