Source: The Jakarta Post
Allegations that a 9-year-old Bandung student died after being thrown down by classmates imitating the wrestlers on the show SmackDown has led to a backlash against the program and the TV station airing it.
While the exact cause of Reza Fadillah’s death has not been determined, Vice President Jusuf Kalla, State Minister for Women’s Empowerment Meutia Farida Hatta Swasono and State Minister for Youth and Sports Affairs, among many others, have slammed the World Wrestling Entertainment program that until several days ago was carried by Lativi.
Information and Communications Minister Sofyan A. Djalil also chimed in, saying the program offered nothing of value to children. All of the critics demanded SmackDown and other WWE programs be pulled from the air. They got their wish beginning Wednesday night.
Let’s look at the bigger picture. Lativi was airing the program because it drew high ratings and attracted good sponsors. So it was a matter of money for the station. But what was the excuse of the parents for letting their children watch the staged brawls, which Lativi aired beginning at 9 p.m., a time when one would assume there would not be many children home alone without adult supervision.
According to the Broadcasting Law, television stations are required to provide the public with educational, informative and quality entertainment programs. All of the stations, including state-owned TVRI, use public airwaves to broadcast their programs, which therefore should be useful and beneficial to the public.
However, there is usually a big difference between what the stations are theoretically required to provide and what they actually provide. Many entertainment programs, including local soap operas, better known as sinetron, lack anything of value and often appear to have been produced as cheaply as possible.
Before the SmackDown controversy, a great deal of attention was being paid to “pornography” on TV. Parents and community leaders were concerned about the effect kissing scenes would have on children in particular and society in general.
While TV stations became more vigorous in their editing out of anything even the slightest bit racy, they did not bother cutting out the violence from their programs.
Children are master imitators, and who better in their eyes to take after than the muscle-bound wrestlers on SmackDown.
A host’s appearance before the show, warning viewers that SmackDown is not suitable for children and that all the stunts on the show are performed by trained professionals, was of course never going to be enough to dissuade children from acting out their wrestling fantasies.
Most people, including parents and children, love to appreciate things in their final state, but tend to ignore the process necessary to arrive at that point. It would probably be safe to say very few parents ever talked to their children about how one can grow up to become a professional wrestler like the ones on SmackDown. Maybe if they had, the children wouldn’t have been so cavalier about imitating their moves.
The bottom line in the SmackDown saga is that money is behind everything. There were plenty of companies willing to sponsor the program, which was first brought to the country by RCTI.
The real question is why were so many parents so lax about protecting their children from the program. And does it really matter who’s to blame, now that the damage has already been done? Lativi’s decision to suspend SmackDown will not bring back Reza Fadillah.
Banning such program is not the solution. But to prevent future tragedies, the media, including TV stations, must resort to “self-introspection”, if not self-censorship. TV stations need to take a look at their operations and begin providing better programs for the public.
The sponsors, too, need to take some responsibility by being more prudent in selecting which programs they sponsor.
And parents must become the first and final bastion in protecting their children from the negative impacts of television. They need to tell their children what they can and cannot watch.
Open discussions involving parents, educators, TV stations, businesspeople and government officials are imperative in the future to prevent similar tragedies.
People deserve more educational, informative and entertaining programs. SmackDown is just a small example of the media’s failure to use the public space in a manner that benefits the public.