Love is still the favorite theme of local soap-opera makers, and usually their stories are about conflicts between couples, husbands and wives or lovers, and a third party, where various hostile scenarios and strategies are applied to beat their "opponents".

Another common theme is the battle between bad guys and good guys competing for inheritance, positions or girls.

The bad guys are always pictured, not only as very strong, smart and powerful, but also as very tricky and evil - having no good side at all and using all means at their disposal to put their victims into trouble.

Conversely, the good guys are generally weak and disempowered so that praying to God is their only weapon. At the end of the story, God usually answers their prayers by having the bad guys defeated coincidentally, such as through accidents, illness or by being struck by lightning.

Soap opera storylines are also sometimes colored with mystical nuances, where bad guys use supernatural powers and the good guys are helped by religious teachers who bring beads and recite incantations or verses from the holy book to exorcise demons.

Taking a closer look, it is common to see violence, either physically or symbolically. There are many scenes where parents and kids or husbands and wives shout at each other; where men threaten others physically, and various kinds of humiliation take place. Contrarily, simple conversations where people speak politely to each other and use normal language are sometimes rare.

Actors and actresses involved in these soap operas are also typically extraordinary in two extremes: they are either very handsome or beautiful, or very ugly and have strange physical appearances. In the first category, mixed-race boys and girls, or men and women, have big chances of becoming soap-opera stars. This is why when we watch local soap opera, especially in terms of the cast, sometimes they look likes a mixture of Hollywood, Bollywood and Mandarin soap operas. On the other hand, male actors who dress, talk and act like females are also dominant in some occasions.

Besides local soap operas, reality TV shows and gossip shows also take up a significant portion of local TV airtime. Several reality shows tell us about struggles to survive, or generosity in helping or sharing with poor people. Unfortunately, a bigger portion of them, such as the gossip shows, concern family conflicts and infidelity, or singing competitions among public figures supported by moms and commented on by female-looking males, or competitions between public figures and their moms in weird games.

TV is not just about entertainment, since it is also a reflection of our faces and identity. It even represents our beliefs and values, as well as the quality of our cultural capital. Most of our TV programs picture our society as a group of hedonistic people who try to fulfill their desires and interests as quickly as possible, by any means and at any cost.

Maybe these toxic programs have little impact on adults, with good educations and from well-off socio-economic backgrounds in big cities. But let's consider their implications on children raised by maids who watch TV when their parents are at work, or among people in rural and remote areas who have no means to assess the legitimacy of "realities" they see on TV.

On the one hand, TV programmers use ratings as major consideration in deciding which programs are in and which are out. So, like it or not, we have to admit that the local soap operas, reality TV and gossip shows discussed above exist because they are still well-accepted by the majority of viewers. But we have to question the credibility and dignity of TV station owners. Do they still have idealism to be the "agents of change" that transform this society into a better civilization? Or, are they just homo economicus, or economic animals, who will do anything and everything for nothing but money?

Whatever the answer is, we, civil society, cannot leave our fate to the government and TV industry since it has been proven in many cases that they make decisions based on weird logic. So, we have to wake up and speak up to force the TV industry to consider not only business interests, but also social, cultural and spiritual values - very seriously, in producing any TV programs.

If frequent demonstrations were organized to protest government policies on increasing gasoline prices or to condemn terrorism, then much bigger demonstrations probably have to be organized consistently to ensure that government and TV industry players take us seriously and remove the garbage and poison from our TVs, and start providing more smart and healthy programs.

The writer is a post-graduate student at School of Sociology, University of Indonesia.

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