Who’s that guy?::A woman and her son look at a Joker movie poster in a theater in Central Jakarta on Thursday.(JP/Anggie Angela)

Indonesian moviegoers are notorious for bringing their children along to watch movies that are not suitable for their age, even though age classification for movies has been mandatory for decades.

The violent thriller Joker, starring Joaquin Phoenix, is the latest hyped-up movie ignorant parents have been going to see with their toddlers in tow, despite the fact that it is R-rated, or for adults only.

Not all parents are ignorant though. Some actually have enough common sense and are startled by the fact that taking children to watch adult-oriented films is still the norm in Indonesia.

Juvita, a mother of three, said she could not believe her eyes when she saw a woman bring her 8-year-old son along to watch Joker, which features numerous violent scenes and murder.

“The movie was great, but it is not for kids,” Juvita said.

Not only is taking a minor to a movie like Joker a concern for the well-being of the child, it also annoys other people in the audience, because children can be very noisy with endless questions and ramblings about the scenes and the action taking place.

Redempta "Reta" Manikaya, who is also a mother, called parents who bring their kids to watch adult-oriented movies “very selfish”.

During a recent screening of Joker, Reta said, she was distracted because there was a mother sitting behind her, who apparently thought it was a great idea to watch the movie with their toddler, who made lots of noise.

“I mean, come on! [Joker] is an R-rated movie, for God’s sake! I didn’t even go to the theater for two years because I could not leave my daughter at home alone,” Reta said.

Chatting children and crying toddlers are rather common nuisances at Indonesian movie theaters when compared to more developed neighboring countries like Singapore and Australia.

Many are amazed about how lenient Indonesian cinemas are in letting parents take their children to watch R-rated movies in theaters. The situation is completely different in Singapore, where the ban on children at R-rated movie screenings is strictly enforced.

Concerned moviegoers have complained about Indonesian parents’ ignorance and theaters’ leniency for years. An online petition launched in 2014 urged large movie theater chains like Cinema XXI and CGV to be stricter.

The petition was signed by nearly 6,000 people but has had no visible effect. This is probably because there is no regulation or law that requires theaters to strictly enforce movie age restrictions.

The law on age-based movie classification is Law No. 33/2009 on the film industry. It requires movie producers to pay the Movie Censorship Agency (LSF) to get the age classification rating done in order to screen movies, but it does not detail sanctions for theaters that allow children to enter screenings they are too young for.

To fill the regulatory void, LSF editing section head Abu Chanifah said a government regulation was in the works to impose sanctions on theaters that ignored age ratings.

Chanifah claimed that all related movie industry stakeholders knew about the draft regulation but representatives of Cinema XXI and CGV said the companies had never heard of it.

Cinema XXI corporate secretary Catherine Keng and CGV marketing director Dian Sunardi Munaf said separately they would communicate with the LSF once the draft is made known. Both companies claim to have done their best in preventing underage audiences through rating displays and verbal notifications.

“The parents are often fiercer than our staff [...]. Children, on the other hand, when they go by themselves without parents, will listen more to us and cancel their tickets. We do hope parents [develop] better awareness on this matter,” Catherine said.

Popular

Path cleared for WHO assembly to adopt pandemic agreement

Investors flee Tangerang

Indonesia seizes ship carrying narcotics worth $426 million