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HE HEADLINE '€œIndonesian Students Make 3D Animated Movie to Challenge Hollywood'€ caught my attention recently. I had a flashback to my childhood, when my little brother boasted to our rich neighbor that our father would buy him a new bike if he got good grades. I didn'€™t understand why he made the exaggerated claim, but I remember feeling embarrassed.

I was similarly embarrassed when I checked out the trailer of the animated movie; it was so crappy it would be criminal to make people pay to watch it. That said, if the film producers had not hyped it as a glorious vehicle to fight Hollywood'€™s dominance, it could have ranked as a respectable effort by students who are still learning their craft.

Unfortunately, the film'€™s PR team is not alone in this trend of rallying around the flag and slapping a nationalistic label on everything, from movies to smartphone apps, clothing lines to sports events.

I am not complaining about the spirit of loving one'€™s country; I am sure there'€™s still some relevance to it even in this day and age. What concerns me is whether we are losing the ability to measure and evaluate efforts on their real merits. Today, it seems that as long as something is labeled as '€œIndonesian'€, the consensus is that it is inherently suffi cient to pass muster.

This does away with any need to go that bit further and raise the quality of our creativity; after all, we are only selling the label of nationalism and are hungry for acknowledgment and approval from the outside. Clearly, we are suffering from a collective inferiority complex.

Many of my fellow talented fi lmmakers, upon returning from international film festivals, have been asked by journalists what it felt like to '€œmengharumkan nama bangsa'€, literally to make Indonesia'€™s name smell good abroad.

Without the public'€™s knowledge or discernment, bad fi lmmakers merely have to submit their movie to obscure fi lm festivals, and then claim that it is a huge achievement for Indonesia. They then approach ignorant companies and ministries to get them to sponsor their next shoddy ventures.

Not to be forgotten is the local pop singer who tries oh-so-hard to make it in the United States, supported by millions of her social media followers who believe that their idol really is trying to do it for all Indonesians. Her name is immediately associated with the campaign to '€œgo international'€, which of course became outdated with the advent of broadband Internet.

Marketing people are to blame, too, for leaping on every chance to sell national pride. Movies are no longer judged based on their technical and aesthetic merits, but on their heavy dose of jingoism. Inspiring stories for novels and movies today tell of poor Indonesians who venture abroad to Europe or America. They are celebrated regardless of whether they really achieved anything; it was enough that they made it abroad.

There should be a national campaign to promote individual excellence, which will then automatically raise national prestige by delivering real achievements that meet global standards and innovations that can be used by anyone on the planet.

Better yet, let'€™s have a national campaign to dispense with all the nationalistic lingo and hyperbole. Although that could leave our politicians with nothing left to say. The writer is a director and screenwriter.