Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Those Crazy Soap Operas
I have a great dad. I would not be this political now had he not let me sit by his side during late-night talk shows when I was a little boy. He watched it every night as did I, though I did not understand much of the flurry of politics then. I even remember Louie Beltran explaining his side on the coup de tat booboo he remarked about Cory Aquino. I did not understand how funny it was till Prof. Bobby Tuazon explained it in my PolSci 14 class. He’s a surgeon by profession but he usually stays at home, as he had been sidelined since 1990 due to heart attacks. He’s not willing to take the stressful risk anymore. Aside from TV, he washes the clothes, reads the papers and takes care of his fighting cocks in our back yard. Cockfighting put what he saw on tv, read on the papers and heard on the radio, into its proper perspective because he got to meet people. The unwashed I often talk about in my other entries. It gave him an eye for serving the masa, in his own little way. As they huddle outside our Sampaloc apartment watching the cocks spar and practice, it also turns into one big discussion group of sorts, talking about current events, politics and all. But he doesn’t have any political line, save for his love for the masa above all else, which would make him a good ND recruit for the elderly haha. In the past couple of years, he has distilled crap from the real deal on news and even culture. He listens to progressive radio broadcasts of that of Joey Munsayac and Popo Villanueva and reads the columns of Randy David, Alex Magno(before he sold his soul to the devil) and Conrado de Quiros. He doesn’t watch television much, except when watching sports, the evening news and the late-night talkshows. But lately, he has been constantly watching the daily episodes of Hiram and Mulawin! God! Though I suspect it’s because of a fixation for Heart, Anne and Angel, it’s unlikely of him to choose them over the 9 o clock talk shows in ANC! I was watching Angelo Reyes lie on national TV during one ANC talk show and instead of him watching with me, he requested me to change the channel. Hiram na, hiram na. These are petty matters, I know but with deeper implications. Is mass culture and Heart, the face that now symbolizes it all, that seductive and alluring even to change the ways and lifestyle of my dad to that of the masa appealed by the glitz and glamour of showbiz? An enduring mass culture of that magnitude with the capacity to persuade even the most grim and determined of comrades is a big enemy in itself because it serves to deceive the people from the reality of their situation and the gravity of the social contradictions. As you said, it functions to sustain the prevailing social system and essentially reproduce the relations of production. Or has my dad been jaded and saturated that much now as to think that inaction and seeing Anne Curtis smile is better than knowing how crazy this country is? Perhaps, but I’d like to believe that he just got burned out a little and needed a healthy respite from the shabby manner the mainstream opposition conducts its affairs and the long waiting period needed for reorganization of the mainstream Left. It’ll come to pass. He’s still keen on seeing the real revolution he has long hoped for. But what I dread is the power of the television to make the masa stupid, those whom we rely on as the main and primary forces of the revolution to come. How will they contend with the contradictions when they dream about Dina Bonnevie and Boyet de Leon every night? How will the revolution start if they are hypnotized by the TV to stay in their homes instead of fulfilling their destinies as a people, and as a class? This mass deception has got to stop now as the path to liberation is getting clearer as the contradictions swell by the day and the people readies their arms to win their war for national democracy.
# posted by Terry Ridon : 12:24 AM
