The Discourse of Celebrity Culture in Indonesia

Sunday, 14 December 2009
10.25AM
Haji Samali, Jakarta

Celebrity culture in Indonesia is a discourse that is currently emerging. One of the most recent examples is the phenomenon of political parties and celebrity candidates. You name it, PAN, Golkar, PDIP - most of these high-profiled political parties chose to affiliate themselves with celebrities (I refuse to use the more popularly used term 'artists' since not all of them produce art in the conventional sense of the word). Nevertheless, their literature findings proved that this is a phenomenon worth studying.

Last month, I moderated a seminar on 'Celebrity vs Self Beauty' where one of the speakers argued on the fact that although several celebrities may be more intelligent and argumentative than others, they still remain unqualified to speak on various political and social issues as compared to academics, experts and/or politicians.

So why do we listen to them?

His argument was that it is their attractiveness and our fetishism on the ideal concept of beauty is what engages us. And it is this uncritical and over-willingness (for lack of a better word) that needs educating.

This discourse reminds me of an episode in 30 Rock. I'd like to second Tucker Carlson's quote on this.

"Perhaps this is the state of our political discourse nowadays and that's ok. Let's embrace it."

It is the symbiosis of many shareholders that has created such a discourse. Political parties will most probably employ the most efficient way to reach voters, thus affiliating themselves with celebrities. Celebrities, on the other hand, chose smartly to switch to a political career since most of their limelight ends when they reach 30 (although in rare cases this doesn't happen, but the general trend remains so).

So then the ball lays in the audience's court.

It is one thing to give in to our fetishism in beauty and there's nothing wrong with that. After all, I argue that all art forms are indeed related to beauty (e.g. sculptures, paintings, architecture). If art is a form of cultural products then one may argue that the forming of celebrities are the forming of cultural products.

But it's another thing to mix our fetishism and our political positions.

I do not criticise the phenomenon by saying that political parties should stop using celebrities as their endorsements, because I do think these personalities gain the much needed attention to politics. I admire Angelina Jolie's work with the UNHCR and the media attention that she's successfully directed on refugee-related issues. But I do criticise the involuntary behaviour of imitation (comparable to 'latah') in the form of ill-informed voting decisions (i.e. Dede Yusuf's popularity among Indonesian female homemakers).

With the current political instability in the country visible in the ridiculous amount of new political parties (although this is a testament to democracy but it's not a testament to political stability), as a voter, I think it's mandatory that we choose on a sound basis of sufficient information, not on the fact that our favourite sinetron star is a nominated candidate.

As a media scholar, it's hard not to put the media on trial. Taking into consideration the uneven educational levels of voters, it is the media's responsibility to provide objective information on all parties and candidates (UU Pemilu). Now with the General Elections Law on media campaign, it is much more difficult for the media to cash in on political advertising.

Regardless, it is a discourse worth thinking about, for scholars, and more critically, for voters.