Desi Anwar

The Thinker: Sex, Lies and News

My eyes have been pretty much glued to the television set these days, and not because of the yawn-inducing series of presidential debates being shown, but because of the endless titillations provided by the idiot box of late — on news programs, of all things.

It seems hardly a day goes by without us being regaled with some sort of scandal or other, and not the kind that get relegated to the gossip and entertainment pages or programs, but ones that take up the front page of the newspaper and lead off news broadcasts. I am not talking about some celebrity’s third failed marriage but high-ranking public officials flouting public trust, hard-earned reputations being besmirched and social norms trampled upon by those in power.

Forget about all those “suspend-your-disbelief” soap operas, sinetrons and telenovelas, these days the juicy plots, shady characters, sexual misadventures, lies, betrayals, confessions of sin and other examples of human failings can be found more often in the headline news than in the fictitious world of your garden-variety TV drama.

Combine powerful men and beautiful women, affairs and extramarital sex; pepper with lies, betrayal, emotional and physical abuse, conspiracy and even murder; add in a healthy sprinkling of public mea culpas, and what we have is excellent fodder for the hungry hounds of the media.

From House members caught with their pants down (remember the lawmaker who was seen in the altogether with a woman who was not his wife?), to the anticorruption chief, Antasari, embroiled in a tangle of bribery, an affair with a pretty golf caddie and cold-blooded murder, the stories are just too good and too juicy for the media not to dish out and shove down the throats of fascinated viewers. Plus it’s great for ratings

Then there is the dark and twisted tale of Manohara and the Malaysian prince, an intricate saga of kidnapping, warped marriage vows and evil in-laws. This epic of sexual intrigue, with a beautiful young woman at the center and two neighboring countries, Indonesia and Malaysia, in opposite corners of the ring, in a kind of wrestling match with national pride at stake, could only end in tears.

Another emotionally charged story taking up much airtime is the David and Goliath tale of injustice perpetrated by a cold, heartless institution against a poor defenseless woman, in the shape of one Prita Mulyasari, who captured the nation’s sympathy and became an instant cause celebre and political commodity for presidential candidates, as well as a never-ending topic of online discussion.

Abroad, the fare is of a similar nature, with more sex, lies and e-mail confessions dominating the media. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s sexual peccadilloes have become daily fodder for the press, with hardly a day passing without his sexual gaffes making headlines. The latest was the prime minister’s reply to allegations that he used escorts. “I have never paid a woman,” Berlusconi was quoted as saying in an interview. “I never understood what the satisfaction is when you are missing the pleasure of conquest.” Hear, hear.

Then, of course, there is a long list of politicians (Republicans moreover) in the United States who, one after another and with alarming regularity, have fallen from grace and whose careers (and marriages) have ended at the feet of the other woman or man.

Taking the cake in this series of sex scandals by politicians whose credibility had been built precisely upon wholesome family values and moral uprightness is South Carolina’s Republican governor, Mark Sanford. His weird (almost surreal) confession of an extramarital affair, made in a bizarre press conference attended by giggling onlookers, is grabbing headlines and dominating political discussions and late-night shows on the scale of former President Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky and his infamous declaration “I did not have sex with that woman.”

Instead of simply proffering a public apology and brushing the affair off as a momentary lapse of judgment not to be repeated, as most politicians do when finding themselves in similar situations, Sanford practically confessed to the country (and his wife and children) that he is in love with another woman. His heart obviously heavy with mixed emotions, he rambled incoherently, “I spent the last five days, and I was crying in Argentina so I could repeat it when I came back here … indeed, from a heart level, there was something real. …”

With prime-time news like that, who needs sinetrons?


Desi Anwar is a TV anchor and writer based in Jakarta. She can be reached at www.desianwar.com and www.dailyavocado.net.

Your View

See Result