Dorce Show

Dorce is the name of one most popular transsexual in Indonesia. I don’t remember when he/she had operation to ‘let go of’ his/her penis and then the surgeon made a vagina for his/her genital. I don’t really know his/her private life so I don’t know whether he/she has a spouse. (Forgive me for not following the hottest gossip in Indonesia. LOL.)

He/she has become a host of one quite popular television show in Indonesia, named “Dorce Show”. This talk show has invited many people to be guests, and they come from various background. I am not one of its loyal audience of course since I don’t like watching television. However, I know this program that is aired five times a week, around 09.30-10.30. My dear Mom oftentimes watches it Therefore I once in a while know the topic of the show, especially when I am at home around that time and luckily pass the dining room where one television set is located and my Mom watches it.

Last Friday, a workmate told me the topic of this show aired one day before, September 6. A woman who has got domestic violence from her husband was interviewed. When Dorce asked her, “Will you divorce your husband?”, the woman said, “No.” The answer got a big applause from Dorce him/herself and the audience in the studio did it too. Furthermore, Dorce said, “Be patient, Bu (one greeting usually addressed to a mature woman in Indonesia, a bit similar to ‘Ma’am’ in English). God will pay you back. Just pray that your husband will realize his mistake. He will change, I am sure. And for you yourself, you will go to heaven for being patient.”

The applause and the comment from Dorce, directly or indirectly, have supported the status quo of male chauvinism in Indonesia. Besides, it will make millions women who watch the show will think that domestic violence will easily be abolished only by praying to God, no need a real action.

My friend’s story reminded me of one Dorce show I accidentally watched several months ago. There were some women as guests to be interviewed. They had the same background: their husbands were imprisoned because of doing one crime. The first woman was “interrogated”, “Will you divorce your husband?”

I knew from the way Dorce asked the question, the tone he/she used when asking that, and also from his/her facial expression, I instantly could conclude that Dorce expected the woman to answer, “No.” Unfortunately, unexpectedly, the woman answered, “Yes.” Automatically, Dorce commented, “Yes? Oh … Do you plan to get married again?”

The woman responded cheerfully, “Yes. I have got married again for several years.”

Dorce sighed, although in a tone of joking said, “In fact you are a bitch, eh?”

In Indonesian culture, it is still a common thing for a woman to be called “bitch” if she gets married again not long after getting divorced. No matter what, staying married with one man is still worshipped and the woman who undergoes it although she gets domestic violence will get a big applause from society.

FYI, as far as I know, Dorce is the only case of transsexual who got operation to “change” the genital and it was made known publicly. His/her being celebrity, his/her way to get dressed as a good Muslim woman (covering all of the body, sometimes also the head), quoting some verses from Alquran in his/her show, in my opinion, easily attracted public’s attention (seemingly, this also made people forget the fact that Dorce is a transsexual) although there are also many people who are against him/her by accusing him/her not to accept the life/sex God has chosen for him/her—a body with penis.

As a feminist, one thing that bothers my mind is that Dorce, a transsexual, where in the reality there are many other transsexual/transvestite/gay/lesbian people that are marginalized, even follows the stereotype of “good women” in this patriarchal culture. I am wondering if after the genital operation, Dorce then felt like he/she was a “real” woman, forgetting that he/she was once a transsexual so that to be accepted as a “real woman” he/she had to support the stereotype? I assume that it would be much better if Dorce joined the women’s movement, to crush the stereotype of good men and good women in the male chauvinist society.

PT56 22.40 100907

Media

Before discussing the article entitled “Media Power and the Dangers of Mass Information” in my class, I gave my students the following questions to be discussed first.
1. How many kinds of media do you know? How many of them do you usually use in your daily life?
2. What are the powers of media?
3. Mention some programs on television that are influential in the viewers’ lives.
4. Mention some programs/facilities in the internet that are influential
For your information, it was a small class, with only five students, one girl, four boys. Two of them are in the third grade of senior high school while three others are graduates of senior high school. They will start going to college in the beginning of September 2007. They are about 16-18 years old.
For the first question, they mentioned two kinds of media, printed media—such as newspapers, magazines, tabloids, and electronic media—such as television. Internet can be categorized into both kinds, printed and electronic.
What are the powers of media?
The students mentioned two kinds: positive and negative. (In fact, everything in this world always have these two contradictory things, don’t they? There are usually positive and negative aspects of everything.)
For the positive side, the students mentioned through media, people could get up-to-date information—via news shows in television, news websites in the internet, news column in newspapers/tabloids; knowledge—via educative programs such as Discovery Channel, National Geography, Learning Foreign Language program in television; entertainment—via cartoons, movies, soap operas, sport shows, etc on television, special websites in the internet, such as www.youtobe.com, www.ganges.com; profits to market their products for producers, while for consumers, they will get information about more various products.
For the negative side, the students mentioned some “conventional” things, such as people are exposed to crimes in crime news, brutal shows (in Indonesia for example “smackdown“ program), and pornography through some “indecent” programs on television or porn sites in the internet.
Some television programs that are influential in the viewers’ lives mentioned:
 Commercials
The students admitted that their life somewhat changed due to these commercials. The attraction of many produces in promoting their products successfully changed their taste. Instead of feeling “cheated” or “abused” they thanked those commercials so that they knew more various products to be used in their daily life. They did not realize that those commercials also have made them become the consumers of some products that they did not really need in the past.
 Soap operas/movies
Some soap operas—especially produced by local production houses have changed their way of life, the way they socialize, the way they get dressed, etc. Why local? Because local soap operas seem so “real” with Indonesian actors/actresses so that they do not realize that those seemingly “real” lives oftentimes are just exaggerated by the producers. Many soap operas were just copies of foreign movies/soap operas.
Does it mean that foreign movies/soap operas don’t really influence the viewers’ lives? They do too. One very distinct event in my opinion is the tendency of teenagers now hold prom nights, while in my era, we didn’t know what it was.
Besides, addiction to watch soap operas of course has changed the rhythm of their daily lives.
 News
News do not really change a lot of the viewers’ lives like the two examples above, except crime news. Crime news that are so blatantly shown on television even can give examples how to do some crimes.
 Sport shows
Apparently the five students of mine do not really like doing sports. However, they said that sport shows influenced them to gamble, which club would win the game, for example.
 Reality shows
Many kinds of “being idols” show on television obviously have changed many teenagers’ way to choose dream profession for their future. During my time, two most prestigious professions were doctor and engineer. Nowadays, the easiness to earn money by being a celebrity after winning one reality show, such as Indonesian Idol, has made teenagers lazy to study. They would prefer to dream of being a celebrity rather than to study hard to be a doctor or an engineer.

Some internet programs that are influential in the users’ lives mentioned:
 Game online
Playing game has always become one favorite pastime. If in the past people felt enough to play games in the personal computer, nowadays game online are more attractive because people can play games while looking for friends from around the world—with whom they play together.
 Emails
Sending emails must be more convenient and faster, not to mention cheaper, than sending airmail letters.
 General websites
Students get more various assignments from school that make them look for more data from this huge library—internet. Unfortunately, I see the tendency of them to only collect data and submit them to their teachers in the printed form without trying to comprehend the data first. It is inevitable for me to suspect that the teachers just need the data for themselves but they don’t have time to look for the data by themselves. If the data is really beneficial for the students’ knowledge, the teachers are supposed to ask the students not only to submit the assignment without checking/assessing them whether they understand the data they submit.
 Friendster/multiply/hi5
This “new way to look for new friends” has become more and more popular in Indonesia. However, not only new friends they get, sometimes they also can find their old friends who have moved to other cities/countries. Or, via friendster/multiply/hit they can also keep in touch with their friends, not only via emails or phones.
 www.youtobe.com
This special website has changed people’s lives because they can watch some foreign programs that are not aired on televisions in Indonesia. Indonesian people living abroad also can watch some television programs—such as “Empat Mata” show—that are promoted in this website.
 Chat online
Chatting facilities provided by the internet really make people easy to communicate with one another although they live poles apart. They can keep in touch with not only their old friends who have moved abroad, let’s say, but also make new friends.
The result of this discussion told me that the students did not realize the more subtle power of media but very influential in shaping their way of thinking in reading and interpreting texts in a form of hegemonic culture infiltrating the one they have got from the elders—such as parents and teachers.
To be continued.
PT56 11.00 020807

Media Power

MEDIA POWER AND THE DANGERS OF MASS INFORMATION
By Michael J. O’Neill

Television nowadays is not just another page in media history. It is an utterly unique phenomenon that is profoundly influencing everything we do: how we act, how we think, how we see the world, how we govern. Television alters and distorts our perceptions of reality, not only expanding knowledge overwhelmingly but also changing its very nature, resulting in enormous consequences. But how does television change our knowledge? How are our perceptions and our thinking processes being affected?
First, television alters the way we see the world. Distant events are brought into our personal horizon, influencing our feelings beyond what we might have experienced before, from football World Cup to great human disasters in India or Ethiopia. Real-time experiences are delivered into our living rooms, in a sensational manner, so that we can share the daily triumphs and tragedies of the human race. The result is a new kind of knowledge.
Second, television influences the very process of thinking and deciding in written communication, the worlds stand passive and still on the page, never moving. Our imagination must work to convert them into our versions of reality, and then our mind has to take over and reason its way toward conclusions and action. The progression is from words to reason, to conviction, to action. In the case of television, on the other hand, movement, sound and color rush actual experiences directly to the senses, forcing us to produce instant emotional reactions. The process moves from image to impression, to emotional reactions, and then to action. The reflection and reasoning, which is a part of verbal communication, are bypassed.
A third point about television’s effect is that it sometimes needs to distort knowledge because it always focuses on visual events or actions that can be photographed and issues that can be dramatized or simplified. It cannot deal with subtle, complex and abstract subjects that lie beyond the camera’s beady eye. An event can only become interesting when it comes with pictures that provoke emotions. Oftentimes, an important event is neglected because it cannot produce a moving picture while a ridiculous one becomes important since it comes complete with pictures.
The fourth note about television’s effect on our thinking is that it depends our knowledge. Its sheer volume of information overwhelms our brain’s capacity for absorption, selection and interpretation. There are always news shows, headlines, and dialogs or talks. But at the same time they create problems. Everything is chopped into tiny pieces of information and presented repeatedly, making it difficult to digest, analyze, and judge.
These changes in the nature and uses of knowledge have enormous consequences, not only for public wisdom but also for the way democracy works. Television and mass media have altered the basic relationship between the people and their government. For instance, voters can get instant access to the same information received by their elected representatives. And because television produces instant mass emotions, instant mass opinions, and then mass pressures, policymakers are forced to at without prior thought and against their best judgment. The national media are no longer just observers and messengers but lead actors in government by creating, shaping, and often distorting information. television and mass media do it by magnifying as well as reporting the conflicts of power, supporting, nagging and harassing but at the same time also explaining. This power also makes the mass media the targets of manipulation by every party and the victims of conflicting pressures, knowing and unknowing participants in the management of crisis and in the formation of policy. The mass media have become both the collaborators and adversaries of government.
The ability of the press to mold public opinion is now so great that issues and events are often shaped to serve their needs. Newsmakers modify their behavior, creating controversy, looking for more effect by refusing to have a rational debate and petition in favor of staging loud protest and demonstration. False issues and facts are created in abundance. They do not reflect reality, often displacing truth, just so it can achieve the greatest media impact and public favor.
What can be done about all this? One solution is to come up with a new kind of journalism, “preventive journalism”. It should present news in a very different way from what it is now. Instead of only describing the sensation of an event, preventive journalism should search in advance to try to identify the underlying causes of crises before they happen, rather than after they explode. This kind of journalism might give an alerted society time to protect itself from the sudden exposure to the event. It is not enough for the media to provide the videotapes of war; they should also beware of causes that might lead to war in order to prevent it. This would require a different mindset and new techniques. It would mean looking deeply into societal trends on a sustained, long-term basis, so that the public can see and hear the process that might lead into a crisis.

Michael J. O’Neill, former President of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, gave the above annual Carlos McClatchy Memorial Lecture, sponsored by Stanford University’s Department of Communication. Mr. O’Neill was Editor of the New York Daily News from 1975 to 1982; he has been a journalist for 30 years.
Adapted from: http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reporsts/99-4_00-1NR/O’Neill_Media_Power.html

Television in Indonesia

I am not a couch potato who loves to spend hours daily in front of television. However, I remember when I was in junior and senior high school (1980-1986), I liked to watch some serials—that all were imported from America—on television, such as The Saint (with Roger Moore) or Return of The Saint (starred by Ian Ogilvy), BJ and the Bear, Mannix, TJ Hooker (the primary star is William Shatner who also played in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea or old version of Startrek), and my favorite serial, The Six Million Dollar Man; I claim to undergo puppy love to Lee Majors starring as Steve Austin. (It is not clear whether I was puppily in love with Lee Majors or the imaginary character Steve Austin.) LOL. I also loved watching Little House on the Prairie with Michael Landon as Pa and Melissa Gilbert as Laura Ingalls the writer of Little House on the Prairie. During this era, there was only one television station in Indonesia – TVRI – that belongs to the government.
In 1986 after graduating from senior high school, I moved to Yogya to pursue my study at English Department of Gadjah Mada University. I lived in a boarding room and I didn’t have television so that it was difficult for me to watch it. I very rarely went to the main building to watch television although the landlady provided a television in the family room for the boarders. I recognized it as the start to ignore television in my life. The launching of some private television stations –RCTI and SCTV – did not really attract me to be a couch potato.
In 1993, after graduating from my bachelor’s degree, before getting a job, I spent some time to watch television while enjoying my role as full housewife and taking care of my little daughter, Angie. Two serials I liked to watch most were The Highlander and McGyver. I also liked watching RAVEN because Lee Majors played in it too.  I did not watch Friends and Melrose Place because they were on quite late at night, when I already went to bed to lullaby Angie and myself. LOL.I recognized that the beginning of the 1990s was the start of the booming of some telenovelas from Mexico. At first Maria Mercedez; it competed the Wild Rose and the soap opera of DALLAS. I watched Maria Mercedez, and also Marimar with Thalia as the main attraction. In the middle of 1990s, television stations started to show Japanese soap operas, starting with Tokyo Love Story. By the end of 1990s, more and more Asian soap operas became favorite programs on television.
After getting busier and busier with my job, practically I did not have leisure time to enjoy television programs.
Right now there are about ten television stations in Indonesia.
Last March 25 2007 I read a quite interesting article in one local newspaper stating that American movies no longer become the main attraction on television in Indonesia. After 2002, there have been more and more sinetrons (television serials) made by Indonesian production houses. These last two years, Korean telenovelas have caught Indonesian viewers’ hearts too.
The writer of the article questioned (or concluded?) whether Indonesian people already become dull so that they cannot differentiate qualified and unqualified television programs—especially the serials, or soap operas, or telenovelas. They will choose to watch Indonesian (or Korean) soap operas although the stories are not really interesting –not to mention educative—rather than to watch American serials, such as True Calling, Six Feet Under, etc.
What does this phenomenon tell us? Is it as simple as that by concluding that Indonesian people’ intelligence have become blunt?
First, we are not to forget that the situation now is different from one or two decades ago where there was only one television station—TVRI. It belonged to the government so that the interference of the government to decide what programs to show on television was very obvious. The very strong interference of the government in the personal lives was very strong at that time – not only to choose what political party to vote, I guess. TVRI indeed became the main media of the government to “shape” kind of citizens they wanted. When there was soap opera produced by Indonesian production house, the government had to be sure first that the story would not endanger the established position of Soeharto’s regime. By showing a lot of American movies on television, the government did not need to do strict control, except for the possibility of porn scenes.
Information Department—as one department in Indonesian government—was closed some years ago so that the government did not really have high chance to dictate what to show on television.
Second, the success of Mexican and Asian soap operas in Indonesian televisions could not be separated from the actors and actresses who have similar physical appearance with most Indonesian people so that they thought that they did not watch “dreams” on television, but something real (the main plot of Maria Mercedez was a poor girl who married a good-looking and rich young man seemed real because Thalia was not really “white”, besides the soap operas were translated into Indonesian Language, compared to, let’s say DALLAS or DINASTY.)
Third, the booming of reality show to look for “star” has changed many young generations’ ideal. Being a doctor or engineer is no longer the main goal in Indonesian’ kids nowadays compared to their “predecessors”, a decade or two decades ago kids would say, “I want to be a doctor” or “I want to be an engineer”, but now kids will say, “I want to be a celebrity”  celebrity here means as a pop star. Being an actor or actress has attracted the young generations to get lucrative profession, they do not need to pursue their education till high, if only graduating from senior high school is already enough to make them live comfortably. The abundance of the soap operas—with low quality—guarantees them that there will always be chance to make their dreams come true. By joining a reality show, they will keep their dream to be rich and popular. The production house’s owners of course do not bother to make qualified serials if they already get high profit with “so so” stories and “so so” acting technique from the actors and actresses.
Why do television stations show such rubbish on television?
Profit. They do not need to spend much money to buy movies from America.
Why do Indonesian people watch such rubbish on television?
Because they feel like they watch themselves on the roles played by actors and actresses.
PT56 13.05 050407

Soap Operas in Indonesia

There is a quite interesting article I read in one local newspaper in my hometown. It criticized some local soap operas in Indonesia that illustrate about teenagers’ life. They sell a dream to be a modern Cinderella: a girl’s life will change to be better after a prince comes to her life, especially a pretty girl who comes from a poor family, and the boy—just like a prince—comes from a rich family, who happens to be very kind, caring, generous, and bla bla bla.
To criticize the soap operas, the writer of the article used Susan Faludi’s theory called backlash. It means the effort done by people who are pro status quo of patriarchal culture, to counter the feminism movement, to go back to the era where women were not independent, because they need men to reach their goal—living prosperously. To attract those men’s attention, girls JUST need physical beauty, no other things, such as intellect and skills, especially academic skills. The writer of the article pintpoints that the soap operas sell dreams to young female teenagers, make them forget that there is a much more important thing they need to sharpen—their academic capabilities—rather than just on the surface, fair and spotless complexion, soft skin, slim bodies, beautiful hair, etc. Furthermore, the writer of the article stated that those soap operas are indeed addressed to teenagers, who are still pure, dont get “infected” yet by feminism movement, not like their elder generations.
However, I view it from a bit different angle. Susan Faludi’s theory about backlash is not really appropriate to be used here. Why? Different from many western countries, in Indonesia there are still abundant women who still don’t realize their rights to be independent women, to have exactly equal right with men, to pursue any dream they have, to choose any career they find cool, without any bounderies, such as “I am a woman, I am not supposed to be a boxer,” or an astronout, etc. When the mother doesnt realize this right, consequently, she will teach the same principle to their daughter as what they believe as “created” by God, to view many aspects in lives using their (out-of-date) perspective.
So, instead of (mis)leading the young generation back to the time when patriarchal norms rule people’s life, those soap operas just want to keep the status quo of patriarchal culture, because the fact shows that in Indonesia, until now the feminist movement is not popularly known yet. Very few of my students know what feminism movement is, they still think that the word feminist is similar to feminine.
Until now, the television world is still held strongly by men who still think it as natural for women to dedicate their life to their family (especially husbands) only, and forget their dream to make a name for themselves. Therefore, they still accept many programs from production houses that support this perspective. Many production houses produce programs to get benefit, so that they will produce programs that attract the owner of the television stations, companies that work in the advertisement’s field. And in Indonesia, it is very seldom for us to find producers who courageously produce different/contradictory programs, such as soap operas that illustrate how girls toughly face their life, without always waiting for the prince charming to come to their life, girls who actualize their intelligence, sharpen their capabilities, and get a job using those, and not just physical performance. Fortunately, I have a friend whose part time job is as a scripwriter. She never gets order to write stories that empower women using their intelligence and skills. When she writes one, no production house is willing to buy it.
PT56 23.08 141206