Dangdut, that uniquely Indonesian melding of folk tunes and traditional pop, is arguably the most popular genre in the country. Despite the country’s conservative bent, it is commonly accepted that part of the populist appeal of dangdut is the objectification of its female singers, many of whom are willing go to extremes to find an audience, like using increasingly risque dance moves, sharing the stage with poisonous snakes and acting out misogynistic fantasies.
The viral video above, as picked up by Tribun recently, shows one such extreme performance in which two dangdut singers appear to be “tortured” while they are on stage. The clip shows the first of the two singers, wearing blue, having a water bottle thrown at her by a well-dressed man who appears from the back of the stage, before she is manhandled and seemingly smacked while on the floor. Later on, the man drags another woman out onto the front of the stage and hurls a water bottle at her as well.
The fact that the singers are laughing throughout the clip is indication enough that this was all an act (the man, however, seemed very committed to his role). At the end of the video, the man addresses the audience, saying, “Thank you to the people here, but please don’t repeat the acts (you saw here). This was just a drama (performance).”
Though we can’t make out what song the singer in blue was singing due to her pretend sobbing, Tribun reported that the people on stage were acting out the lyrics in the song.
Even though it has been established that this was an act, many netizens condemned the performance in the comments section of the original video (which shows a longer cut of the clip), for normalizing violence against women and because many children were in the audience, some of whom clearly seemed amused by the display.
“Must (the performance) be like that? Even though it was an act, it has no educational value”
“Even though they were acting, this was so wrong to be displayed to the public. Poor little kids had to see that. The performance shows violence.”
It’s not known exactly where this took place, but a banner on the stage suggested that the performance took place in the Majalengka Regency of West Java. The singers and actor can also be heard in the original video conversing in Sundanese, which is the native language of most of West Java.
While it was indeed a disturbing performance on many levels, it is at least less physically less dangerous than some of the acts performed by dangdut singers such as Irma Bule, who died last year after she was bitten a king cobra during her snake dance routine.
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