WATCHING SI DOEL To Nyak, Babe, and Abang, and in loving memory of Encang Ben van Bronckhorst Cover illustration: The krismon forced Karnos Film to shoot a scene about Doel in Switzerland on a refuse dump in Jakarta (courtesy of Karnos Film) VERHANDELINGEN VAN HET KONINKLIJK INSTITUUT VOOR TAAL-, LAND- EN VOLKENKUNDE 242 Klarijn Loven WATCHING SI dOEL Television, language, and cultural identity in contemporary Indonesia KITLV Press Leiden 2008 Published by: KITLV Press Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies) PO Box 9515 2300 RA Leiden The Netherlands website: www.kitlv.nl e-mail: [email protected] KITLV is an institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) Cover: Creja ontwerpen, Leiderdorp ISBN 978 90 67182-79-6 © 2008 Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright owner. Printed in the Netherlands Contents Introduction: Watching Si Doel, studying Indonesian television 1 Si Doel and the New Order 3 Theoretical framework 5 Previous studies on media, discourse, and Indonesian media 9 ‘Unframing’ Si Doel: The DVD 11 Part I Si Doel, a discourse of Indonesian television I From Balai Pustaka to UNICEF The mediatization of ‘Betawi Doel’ 17 Child of Betawi, the movie 22 Child of modernity 27 Educated Doel 29 Doel commercials 31 Doel’s adventures 32 Campaign Doel 34 The extended mediatization of ‘Betawi Doel’ 35 II Si Doel as a sinetron Televising the New Order? 41 Commercial television in New Order and post-Soeharto Indonesia 41 Changes in the television landscape in post-Soeharto Indonesia 44 The Indonesian sinetron as a genre and a metagenre 46 Multivision and mainstream sinetron 48 Si Doel, the first series 50 Si Doel, its sequels 64 Si Doel: Televising the New Order? 66 A discourse of Indonesian television 71 vi Contents III The making of Si Doel Shaping the face of Indonesian television 73 Localizing Indonesian television 74 Producing Si Doel: The revival of production company Karnos Film 76 The cast 77 Preparing the shoots 80 Producing the first series: The birth of a television hit 81 Post-production: Setting a new standard for Indonesian television production 83 To be continued: Reproducing the success of the first series 87 Adding the final touch: Post-production 95 Part II The languagescape of Si Doel IV The languagescape of Si Doel Creating an illusion of reality 103 The notion of ‘languagescape’ 104 The languagescape of Jakarta 105 Jakarta/Betawi Malay 107 The languagescape of Si Doel 114 Other elements of discourse characterizing Si Doel 123 Code-switching 125 Particles and interjections 126 Terms of address and personal pronouns 127 Conclusion 133 V From script to broadcasting Producing the languagescape of Si Doel 135 Writing the script 135 Performing the script 140 Improvisation 143 Editing the languagescape of Si Doel 145 The multimodality of the television text Si Doel 149 The Idul Fitri scene 153 Conclusion 157 Contents vii Part III Framing Si Doel VI Si Doel as a broadcasting asset 161 Broadcasting in Indonesia 162 Si Doel enters the world of broadcasting 163 From risk to guaranteed profit 165 Paving the way for local television: Gossip lenong 168 Ratings discourse 171 The viewing figures of Si Doel 174 Exploiting the ratings of Si Doel 178 Si Doel 4 profits from the monetary crisis 179 The Sunsilk Quiz 180 Discovering the marketability of local television 184 VII Catching ‘Doel fever’ Si Doel in the discourse of ordinary viewers and television critics 185 Si Doel in public critical discourse 186 Si Doel in ordinary viewers’ discourse: A nationwide debate? 200 The Vista-TV serialized story 204 Si Doel as exceptional Indonesian television 206 VIII Mediating Betawi identity Si Doel in Betawi discourse 209 Ethnicity as a discursive category 209 The Betawi: An ethnic group or a way of life? 211 Si Doel and the burden of representation 215 Bens Radio 223 Sinetron Betawi: NPK, Fatima, Mat Angin 226 Mediating Betawi identity 231 IX Advertising Si Doel 235 Local products, foreign advertisers 237 The Doel commercials 238 The NoPain Ginseng-Doel commercial 242 The Ramayana-Doel commercial 243 The Honda-Doel campaign 246 Parasitic commercials 254 Advertising Si Doel 256 viii Contents X Si Doel as a vehicle of language 259 The languagescape of Indonesian television 261 Si Doel evaluated in sociolinguistic discourse 264 Regulating the languagescape of national television: Article 33 271 Restricting the use of foreign languages on national television: Article 33 276 The debate on subtitling and dubbing 277 Part IV The scope of Si Doel XI Interpreting the language of Si Doel A viewing experiment 287 The reception research 289 The viewing experiment: Fuzzy interpretation at work 291 The interviews 296 The language of Si Doel is intelligible to viewers throughout Indonesia 297 The language of Si Doel is entertaining 301 The language of Si Doel is a reflection of ‘unmediatized’ Betawi Malay 303 The language of Si Doel is an advertising asset 304 The language of Si Doel threatens the development of the national language 309 Making meaning: Towards an understanding of the reception of television language 313 XII Si Doel and beyond 317 The languagescape of Si Doel 320 Mediating Jakarta Malay 322 Jakartan voices and the voice of ‘Jakarta’ 325 Television discourse in late New Order and post-Soeharto Indonesia 327 Contents ix Appendices A Design of the reception research 333 B Example of a set of forms 339 C Glossary 342 D Abbreviations and acronyms 345 E List of interviews 347 F Si Doel excerpts on DVD 350 Bibliography 357 Index 371 Introduction Watching Si Doel, studying Indonesian television In recent decades, the relationship between local, national, and global media and media products has been significantly altered through processes of glo- balization. In line with this, the question of how to preserve one’s national identity amidst the influx of ‘foreign’ programmes and techniques has come to dominate many a debate in media industries worldwide. In Indonesia, the successful local television programme Si Doel anak sekolahan (‘Educated Doel’, Si Doel for short) was often at the heart of such discussions in the early 1990s and at the turn of the twenty-first century. Si Doel is classed as a sinetron, a word that is a portmanteau for sinema elektronis, or ‘electronic cinema’. This ‘dramedy’ was broadcast between 1994 and 2003, and portrayed the daily lives of ‘ordinary’ people living in a kam- pong on the urban fringes of present-day Jakarta.1 The main character Doel, his relatives, and some of his friends belong to the orang Betawi (or ‘Betawi’ as I will proceed to call them), the native inhabitants of Jakarta. This book investigates Si Doel and the various discourse and sociocultural practices surrounding it, in an effort to disentangle the various understand- ings of ‘national television’ in late New Order and post-Soeharto Indonesia. In addition, it explores the various ways in which the media in contemporary Indonesia, particularly but not exclusively television, both shape and are shaped by discourse in society at large. In doing so, my main aim is to reveal what could and could not be said, and, with that, ‘imagined’ (Anderson 1991, Appadurai 1996) on national television and beyond in late New Order and post-Reformasi Indonesia. Si Doel was launched in 1994 by Rajawali Citra Televisi Indonesia (RCTI), Indonesia’s first and largest commercial television station. At the time of the launch, most domestic Indonesian drama series portrayed the vicissitudes of 1 On 6 October 2005, a new series was broadcast using the same crew, cast, characters, and plot lines. Owing to the changed setting and career developments of the main characters, this new series was entitled Si Doel anak gedongan (‘Corporate Doel’) rather than Si Doel anak sekolahan (‘Educated Doel’). 2 Watching Si Doel the lives of the urban elite, and therefore RCTI doubted whether a television serial of this format would interest its mostly upper-class audience. Against all odds, the sinetron became a tremendous success. Ratings suggest that Si Doel was capable of entertaining the upper segment of the RCTI audience as well as viewers who normally tuned in to rival stations, thus uniting audiences otherwise divided by class, age, gender, and ethnic background – a major achievement that no other local producer had accomplished before on such a scale. Producer Rano Karno had clearly found a formula for making television that was acceptable and recognizable for a variety of audiences nationwide. Not surprisingly, the serial became a welcome topic of conversation among viewers and played a prominent role in discussions on national television. Explaining the enduring success of this indigenous television show at the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first century, film director and media critic Garin Nugroho pointed to the quality of the cast and crew of Si Doel, its well-developed characters, and its ‘realistic’ and ‘Indonesian’ story lines. According to him the serial’s locality, apparent from the Betawi setting of the sinetron and the language of the characters, was another major asset. Nugroho characterized the serial as ‘local sensitivity in a global packag e’ (sensi tivitas lokal dalam kemasan global). Through its characters and stories Si Doel explored Betawi culture in all its facets; yet this focus on local culture was supported by professional camera work which met international stan- dards of quality.2 The success of Si Doel is similar to findings elsewhere suggesting that, pro- vided a quality choice is available, national audiences tend to prefer local pro- grammes to foreign imports (Moran 2004:4) – although preference for national products may be related to class (Crane 2002:10).