JP/Ben Latuihamallo

The aphorism “live every day like it’s your last” is something that comedian Soleh Solihun has abided by almost slavishly since he was a child.

“If we think too much about what’s going to happen, or what we want our future to be, we will only be preoccupied with what’s not happening, and forget about what’s here now,” said the former journalist, author and filmmaker.

Soleh has a reputation for being an incredibly laidback person as well as being a painfully honest figure, as reflected both in his writings and his standup routines.

In his newest film, Mau Jadi Apa? (What Do You Want to Be?), viewers might finally be able to understand why Soleh is the way he is.

The film, in which he is technically the star and the focus, is framed as an autobiography of the comedian’s seven years as a communications student at Padjadjaran University (Unpad) in Jatinangor, West Java — a place that he describes as “incredibly dull for people like him.”

“I went into Unpad not knowing what I wanted to do. I actually wanted to go into geology at the Bandung Institute of Technology [ITB] solely because it seemed like a manly occupation, a geologist. Unpad was my third choice, and because I was left with only that choice, me and my friends went in without any idea what we wanted to study or what we wanted to be,” Soleh says.

Even though in his childhood he had pipe dreams of becoming a soldier (“because soldiers are tough”) or a preacher (“because preachers make you laugh”), he never knew what exactly he wanted to be.  

The plot of the film revolves around this attitude while also capturing life at Unpad’s Jatinangor campus back in the 1990s. To make the film look and feel as period-correct as possible, Soleh was careful to shoot parts of the campus that existed in the 1990s and curated the soundtrack around his favorite music from that time.

Through the film, the viewer is able to see that it was mainly Soleh’s carefree viewpoint of life that ultimately shaped him into the man that he is today. He admitted that he had never had any ambitions, and that his successes in life were purely the fruits of his own instincts.

For one, his reasoning to ultimately study journalism, which in the end resulted in jobs at Trax Magazine, Playboy Indonesia and Rolling Stone, was that he thought the jackets that Unpad journalism students got looked cool, which he said “worked out for [him] in the end.”

This kind of thinking might be peculiar to some, particularly in a society that emphasizes the importance of monetary success as a result of grand ambitions. But for Soleh, such ambitions are merely obstacles to being grateful for what one has today.  

“Life should just flow on its own, because in the end, all we have is today. Tomorrow might not come,” he said.

Thus, Soleh’s path to fame went on like a wave of water being carried by a calm breeze across the ocean, resigning to the wind and always ending up at shore.

After ending a seven-and-a-half-year career in journalism that started in 2004, he has since starred in 12 films and appeared on television multiple times as a stand-up comedian in the past four years.

But his career in comedy has not always been smooth sailing.

In the past, some of Soleh’s comedic material has been the subject of criticism by netizens who felt what he was joking about was insensitive, particularly his jokes about women. As a result, he attracted the scorn of internet feminists who labeled him a misogynist and an antifeminist.

Soleh admits he is the kind of person that does not watch what he says — at least while off the air. But he insists whatever joke he is telling does not purposefully aim to offend, nor does it make him any less sympathetic to women, because what comes out of his mouth is always the first thing that comes to mind.  

“Sometimes I have a hard time distinguishing what comments I make about women [can be] seen as sexist. At least before going on the air, I try to mull over my material. In the end, I’ll always find out if what I say is appropriate or not only after I walk off stage. In which case, if it did offend, I always apologize,” he says.

He feels that with Mau Jadi Apa?, there might be some parts or dialogue that may not sit well with some politically correct viewers due to the fact the film itself is set in the late 1990s, when political correctness was practically nonexistent in Indonesia. However, one topic that is highlighted in the film is sexual harassment on campus against women by men in a 1990s state of mind.

Aside from women, Soleh has attracted the scorn of various communities in Indonesia for his painfully honest material. Another example was when he made fun of the safe-riding movement, in which he joked about the silliness and discomfort of wearing safety pads when riding a bicycle.

But despite a history of offending people with his material, Soleh feels he does not need to defend his art because in the end, if people do not agree with whatever he may say, then it just boils down to a difference of opinions.  

“If everyone spends their time scrutinizing every single thing that other people say, then you’ll just complicate your own life,” he said.

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