President Jokowi’s campaign does pop culture parody again with ‘Si Manis Jembatan Ancur’ (Video)

In an apparent bid to score millennials’ votes in next April’s election, President Joko Widodo’s campaign team has been spoofing Indonesian pop culture (because how else is anybody going to get their political message across to the kids these days?) and their latest work took the spook out of a legendary Indonesian ghost.

If you’re an Indonesian horror fan, you may be familiar with Si Manis Jembatan Ancol (The Sweet Maiden of Ancol Bridge), a 1973 film (later remade into a popular TV series of the same name in the ‘90s) based on an urban legend about the spirit of a pretty woman that roams the aforementioned bridge in North Jakarta.

The campaign video, which parodies the classic horror film for political points, recently went viral online:

The spoof, titled Si Manis Jembatan Ancur (The Sweet Maiden of Ancur Bridge – “ancur” meaning damaged or destroyed) shows the ghost in limbo as she is unable to return home to her destroyed bridge.

Si Manis then terrifies the local residents as she tries to find her way home. All except a cleric who, when confronted by the specter of Si Manis, goes into political campaign mode as he explained why she can’t find Jembatan Ancur.

“Jembatan Ancur doesn’t exist anymore, because the government has built 1,067.8 kilometers of new bridges,” the cleric says.

“How do you know?” Si Manis asks.

“From the Ministry of Public Works & Housing,” he answers

Si Manis then cries as she floats away, her problem seemingly left unresolved.

Irfan Wahid, deputy director of political communications for President Jokowi and running mate Ma’ruf Amin’s campaign team, confirmed to Detik today that he commissioned the video, which he said will be played during the previews at cinemas.

Irfan said that he deliberately spoofed Si Manis Jembatan Ancol because of the huge popularity of Indonesian horror movies in recent years.

“70 percent of our local films are horror, [for example] Suzzanna Bernapas dalam Kubur (Suzzanna: Breathing Inside the Grave) scored audience numbers in the millions,” Irfan said.

Irfan was also behind the viral Khong Guan Biscuits video that was released in September, which utilized the overly dramatic style of Indonesian sinetron to answer the age-old question of why the father does not appear in the family picture on the iconic biscuit tin (because Jokowi drove unemployment rates down in his presidency).

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