Speak to someone. Anyone.

Having spent holidays in blissfully traffic-less Jakarta, I’ve managed to spend more time at home, sleeping late, relaxing, (help) cooking, and umm... inevitably being trapped in mom’s daily non-negotiable tv-soap schedule. I know what you’re thinking, you evil bastards. You’re thinking, “Ha! Now you’re addicted too! I knew it!”. Well, excuse me, but NOT. But I know now who the farmer boy’s real parents are, and they’re rich, obviously, except the parents don’t know it’s him yet and he fell and suffered amnesia on his way to tell them. Boohoo.

If there were ample space I could write an essay on why sinetron is tasteless and may ultimately ruin this nation’s future for generations to come (obviously it would be a very over-dramatized and soap-like essay). But on this occasion I’d just like to point out one thing which bothers the hell out of me.

Monologues. Tons and tons and tons of monologues.

Monologues are Shakespearean. Created for the stage, where resources are few and thoughts must be gesticulated to the audience through the sole means of facial expressions, gestures, and thinking aloud. And the monologues were beautiful and wrenching. Which is why Hamlet could get away with 15 minutes worth of solo pondering aloud on whether “to be or not to be.”

But really, nobody does that in real life unless he’s a nutcase. As A.A. Milne (the author of Winnie The Pooh) once suggested, in real life Hamlet would most likely have been alone in deep thought, when suddenly interrupted by Ophelia:

[enter Ophelia]
Oph: “What are you thinking about, my Lord?
Ham: “I am wondering whether to be or not to be, whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer...”

You see my point. My point is that TV is not the place for archaic monologues as it makes the whole show look like a televised stage act. Two, it makes the actors lazy, as private thoughts and emotions no longer need to be conveyed through very subtle and nuanced facial expressions. Three, it makes the screen-writers seem lazy, as they apparently don’t even bother trying to make the dialogues look natural.

If you’re reading this and you’re a sinetron screenwriter, for the love of God, cut down on the monologues!