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…)