Just-World Hypothesis

So, finally today I had the opportunity to return back home after a while in the university and usually at home, I watch drama on the TV that my family watches everyday. And when I finally got the chance to settle down and sit in front of the TV, I grunted when I found out that they were watching an Indonesian drama about a lady who was abused by the villagers resulting from an evil influence of another evil lady. I am usually OK with Indonesian movies especially the Islamic ones because sometimes they address issues that Malaysian films rarely do like the effects of tsunami, a journey of an Islamic scholar who found love, and so on. But this is one of those drama programs that have this lazy writing with the clichéd "good guy got abused then suddenly miraculously, bad guy got into accident and then begged the good guy to forgive him."

I mean, it's noble to give the message that patience is a virtue, but for the guy to be abused, just sits there and waits for miracles, and then suddenly the bad guy is involved in an unfortunate incident that leads to a miraculous change of evil personality to a saintly one is just too over-the-top for me. I mean, this is the classic example of just-world hypothesis - a concept coined by a social psychologist to describe the erroneous kind of thinking of someone who believes that good people get good things and vice versa. In another way of putting it, the world always works in a way where justice will always restore moral balance.

Just imagine, the good lady in the drama just went along with the abuse. When she was asked to take her small business elsewhere, she went away and took it elsewhere, when she was asked to move out of the village, she did just that and of course the bad guy was happy until the latter got into an accident and became poor while the good lady became rich and the role is reversed. Don't you think it's a an easy way out to solve a large-scale conflict? It's a lazy writing, isn't it?

Not to mention that you are giving out the ideas to those naive gullible individuals out there that patience alone can be enough to assure you a good life. No need for efforts or good planning to get what you desire in life. No need to do things you don't want to just because it's a requirement to get what you want. No need to be heartbroken because the the obstacles seem to be bigger than you can handle. Now I'm starting to sound like I'm ranting.

And then after the drama, suddenly there is a behind-the-scene for a new self-professed unique Malay film called "Strawberi Cinta". As if "Karipap-Karipap Cinta" is not a gag enough. Ugh....