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"In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes."
- Andy Warhol
Starstruck. Star Circle Quest. Do they ring a bell? They are two most popular breeding grounds for artistic mediocrity. They mass-produce unqualified talents who only dream to become rich and famous. We guiltily watch those two shows every single weekday without thinking whatever happened to substance on TV. It is sad to think that real artistic talent is far less appreciated and that it truly exists outside that "showbiz industry". Instead of being starstruck, I ended up being star-"yuck"ed. Seeing other forms of entertainment such as the broadway has always been better and more meaningful than throwing up at the sight of every single performance of every single talent that those two breeding grounds produce. I think that it is more substantial to watch an indie Pinoy film than to watch an awful non-sense Pinoy mainstream movie crap. No one should put up with just the cute Asian-F4-looking-faces who sing and dance novelty songs like "Walang Sabit" while looking awkwardly dumb. Many human beings may find it entertaining but should they just passively receive such brainless amusement? How can they find it amusing at all?
I'd like to think of those two programs more of a workshop than a search for real talent. If it is a real competition, then how come the final competitors end-up being celebrities themselves? The only thing that they are competing against is the prize money and the contract. Other than that, they will all be celebrities. Whoa, the grandiose of the word: CELEBRITY. It is synonymous to other grand words: FAME, FORTUNE, PRIDE. It is up for their charms if they become popular or not. Can one honestly tell that the winners of those competitions have better leverage than the losers, say Hero and Sandara? Sandara looks like she won in the first Star Circle Quest because I can say that she has more projects than Hero. In a short span of time, as of this moment, she has more than 3 commercials. Hero has one. It looks like the hero just lost to a villain, err, competitor. It takes more than talent to entice the audience. Can it be charm? Maybe, but not necessarily.
When we talk about Philippine Entertainment, we talk about "showbiz" as an industry. The so-called industry in this country is a real industry in a sense that it is lucrative and profit-oriented. It is sad to think that in world today, everything just have to be commercialized without being sensitive about their implications. The difference with other industries is that those industries care about quality in actuality. The mainstream cares about entertaining people, but it doesn't necessarily care about providing what we can call quality entertainment. Of course, I am not saying that all mainstream Pinoy entertainment is substandard. Many Pinoy movies or TV shows do not deserve an audience. Talk about no-brainer styles of amusements (like being bobo has always been thought as funny) and attracting an audience by wearing skimpy outfits and showcasing their great looking faces and bodies, whether or not they are inborn or cosmetically customized. Thank God because there are still quite a few in this country who provide us with the quality entertainment that we are looking for. We have internationally recognized and awarded films such as "Mga Munting Tinig" and many others. Ironically, those internationally praised Filipino movies did not even receive the slightest attention in this country. The questions that one should be asking himself are why is it that such quality and artistic entertainment are less appreciated in this country and why are they better appreciated by foreigners? Why do Filipinos consider sexually-arousing, explicit movies an art than the more meaningful, significant, artistically-inclined movies where talent is more important than good-looking faces and bodies to die for? The answer is simple. The reality is that Filipinos are simple-minded and shallow. It goes without saying that they are indeed a little perverted. If porn was ever considered a normal movie in this country, decent and wholesome movies will be unsurprisingly non-existent. Nevertheless, we are not talking about art or porn in here. The boundaries of what is artistic and what is pornographic are more or less subjective to the person. We can never set standards.
For the record, I believe that the entertainment industry is all about superficiality. Superficiality, to some extent, is refreshing. Super-superficiality however, is stupidity. Watch daily noon-time shows and you'll know what I mean. It can be degrading, really degrading. Recall the game "Ano Ka Hilo?" which used to be a contest segment for MTB and you'll realize how abusive these shows can get. Who in their sane minds would make fun of the poor Juan de la Cruz by asking him to bend down, then turn him around for 10 times until he gets dizzy, make him walk an aisle of the stage to get the bowl of money and laugh at him if he falls down? It may be hilarious for many but I'm furious against that part of show. The Filipino mind is desperately programmed to do anything for money even if it means losing dignity and pride. Worse, we like to laugh at them when they trip down. I wish we can be less pathetic. We are human beings after all.
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Article written by Kevin Cabrera
