The Ideal Female Body on the Packaging Design of Traditional Medicine (Jamu)

Jamu, an Indonesian traditional medicine used for treating ailments or sicknesses is also well known as a product for slimming especially for women. Through its packaging design, jamu for women depict female body in the form of photographs and illustrations. The female body is constructed to be seen attractive and become the ideal body. The research aims to read the ideal female body on the packaging design of jamu and to reveal the ideology behind them. We analyzed the packaging designs of jamu related to the formation of female body produced by five major manufacturers of traditional medicine that have survived for at least three generations: Air Mancur, Sido Muncul, Jamu Jago, Nyonya Meneer and Jamu Iboe. This analysis uses Roland Barthes semiotic theory that reveals the linguistic message, the denoted image and rhetoric of the image. Ideal body is still struggling around the stereotype that physically described as thin and also plump with the emphasise on slim waist, big hip and breast. In keeping with the Javanese philosophy, female body is identical to the nature. The construction of female body is closely related to social and cultural context. Through the object and the pose, female body is depicted as traditional and modern, natural and cultural.