When I went to the public lecture by Prof. Chua Beng Huat, I expected to find a great deal of information about Cultural Studies. The Cultural Studies for Dummies. A very impossible expectation, really, for almost all attendants in the public lecture were experts. At least, they know and have studied more about Cultural Studies than me.
The notion that Prof. Beng Huat delivered to us was challenging though. He challenged us to conduct a research of Cultural Studies in Asia by giving some researchable topics. Mostly the topics he presented took root in the popular culture.
One of the discourses that got my attention was the discussion of Indonesian sinetron. We cannot deny the fact that Indonesian sinetron rules the film marketing in South East Asia, at least in the Malay speaking countries, which include Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Southern Philippine, Southern Thailand, and Southern Vietnam. In this point, nothing can topple its domination yet.
The basic reason of the domination, Prof. Beng Huat explained, was the fact that most people wanted to see someone different from themselves. They are tired with themselves, and thus also despise seeing their own reflection as a leisure time entertainment. For example, Singaporean are tired seeing fellow Singaporean with a familiar problem and presentation in their TV Screens. Same thing happen to other countries. They wanted to see something “alien”. By seeing “alien”, they will not be able to identify themselves to the characters they are watching. When the characters do stupid things, they will be able to justify that it is done not by their fellow citizen, but by the neighboring countrymen. When the characters do something amazing, they also keep the distances, and thus providing dreaming space to the audience.
Listening to his explanation, it raised a big question mark within my mind. The same phenomenon also happen in Indonesia as well. Does this mean that the characters in our sinetron actually do not portray Indonesian? Does it mean that sinetron occupies a domain of itself? Excluded from the real cultural boundary existed in reality? Since most of our people also watch sinetron so that they are allowed to dream of experiencing the glamorous lifestyle being portrayed in the program?
The next big question that popped up in my mind was, does this mean that we are experiencing some kind of cultural identity crisis? That we need to represent ourselves in something that is not us?
On one hand, this phenomenon is nice, in terms that at least in one thing, Indonesia can prove its rule and dominance. On the other hand, this is terrible, the identity crisis is terrible. This could mean two things. First, it might be the beginning of a bigger crisis. Second, it might be the climax of identity crisis problem of our nation, which will give us a new direction to go.
Which one is which, it is up to us to decide. I would certainly vote and hope for the second one.
