Indonesian Soap Opera (Sinetron) = Poison Candy?

In Indonesia, we call it sinetron.
In other countries, people know it as TV Soap Opera.
Why do they call it “soap” opera?
It’s because the majority of corporations sponsoring the sequels are soap manufacturers.
But that is not the underlying idea we’re discussing at present.
I personally am more concerned about the content of the programs compared to the sponsors behind the films.
For over the past two decade, the soap operas that sell most and gain the highest rating in Indonesia are those that carry the issues of love-affairs, divorces, premarital pregnancy, and disputes over family inheritance – spiced up with anger, vengeance, and tear-shedding at every turn of the act.
Perhaps it’s what people want to see. Perhaps it’s just their taste. And producers simply give the society what they desire. Movie-makers in Indonesia, after all, are companies with the goal of income-making in mind.
People merely like such programs because they rarely find them in real life.
Indonesians, just to keep in mind, are people with very simple mind and paradigm. We love peace. We love monotony in life. We do our routines just to make ends meet. We don’t fuss with too many plans for the future. We don’t find anticipation our nature. We flow with the current. We live life the way it is.
So when some programs show up offering us the other side of life, telling us how unjust and cruel one can treat others, we might as well watch with wonder and amazement. It’s like finding a purple camel in the middle of an oasis.
And our people like such amusement!
Since the majority of the society loves it, production houses keep producing such programs for years and years up to the present.
The programs sell. That’s the main interest.
But here we are now, twenty years after RCTI and SCTV, two of the first private television stations in Indonesia, were established.
Have we ever notice what’s going on as we look around?
• Divorces are taking place all over the land. People are so disrespectful toward marriage these days; they can easily divorce their spouse by phone!
• Love-affairs are nothing more than natural nowadays. And there’s no need to fuss about it.
• Premarital pregnancy no longer becomes a big deal. Actresses and actors in TV do it in real life anyway. So, that gives way to accepting free sex and adultery as part of daily life.
• People cheat to gain the greater (if not all) share of family inheritance. They find a way to blind the law.
Don’t we realize that all this diminution of morality comes from what our mind has been consuming for the past two decades?
What can we expect from a society that no longer upholds justice in the court, has no respect toward the sacred marital bond, easily breaks commitments, and permitting acts of indecency in public life?
What sort of generation do we expect to spring up in the future, from today’s so corrupted society?
When we let greed, indecency, amorality and injustice keep on poisoning our mind and slip into our family lives through that brainwashing crystal box sitting in our living room, it’s unlikely for our children to live a straight and respectful life in the future – and their children after them.
It’s time to filter the programs we’re watching.
It’s time to say NO to bad and mind-corrupting television programs.
Throw those poison candies out of our family’s life!