One interesting aspect of Misteri Gunung Merapi is the way it portrays an equal male and female exercise of supernatural power. The idea of gender and body is distinctive in every culture. Although the characteristic of the sinetron kolosal laga is to present stories of the mythical past, most of the dominant characters in the sinetron are performed by actors and actresses with Eurasian facial features. As Jusuf Antariksawan explains, 'The ratings in its first episode stood at 21 percent and its shares were 50 percent meaning 50 percent of all viewers at that particular time tuned in to the program.' Since then, 'it has always been among the five top-rated programs.' The lure of the sinetron, like any other sinetron laga, is in its representation of historical figures, such as Sultan Patah and Sultan Agung, and mythical figures, such as Nyi Rara Kidul and Nyi Blorong, combined with fictional characters, such as in this case including Farida, Mardian, Lindu Aji, Mayang Sari, Pitaloka, Banuseta as well as Mak Lampir and Sembara and many others. Misteri Gunung Merapi has been produced since 1998, after the fall of the New Order era.Television series, which are popular in Indonesia, especially in the dominance of its representation of fighting women. To some extent, Misteri Gunung Merapi has followed the tradition of Chinese wuxia (martial arts) Although fighting women have been part of traditional performance, they have not been dominant and have mainly functioned to acknowledge the existence of female heroes in both the historical and mythical past. At a glance this sinetron is like a Javanese traditional performance, kethoprak, performed on television. Mak Lampir is helped by a group of powerful men and women willing to fight and so is Sembara. Her efforts are opposed by Sembara, a sacred hero. This sinetron basically tells a story of an evil and powerful witch woman, Mak Lampir, who attempts to spread evil among human beings. This sinetron presents to its audience an imaginary world set in a past time in Java where all people were able to fight and all problems were solved through fighting. Misteri Gunung Merapi falls into the action genre.

This article focuses on Misteri Gunung Merapi, a popular Indonesian sinetron. I want to explore the question of what happens when the action heroine is constructed in a non-Western culture.

Most critics of female action heroes focus on the representation of female bodies and female power in Western popular culture. Their image contradicts normative codes of femininity and poses a challenge to women's conventional social roles, so it is argued. These characters take up space that is usually occupied by male heroes.

Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacificįeminist scholars have been drawn to analyse the construction of female action heroes in film and on television.

Majalah misteri di indonesia