ESCOBAR, Angela Camille G. 10September2009
PISEC, Erol Stephen Philo 113 – JY
"Enlightenment, understood in the widest sense as the advance of thought, has always aimed at liberating human beings from fear and installing them as masters. Yet the wholly enlightened earth radiates under the sign of disaster triumphant"
Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer,
Dialectic of the Enlightenment
A lot of people claim that the human race has achieved a remarkable progress through the passing of time. Most of them take the advancement in science and technology as their basis for their claim of progress. Most people believe that the unearthed knowledge the human race has accumulated through time have liberated numerous aspects in our society. We have been liberated from most of our fears, they say. In relation to this liberation of things is the subject of the freedom of expression. No one knows exactly when the term “Freedom of Expression” actually popped up, but due to the “Freedom of Expression” most people are no longer afraid to express whatever they want to express. However, there is a flip side to this “freedom of expression”. If you haven't noticed, the expression “freedom of expression” is one of, if not, the most abused and misused expression in the media industry. For whatever the media industry does, the term “Freedom of Expression” is used as an excuse. One must not be surprised to see the possibility that the term “freedom of expression” is one of the tools used in order to stretch the limits of the media industry.
The Philippine Media Industry has also expanded its horizons following the changing of the times. Nowadays in the Philippine Television, there have been a lot of programs where we see children as the main actors. We've seen them all from soap operas and educational shows to full lengths films. Quite recently, we see that shows having children as the focal point have taken things to the next level. In other words, for the past decade or so, kids have also started starring in Gag Shows. One of the most familiar children's gag shows that the current generation knows is probably Goin' Bulilit. This is a show that has children as casts for different roles. These children usually mimic adults and other shows. They “deliver” laughter to Filipino families but behind the jokes lay deeper meanings that viewers are not usually aware of.
On-screen, we see children running the show but the adults are, undoubtedly, the ones responsible for the script and screenplay. The show is not actually based on children but on what adults’ perception of children is. Children are usually perceived by adults as fun, cute, and innocent - unaware of the social issues that usually concern adults. That being said, children depicting adults seem to be funny based on an adult’s point-of-view. The show within which the children are working is only a product of the adults’ perceptions and motives. As such, Goin’ Bulilit is not actually a “children’s show” as what many people thought it to be but a show of adults’ ideas done by children. In fact, almost all the scenes from the show are derived from the lives of actual adults and not from children's at all.
The cute and innocent image of children seems to overshadow the money-and-power-oriented image of adults when children mimic their older counterparts. Viewers don’t see in the children of the show the characteristics usually related to adults. It seems that they are only caricatures showing the negative traits of adults in a fun and childish manner. This may be one of the reasons why a lot of the people in the community love the show. But it wouldn’t be so much of a caricature where the negative traits are exposed but caricatures wherein negative traits are considered and accepted as good traits. Instead of people being more aware of social issues, they would be more inclined to accept the social issues as nothing but funny issues. And because of this, the show would be a good medium where political issues can be raised. One example is the mimicry of PGMA wherein this child version of PGMA is shown as the cause of all the negative things happening in the Philippines and all that this child version of PGMA could say is “I am sorry.” Surely, this is not of interest to young viewers. Also, this is more of a political insult turned into a joke.
Another issue that can be seen in the show is the rampant advertising of the majority. The marginalized sectors of the community are continued to be marginalized in the show. An example of this is the presence of the vertically – impaired actor Dagul in the show. Goin’ Bulilit is a show by children; hence, adding Dagul to the cast may mean funnier scenes. This is true because the community looks at midgets as funny characters. They are making fun of the “disability” of midgets. The show seems to encourage and take advantage of this type of behavior of people. Another marginalized sector that is continued to be more marginalized is that of the gay community. The gay being “other” is also considered funny in the show.
Moreover, this show has a segment wherein the kids are doing music videos on popular songs. On the surface, there's really nothing wrong with this. Then again, is this really appropriate? Can we just let this pass? Is this how a child their age should be? Ask that to yourself. On the August 30 episode of Goin' Bulilit, the music video segment was shown. This time, the kids were almost exactly mimicking the music video of Calle Ocho which was sung by Pitbull.
The first thing to notice here is that in the original music video, a variety of voluptuous women were dancing around Pitbull, flirting with him, seducing him even. These women, aside from their movements were also wearing really skimpy clothes. Now imagine that scene mimicked by kids. The Goin' Bulilit cast did almost exactly what Pitbull and his girls did. The little girls wore really short and revealing outfits. Aside from that, they were also dancing around the boys in a seductively, flirtatious way which was very disturbing indeed. It's strange how people find this funny. Well, what's funny with seeing two pre-schoolers flirt with each other, acting like they're mate – hungry adults in a disco bar?
Second thing that should catch the viewers' attention is the content of the song the kids were singing. You don't have to be familiar with Spanish or Portuguese in order to understand the song's intent. “I know you want me, you know I want 'cha,” that's the most popular line of Calle Ocho. That line alone, doesn't that already imply a sexual content? Imagine a little boy saying that to a little girl dancing in front of him. Is that cute? No, unless we're the only ones who think this way.
Suppose then that we consider this scene cute, since a lot of people say it its. We insist that cuteness does not necessarily equate to appropriateness. Just because it's cute does not mean it's right. Yes, we are entertained by seeing these kids sing and dance to the tune of the hit songs we hear on the airwaves. However, before we embrace this, we should ask ourselves: are these songs appropriate for the children? Children are not stupid. They are more sensitive and hence, receptive of what they perceive than what we think. Nonetheless, young as they are, they do not know how to judge what is right. For the love of cows, they are just kids. And hence, if they see on the TV kids their age acting like whores and all, what do you think they'll do? What will they think? We do not live in an ideal world where kids are always and everywhere guided by responsible adults. Hence, it is not impossible that average kids could apply in real life what they see in the television. Goin' Bulilit's target audience for the most part, is children. However, the show chooses to take on adult issues as their theme for the show.
It is also sad to see that this is what “children’s shows” are becoming nowadays. Children’s shows in the past were mostly educational, or were aimed to teach children good values. Some of these children’s shows were Sineskwela, Math Tinik and Bayani. Goin’ Bulilit, in contrast, does not teach children the traditional family values that can be derived from these shows. Sineskwela and Math Tinik teaches children the basics of science and math, respectively. Bayani teaches children about the lives and contributions of the different Philippine heroes of the country. On the other hand, Goin’ Bulilit shows children acting like adults, unaware of whether what they are told to act as is against what children’s shows are supposed to be. Of course, being a gag show, we should take into account that the show is really supposed to be funny. But the thing is, it should not be funny at the expense of giving the audience the wrong idea about children doing the wrong things that adults do. But we can also consider Goin’ Bulilit as a sign of the changing times. People may have a different view on which is ethically right to teach children and what is not; or, it could still be the other way around, Goin’ Bulilit (or media, in general) defining what is supposed to ethically accepted and not.
Shame on the producers, heck, practically all the people running the engine of this program since they have very unreasonable reasons for running such a show. If entertainment is their only intention for the show, then that's outright selfish and indeed, insensitive. We see now in the final analysis that reason has become irrational.(Zuidervaart, 2007) The producers can claim that this is the way they express entertainment, using again the “freedom of expression” as their excuse. The constant re-using of this term has turned it into a rather lame excuse.
Children represent or signify innocence. Children are cute, most of the time. That is why we usually qualify whatever they do as something we can take for granted. Yes, cute merchandise sell in the market. Children however, simply cannot be treated like merchandise. Yet opportunists appear to be making money out of the children's innocence. They even take advantage of the situation of those children who are forced to work under inevitable circumstances like poverty. This just goes to show how low Philippine media producers can go; they can push the limits of what they can show people in order to maximize their profits. They can commodify whoever they want to commodify, even children, as long as they gain sums of profits. Following Lukács, it appears that humans really have come to be “like mere things obeying the inexorable laws of the marketplace.”(Zuidervaart in Zuidervaart, 2007) Obviously, the producers of the show put their emphasis solely on marketability. “Once marketability becomes a total demand, the internal economic structure of cultural commodities shifts.”( Zuidervaart, 2007) Whatever is marketable, will be “sold” by the media producers, and in this case child actors like those in Goin' Bulilit as a whole is like the flavor of the month. The opportunists who just aim to multiply their profits seem to unconsciously exploit the child actors. They only see children's value as marketable commodities. Hence the following passage by Adorno in his Dialectic of the Enlightenment holds true "Everything has value only in so far as it can be exchanged, not in so far as it is something in itself.”(Ibid.)
In conclusion, the next time any of you folks consume any form media, particularly of the type discussed in this essay, remember to ask yourself who is behind its production. Before you go on admiring what you perceive, remember whose reality is being represented. Children you see around you don't usually problematize political or even romantic issues. Most of them don't really care as to who will be the next president. What Goin' Bulilit shows is actually the ideal image of children the producers have constructed. Also, try to see what the medium isn't showing you. There may be a lurking variable, an imperceptible cause as to why the child actors and their parents agree to the terms of the program producers. Try to ask yourself what happens when the curtains close, and the show's over. And finally, try to remember your own reality – what you really see around you and not the reality that someone else has constructed for you.
References:
Barthes, R, 1984, “Myth Today” in Mythologies, trans. Lavers,A , Hill and Wang, New York, viewed in Washington University in St. Louis website, viewed 07 September 2009, <http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~marton/myth.html>.
Chandler, D. ... Marxist Media Theory in Aberystwyth University website 04 October 2000, viewed 07 September 2009, <http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/marxism/marxism01.html>.
Simons, J 2004, Contemporary Critical theorists: From Lacan to Said, Edinburgh University Press Ltd.
Zuidervaart, L 2007, Theodor W. Adorno in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy website 2007, viewed 10 September 2009, <http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/marxism/marxism01.html>.
PISEC, Erol Stephen Philo 113 – JY
"Enlightenment, understood in the widest sense as the advance of thought, has always aimed at liberating human beings from fear and installing them as masters. Yet the wholly enlightened earth radiates under the sign of disaster triumphant"
Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer,
Dialectic of the Enlightenment
A lot of people claim that the human race has achieved a remarkable progress through the passing of time. Most of them take the advancement in science and technology as their basis for their claim of progress. Most people believe that the unearthed knowledge the human race has accumulated through time have liberated numerous aspects in our society. We have been liberated from most of our fears, they say. In relation to this liberation of things is the subject of the freedom of expression. No one knows exactly when the term “Freedom of Expression” actually popped up, but due to the “Freedom of Expression” most people are no longer afraid to express whatever they want to express. However, there is a flip side to this “freedom of expression”. If you haven't noticed, the expression “freedom of expression” is one of, if not, the most abused and misused expression in the media industry. For whatever the media industry does, the term “Freedom of Expression” is used as an excuse. One must not be surprised to see the possibility that the term “freedom of expression” is one of the tools used in order to stretch the limits of the media industry.
The Philippine Media Industry has also expanded its horizons following the changing of the times. Nowadays in the Philippine Television, there have been a lot of programs where we see children as the main actors. We've seen them all from soap operas and educational shows to full lengths films. Quite recently, we see that shows having children as the focal point have taken things to the next level. In other words, for the past decade or so, kids have also started starring in Gag Shows. One of the most familiar children's gag shows that the current generation knows is probably Goin' Bulilit. This is a show that has children as casts for different roles. These children usually mimic adults and other shows. They “deliver” laughter to Filipino families but behind the jokes lay deeper meanings that viewers are not usually aware of.
On-screen, we see children running the show but the adults are, undoubtedly, the ones responsible for the script and screenplay. The show is not actually based on children but on what adults’ perception of children is. Children are usually perceived by adults as fun, cute, and innocent - unaware of the social issues that usually concern adults. That being said, children depicting adults seem to be funny based on an adult’s point-of-view. The show within which the children are working is only a product of the adults’ perceptions and motives. As such, Goin’ Bulilit is not actually a “children’s show” as what many people thought it to be but a show of adults’ ideas done by children. In fact, almost all the scenes from the show are derived from the lives of actual adults and not from children's at all.
The cute and innocent image of children seems to overshadow the money-and-power-oriented image of adults when children mimic their older counterparts. Viewers don’t see in the children of the show the characteristics usually related to adults. It seems that they are only caricatures showing the negative traits of adults in a fun and childish manner. This may be one of the reasons why a lot of the people in the community love the show. But it wouldn’t be so much of a caricature where the negative traits are exposed but caricatures wherein negative traits are considered and accepted as good traits. Instead of people being more aware of social issues, they would be more inclined to accept the social issues as nothing but funny issues. And because of this, the show would be a good medium where political issues can be raised. One example is the mimicry of PGMA wherein this child version of PGMA is shown as the cause of all the negative things happening in the Philippines and all that this child version of PGMA could say is “I am sorry.” Surely, this is not of interest to young viewers. Also, this is more of a political insult turned into a joke.
Another issue that can be seen in the show is the rampant advertising of the majority. The marginalized sectors of the community are continued to be marginalized in the show. An example of this is the presence of the vertically – impaired actor Dagul in the show. Goin’ Bulilit is a show by children; hence, adding Dagul to the cast may mean funnier scenes. This is true because the community looks at midgets as funny characters. They are making fun of the “disability” of midgets. The show seems to encourage and take advantage of this type of behavior of people. Another marginalized sector that is continued to be more marginalized is that of the gay community. The gay being “other” is also considered funny in the show.
Moreover, this show has a segment wherein the kids are doing music videos on popular songs. On the surface, there's really nothing wrong with this. Then again, is this really appropriate? Can we just let this pass? Is this how a child their age should be? Ask that to yourself. On the August 30 episode of Goin' Bulilit, the music video segment was shown. This time, the kids were almost exactly mimicking the music video of Calle Ocho which was sung by Pitbull.
The first thing to notice here is that in the original music video, a variety of voluptuous women were dancing around Pitbull, flirting with him, seducing him even. These women, aside from their movements were also wearing really skimpy clothes. Now imagine that scene mimicked by kids. The Goin' Bulilit cast did almost exactly what Pitbull and his girls did. The little girls wore really short and revealing outfits. Aside from that, they were also dancing around the boys in a seductively, flirtatious way which was very disturbing indeed. It's strange how people find this funny. Well, what's funny with seeing two pre-schoolers flirt with each other, acting like they're mate – hungry adults in a disco bar?
Second thing that should catch the viewers' attention is the content of the song the kids were singing. You don't have to be familiar with Spanish or Portuguese in order to understand the song's intent. “I know you want me, you know I want 'cha,” that's the most popular line of Calle Ocho. That line alone, doesn't that already imply a sexual content? Imagine a little boy saying that to a little girl dancing in front of him. Is that cute? No, unless we're the only ones who think this way.
Suppose then that we consider this scene cute, since a lot of people say it its. We insist that cuteness does not necessarily equate to appropriateness. Just because it's cute does not mean it's right. Yes, we are entertained by seeing these kids sing and dance to the tune of the hit songs we hear on the airwaves. However, before we embrace this, we should ask ourselves: are these songs appropriate for the children? Children are not stupid. They are more sensitive and hence, receptive of what they perceive than what we think. Nonetheless, young as they are, they do not know how to judge what is right. For the love of cows, they are just kids. And hence, if they see on the TV kids their age acting like whores and all, what do you think they'll do? What will they think? We do not live in an ideal world where kids are always and everywhere guided by responsible adults. Hence, it is not impossible that average kids could apply in real life what they see in the television. Goin' Bulilit's target audience for the most part, is children. However, the show chooses to take on adult issues as their theme for the show.
It is also sad to see that this is what “children’s shows” are becoming nowadays. Children’s shows in the past were mostly educational, or were aimed to teach children good values. Some of these children’s shows were Sineskwela, Math Tinik and Bayani. Goin’ Bulilit, in contrast, does not teach children the traditional family values that can be derived from these shows. Sineskwela and Math Tinik teaches children the basics of science and math, respectively. Bayani teaches children about the lives and contributions of the different Philippine heroes of the country. On the other hand, Goin’ Bulilit shows children acting like adults, unaware of whether what they are told to act as is against what children’s shows are supposed to be. Of course, being a gag show, we should take into account that the show is really supposed to be funny. But the thing is, it should not be funny at the expense of giving the audience the wrong idea about children doing the wrong things that adults do. But we can also consider Goin’ Bulilit as a sign of the changing times. People may have a different view on which is ethically right to teach children and what is not; or, it could still be the other way around, Goin’ Bulilit (or media, in general) defining what is supposed to ethically accepted and not.
Shame on the producers, heck, practically all the people running the engine of this program since they have very unreasonable reasons for running such a show. If entertainment is their only intention for the show, then that's outright selfish and indeed, insensitive. We see now in the final analysis that reason has become irrational.(Zuidervaart, 2007) The producers can claim that this is the way they express entertainment, using again the “freedom of expression” as their excuse. The constant re-using of this term has turned it into a rather lame excuse.
Children represent or signify innocence. Children are cute, most of the time. That is why we usually qualify whatever they do as something we can take for granted. Yes, cute merchandise sell in the market. Children however, simply cannot be treated like merchandise. Yet opportunists appear to be making money out of the children's innocence. They even take advantage of the situation of those children who are forced to work under inevitable circumstances like poverty. This just goes to show how low Philippine media producers can go; they can push the limits of what they can show people in order to maximize their profits. They can commodify whoever they want to commodify, even children, as long as they gain sums of profits. Following Lukács, it appears that humans really have come to be “like mere things obeying the inexorable laws of the marketplace.”(Zuidervaart in Zuidervaart, 2007) Obviously, the producers of the show put their emphasis solely on marketability. “Once marketability becomes a total demand, the internal economic structure of cultural commodities shifts.”( Zuidervaart, 2007) Whatever is marketable, will be “sold” by the media producers, and in this case child actors like those in Goin' Bulilit as a whole is like the flavor of the month. The opportunists who just aim to multiply their profits seem to unconsciously exploit the child actors. They only see children's value as marketable commodities. Hence the following passage by Adorno in his Dialectic of the Enlightenment holds true "Everything has value only in so far as it can be exchanged, not in so far as it is something in itself.”(Ibid.)
In conclusion, the next time any of you folks consume any form media, particularly of the type discussed in this essay, remember to ask yourself who is behind its production. Before you go on admiring what you perceive, remember whose reality is being represented. Children you see around you don't usually problematize political or even romantic issues. Most of them don't really care as to who will be the next president. What Goin' Bulilit shows is actually the ideal image of children the producers have constructed. Also, try to see what the medium isn't showing you. There may be a lurking variable, an imperceptible cause as to why the child actors and their parents agree to the terms of the program producers. Try to ask yourself what happens when the curtains close, and the show's over. And finally, try to remember your own reality – what you really see around you and not the reality that someone else has constructed for you.
References:
Barthes, R, 1984, “Myth Today” in Mythologies, trans. Lavers,A , Hill and Wang, New York, viewed in Washington University in St. Louis website, viewed 07 September 2009, <http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~marton/myth.html>.
Chandler, D. ... Marxist Media Theory in Aberystwyth University website 04 October 2000, viewed 07 September 2009, <http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/marxism/marxism01.html>.
Simons, J 2004, Contemporary Critical theorists: From Lacan to Said, Edinburgh University Press Ltd.
Zuidervaart, L 2007, Theodor W. Adorno in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy website 2007, viewed 10 September 2009, <http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/marxism/marxism01.html>.
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