Fats, Vitamins and Minerals

Visiting my mom yesterday, I got a chance to watch ABS-CBN’s noon-time gameshow “Wowowee.” The show’s host called in sick and so they got a popular young actr, Piolo Pascual, to substitute.

Obiously, Piolo was given a quick overview of how the show runs - from selecting the game’s contestants from the studio audience to playing the game and giving out the prizes. What was interesting was how the social engineering of the show became more apparent - thanks to Piolo’s inexperience in the gameshow business. Generally, Piolo made a number of remarks that were so genuine that they fall within the range of the “politically incorrect” insofar as gameshow politics (and telelvision entertainment) were concerned.

Although I didn’t get to watch the entire show, what really struck me was what happened during the usual drill of interviewing a contestant and then interviewing that contestant’s mother (or auntie, or grandma or husband, whoever was there to accompany). In this case, was a young girl as contestant and her mother who accompanied her to the show. It was all set-up, whoever was accompanying the contestant was ready with the microphone and needn’t be searched for in the audience.

Part of the routine (or the drama of the show, if you like) was to ask the contestant to give a message to her mother and then to ask the mother to say a message to her daughter. When “I love you’s” and accounts of the reality of a hard life are exchanged in public by mother and child, either or both of them inevitably cry.

So, the mother started to cry and Piolo knew how to respond (presumably, as the show’s social engineering dictates, one response is to crack a joke so as to lighten things up a bit). So Piolo tried to console the mother, “it’s okay to cry, I also do that, except that I’m paid to do it.”

The striking reality of Piolo’s remark bordered on the politically incorrect, and the beauty of such remarks is that they confront us with the realities that underlie the illusions of correctness (which reminds me of the many remarks made by the irreverend Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales).

I wondered how many people who regularly consumed the gameshow began to question the morality of their entertainment (laughter, joy, pity, inspiration) at the tears and the hard life of others, upon that moment of confrontational reality as unburdened by Piolo’s joke. It seemed to have affected the mother, who did not speak anymore even while encouraged, and tried harder to supress her tears.

But people have short memories, and it is short indeed within the context of a difficult life, a context often rich with abuse.

Relevant links:

Wowowee: A Filipino Tragedy on the PCIJ

88 dead in stampede at Philippine game show on Yahoo Asia News

Manila Stadium stampede kills 73 on the BBC

Wowowee on Wikipedia

EMail This Post This entry was posted by Fats on Wednesday, May 9th, 2007 at 12:22 am and is filed under Wika at Hirap > Media Watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.