Inside the cruel everyday world of Indonesia’s popular Islamic soap operas
Religious soap operas are big business in the Muslim-majority country, where secular filmmakers face death threats from hardline viewers.
Andi is in bed dying from a mysterious illness, his body wracked by spasms, but these are no natural causes. This onslaught is spiritual punishment for, among other offences, killing his boss and seducing the dead man’s beautiful widow, Nisa.
“I will not succumb to your charms again,” intones a guilt-laden Nisa, “because I have read Koranic verses to dispel them.” Then, thanks to the prayers of a remote Islamic teacher, Andi dies, his body emitting the foul stench of a sinner.
Having achieved her supernatural revenge, Nisa is presumably burden-free, and heathen Andi is buried in a forest. Soon there is a storm and a bolt of lightning sets a tree aflame, which falls on the tomb, lighting it on fire.
“We offer our audiences a moral message that says if you do something like this, there will be consequences,” says 28-year-old Raditya Jason, the actor who played Andi in this episode of Indonesian soap operaAzab.
It is common in religious soaps in Indonesia, where Muslims make up 88 per cent of the total population of 270 million, for the all-powerful Creator to kill the antagonist – either a bad Muslim, or someone who deviates to profane beliefs. But in the latest trend of divine punishment, which began in 2018, the offender’s corpse is systematically destroyed in near-cartoonish ways with the help of thunderstorms, earthquakes, strong winds, wolves, crocodiles, tigers.
In a particularly popular episode of Azab that became the source of viral memes on social media, divine retributioninvolves throwing a body into a cement mixer, swirling it around with the legs sticking out.