By Siti Fatimah Ayuningdyah

Back in September 2009, local media in Indonesia reported that renowned Japanese adult film star Maria Ozawa, a.k.a. Miyabi, was to star on a local movie. Predictably, all Indonesian males whooped ecstatically. The internet was abuzz. Miyabi was on the tips of eager fingers itching to google her every inch. So what happen once Miyabi arrived? Well, nothing actually. Miyabi didn’t even get a chance to step on Indonesian soil, thanks to Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI) and its notorious protests.

Let’s fast forward to December 2009. A movie titled “Suster Keramas” had just been released to across major cinemas in the country. The main star, Rin Sakuragi, is also a Japanese adult film star, though decidedly a more unknown counterpart than the internationally renowned Miyabi. The “official” genre of the movie is horror, but ghosts and creepy background music account for only 30% of the movie.The other 70% showed Sakuragi walking around with minimal clothing, making out with another actress, baring her breasts, and sucking an ice pop suggestively while the male characters watched slackjawed. In short, “Suster Keramas” is softcore porn, plain and simple.

Joko Anwar conducted a brief interview with Abbe Ace, scriptwriter for “Suster Keramas”, via twitter inviting his followers to tweet interview questions. To get a sense of what “Suster Keramas” is all about, this is a brief glimpse of his interview:

Yet, the movie that Miyabi were set to make would not rival Sakuragi’s exploits in “Suster Keramas”. Interestingly enough, the movie Miyabi was supposed to feature in was not, in any way, porny. Not even close. The script “Menculik Miyabi” (“Kidnapping Miyabi”) was written by Raditya Dika, a young Indonesian author famous for the “Kambing Jantan” book, who repeatedly insisted that the movie was meant to be free of any porn elements. “The movie is a comedy. These days we see a lot of comedies merged with sex. I personally hate the combination of those two, and horror. I don’t want any porn elements in this movie. In fact, you would not even find any suggestive shots of her breasts, or her butt,” he said.

According to Dika, in the movie Miyabi were to play a shop owner who stumbled into a kidnapping mishap. Knowing her reputation as an adult film star, he took extra care in writing the script, sanitizing its elements of porn. He contends that the movie is a comedy, devoid of any sexual innuendoes.

Assuming that Dika was being completely truthful, there are no reasonable grounds to band Miyabi from entering Indonesia. In MUI’s defense, the decision to ban Miyabi was due to her reputation as a well-known adult film star, inconsistent with values held by most of Indonesia’s citizens. As the most populous Muslim country in the world, Islamic law frowns upon the vulgar display of flesh. If that is the case, how did Sakuragi infiltrate immigration? Could it be because Sakuragi is more unfamiliar than Miyabi that MUI considered her presence less likely to stir a crisis of values?

This contradiction pinpoints to an issue of inconsistency. Considering the lewdness “Suster Keramas” presents, it did not garner the same amount of controversy a movie of that sexual caliber would under a different genre.

For example, back in 2003 the movie “Buruan Cium Gue” was banned. The romantic comedy stirred protests because it featured heavy petting and bikini-clad young women. “Buruan Cium Gue” tells a story of an adolescent girl who longs to be kissed by her boyfriend. To prepare herself for the kiss, she practices with her peers. “Buruan Cium Gue” is the equivalent to chaste holding hands in the park compared to “Suster Keramas”.

Just a few years after that, dangdut star Dewi Persik starred in “Tali Pocong Perawan” -yet another porn disguised as a horror flick- displaying a little more than girls in bikinis and harmless lip locks. In the movie, the amount of sex and nudity surpasses the amount of necessary for horror. It was almost as if the ghosts are included as an afterthought, with Dewi Perrsik’s svelte body taking center stage. Ironically, “Menculik Miyabi” is the least pornographic out of all movies mentioned here. So what is really going on? Why are some movies banned while others are still around, ready to corrupt the minds of our nation (with legal protection, even)?

MUI does not only protect its members from porny horror movies but also from potentially blasphemous action movies about the apocalypse. Last year, MUI discouraged all Indonesian Muslims not to watch 2012, saying that the Hollywood movie was misleading and against Islamic belief.  To be precise, they did not ban the movie nor declare it ‘haram’. Mahmud Zubaidi, head of the East Java’s Malang regency chapter of MUI, told reporters that the movie was inappropriate, especially for the Muslims, who should believe that no one but Allah knows when doomsday will come. He warned that the film could give the wrong idea about the apocalypse.

In this same vein to protect Indonesian moviegoers from being misled, MUI should ban “Up” because the movie may lead people to believe that sufficient amount of helium balloons can lift their homes several continents away. MUI cannot tolerate that! The public is not smart enough to understand the laws of gravity.

Not long after Zubaidi’s statement, the head of MUI , K. H. Ma’ruf Amin, said that as long as Indonesian Muslims understood the principles and teachings of Islam, they would not be misled. Ah, here’s someone who believes in the quality of our education system.

MUI needs to watch their actions closely. Their contradictory nitpicking will lose the respect of many moderates that make up the majority of Indonesian Muslims. It seems as though MUI is responsive only to popular topics that capture the masses. Yet, things that are surrounded by less hype are neglected even when they are quite possibly worse. Such myopic actions reveal deep inconsistencies with MUI as a guardian of Islamic values.

What does this say about MUI? Where does the censorship board come into play? What do you think?