on August 11 the presscon of the group Palayain Ang Sining became interesting to me for many reasons, least of all what was being said. and no, this wasn’t a measure of who was speaking, or what was being said, but the kind of room it became, filled with media as it was.
and no, pinky webb wasn’t even there. neither was karen davila. but there were men with huge versions of their penises, este, long hard lenses. and they weren’t pointing it at who was talking.
media and their lenses
i’m this close to that man’s elbow because he was practically standing over the girl beside me. we were facing the front of the room where National Artist Bienvenido Lumbera, Karen Flores-Ocampo, Myra Beltran, etal., were making their statements about freedom of expression, which should’ve matter to all of us in the audience. except that these men weren’t interested in who was talking, nor did they want to gain a better sense of what’s actually going on here, complicit as they’ve been in the manner in which freedom of expression has been compromised given media’s treatment of the exhibit Kulo.
instead they had their sights set on the one person they had sacrificed and made into their headline, and who was refusing to speak that day, who has (thankfully) refused to speak since.
media & mideo 1
what astounded me about these members of the media, in this small conference room of the college of mass comm in UP, was not so much that they were zeroing in on mideo, but that they were ultimately bastos about it. they not only had their backs turned to the ones speaking in front, they also kept disrupting the proceedings as they reprimanded each other and talked in loud whispers among themselves. they didn’t evenstop taking pictures as we sang the national anthem. they didn’t stopfor the national anthem when there was a Philippine flag in that room.
that morning, and without a doubt, the media showed what it is they’re made of, and why they are so capable of irresponsibility and sensationalism. we should all just admit that in the end, when push comes to shove, all we want is to find an enemy and serve him on a silver platter to the religious and conservatives and powerful in this country, thinking that we’re gaining tickets to heaven by doing so.
in truth, we’ve built a version of hell here, and it’s pretty clear who the devils are.
We say it often, and truth to tell in these shores it is true: many of our less talented singers have albums, and many of our more talented musicians are without jobs. But what of the non-singer, someone who doesn’t sing at all, gathering a strong enough following for her CDs that she’s now on her fifth (count that!) solo album—and yes, that’s not counting the one she did with her son, and another about the rosary.
Welcome the celebrity CD! At the center of which is Kris Aquino. Judy Ann Santos began this kind of production with Ang Kuwento ng Buhay Ko (2007) where her TV show and movie theme songs were interspersed with her recorded thoughts about particular times in her life. This album had an all-Filipino, all-original set of songs that still made it original Pilipino music (OPM) by all counts, over and above Judy Ann.
But Kris, unlike Judy Ann, began this enterprise not to do a retrospective on her life, which would’ve meant just planning one CD. Instead, tied as the industry of celebrity is to selling the personal, Kris immersed herself in doing self-help albums, which is what most of these are. But unlike self-help albums done by experts in some form of counseling or other (think Dr. Phil on CD), most of Kris’ albums are only about her: when she came out with first CD Songs of Love and Healing, there was soon after a public marital crisis and pregnancy difficulties; when her mother Cory died she did The Greatest Love (2008), a tribute album; when her brother Noynoy was running for president she came out with Blessings of Love (2010), which was filled with nationalist and campaign songs.
in fact it was a surprise that a television critic would ask for, of all things, a kontrabida. but this is what Nestor Torre asks of ABS-CBN‘s 100 Days to Heaven. he says:
yet this lack of a kontrabida actually works for this soap, seeing as it’s the story of business executive Anna Manalastas being sent back to earth by St. Peter so that she may undo all the mean she did while she was alive. Anna was the kontrabida in this story; she returned to earth as a skewed version of herself.
that is to say she returns to earth in the body of little girl Anna, her skills and intelligence and craftiness intact but not easy to utilize on her own. it’s easy to fall for this dynamic of childlike innocence and adult shrewdness all in one kid. this is why it’s also expected that the young Anna played by Xyriel Manabat gets more camera time: Coney Reyes as the adult Anna’s characterization was fixed from the start and would in fact fall into the trap of being kontrabida, period.
via abs-cbn.com
meanwhile, Xriel’s greatness here is her ability to be both the adult Anna, and a little girl who doesn’t mind playing with other kids. but Torre is unhappy:
in fact Coney does quite well, thank you very much, even proving that there is no short end of the stick, not when that stick is all about brilliance. the little girl Anna is the only person alive for those within the soap; the adult Anna appears for the viewers’ benefit, and is where Coney proves that the reckoning of a woman at the end of her life is one that’s quiet and restrained, one that’s about realizations that do not concede to the standard and stereotypical, that isn’t about regret as it is about an acceptance of faults if not a rationalization of it.
Coney’s appearances while fleeting, are well-thought out, enough to propel the story without weighing it down with long monologues and explanations. once Xyriel appears, the more difficult emotions have been dealt with, and the smarts and taray of little Anna becomes relief, light and comic in the hands of this little girl.
in this sense, it’s perfect that there’s no kontrabida here: for this little girl is not one who’s easy to oppress, and even the latter is already an archetype isn’t it. instead little girl Anna is given a counterpoint in the character of Sophia, con artist and survivor, smart but without viable opportunities at a better life.* other than of course becoming a team with little girl Anna towards changing both their fates, blurry as that still looks.
the uncertainty works here because it’s what’s truthful and real for lives such as Sophia’s, and even more so for someone like Anna. and it’s here that the storytelling of 100 Days to Heaven just works at keeping you hooked to the kindnesses and possibilities at change that it can deliver given the multiple stories it will deal with. this is also why it doesn’t make sense when Torre says:
in the same way that kontrabidas need not exist for life to be difficult or miserable, in the more real complex stories of our lives, it is never clear how things will develop or pan out. and for a soap to finally be this truthful, we should all want to thank the heavens.
* played by Jodi Sta. Maria the complexity with which she deals with Sophia is no surprise; she must surely be the peg for a comeback that’s about acting borne of maturity and skill, you almost forget she was George in Tabing Ilog.
i’ve begun to call the saturday inquirer Nestor Torre Day: open it on any given Saturday, and there he is dishing it out about local TV and celebrities. now this would be fine, though a bit shameless (isn’t it, to have your name appear so many times in one section of the paper, on any given day?), were he obviously keeping in touch with popular TV and contemporary culture. but this, as he himself reveals, he doesn’t do.
recently Torre raised two things in separate articles (of course) about the epic serye Amaya: (1) Marian Rivera’s acting and whether or not she deserves the title “queen of teleseryes” and (2) Amaya‘s storytelling as predictable over and above a setting that’s nothing but exotic. on the latter, Torre says:
<…> after some weeks in play, the series’ plot line is turning out to be a mere variation on teleseryes’ generic penchant for love, perceived betrayal, revenge, and all sorts of strife and convoluted conflicts.
really now. Torre obviously missed a chunk of this show if this is his assessment of it. he seems to have missed that wonderful father-daughter relationship between Datu Bugna and Amaya, one that was anything but simple, one that was informed by the complexities of honor and trust, of woman power and oppression. and what of Amaya’s refusal to be tied to her hut as binukot, her insistence on being brought out into the night by her uripon, and knowing enough to take responsibility for it when they got caught?
via igma.tv
and where is romantic love here, really? Torre makes it seem like this is nothing but a love story, when in fact Amaya hasn’t been shown to care much for Bagani’s fascination with her. in fact, the kind of focus Amaya keeps on her struggle for liberation after her father’s murder is what resonates here: love isn’t on the table, and her heart is not a topic of conversation.
and yet Torre’s saying this is nothing but cliche, and is completely unhappy with this story, which makes one wonder: how much of it has he seen? this tells us how much:
To be fair to Marian, she works really hard to make her latest TV starrer a success—to the extent of “going backless” in some scenes to show how cruelly her character has been punished and degraded. She also shouts and expresses anger with greater unction than ever.
Unfortunately, she looks too fair and soft to be believable as a “warrior princess” in the making. Her crying scenes are still too “hagulgol” to be truly touching. And, her training scenes as a warrior are patently nominal and phlegmatic.
first of all, ser, the bare back is culturally grounded in the epic’s pre-colonial setting: a sign of Amaya turning from binukot to uripong. she is not the first or only one who’s backless in this show, which should tell us all that it’s symbolic for something bigger than just, uh, going backless. second of all, and more important, ser, fairness is a trait of the binukot, a product of her being kept inside her hut, her feet never touching the ground, her face unseen.
as for Marian’s acting, i do wonder what the peg is for good acting as far as Torre is concerned. because i’d like to think that i’d scream too were my father being murdered in front of me; i’d scream too were i being lashed with a stick; i’d cry and scream in defiance when my servants-turned-friends are being lashed as well. were Torre watching this show, he might have a sense of how this louder voice Amaya’s now using is but logical in light of her voice as daughter: playful and loving in equal turns, too intelligent for her own good, smarter and kinder than her half-sisters, hidden as she was. were Torre watching, he would’ve seen this as an evolution of the lead character versus just the one truth about her character.
as for whether or not Marian is the “queen” of teleseryes, it seems but logical doesn’t it, that we look at the terrain of soaps in recent times: lead female characters are few and far between, as the male leads have begun to take on equal if not the more central roles in soaps and seryes across both networks (Coco Martin in Minsan Lang Kita Iibigin, Robin Padilla in Guns and Roses, Richard Guttierez in Captain Barbell, for example). in this sense it’s easy to see that Marian as queen is premised on the fact not just of a network investing in such a huge project for her, but that she’s in this title role at a time when there’s no other show like it.
but too, what Torre fails to consider is Amaya as a show, period. he fails to see how this show’s pre-colonial reality actually works and is difficult to dismiss, which of course would only be apparent if you’re actually watching the show. this is a show that had obviously prepared to take itself seriously, at the same time that it was careful in dealing with its fictionalization of history. and of making sure to create a story of one binukot that can only be powerful as it highlights the possibility of a powerful woman being part of our roots, if not as historically viable ideological truth.
now if all that a reviewer can see in Amaya is simplicity and cliché, then that barely seems like the show’s problem.
which is to ask: how good does it feel, really, now that Willing Willie has been suspended for a month, and now that the MTRCB has tasked itself to do the strangest of things: that is, watch every darn episode there is for possible “di kaaya-ayang” moments, for immediate sanctioning or approval of the next day’s show. it’s good ol’ Pinoy pag-initan natin ang show. the question of course is: wala bang ibang pangangailangan ang kultura MTRCB?
if you were reading our cultural elite throughout this whole save-JanJan-hate-Willie campaign, it’s actually pretty clear that there is much to be done: oh the horrid local culture we have, the elite say. except that what they’re pointing at is local popular and mass culture, so defined because this elite talk about “acceptable culture” and “decency” and “better humor” and “good television” which already says that they know better, that there’s their high art and there’s low art, that there’s nothing wrong at all with this kind of division and how it reeks of the painful truth of elitism. minsan kailangan nating umamin, sa totoo lang.
because what’s wrong here is that in the process of talking about what ails culture in this country, the elite has not looked at itself in the mirror: they call on each other to change things, but fail to see that there’s something wrong with their own cultural productions. in the process they’ve drawn a pretty thick — and old line — between themselves and the rest of us who watch and are the market of popular TV: Oh how crass this television culture! Que horror! (more…)
