The movies in our minds

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

The movies in our minds
Sunday, 01 04, 2004

As this column makes it to print, the Metro Manila Film Festival and other film festivals in major cities in the country – shall have come to a close. Everyone will be happy. The producers will be laughing all the way to the bank; the fans will be satisfied that once more their favorite movie stars have been true to their typecast roles; and the sponsors will congratulate themselves for having been instrumental in the dissemination of popular culture to a great many Filipinos throughout the nation.

There is perhaps no other cultural experience that is commonly shared by Filipinos than the movies. In the past three decades this interest has practically taken active influence – control of, even – on our lives. One only has to eavesdrop into the conversation of any sector of society – a group of schoolteachers on the way to work, taxi drivers at lunch, barrio folks gathered at the village sari-sari store – and he comes away with an earful of information and comments regarding a movie that’s currently showing or some juicy tidbit, gossip, speculation regarding the life of a movie star. “Really, mare, Sharon reminded me of my life.” “Pare, let me tell you – Eddie Garcia is still one hell of an actor.” Hey, guys – Bridal Shower was all wet!” “Listen, everyone – Joey and Kris are back; isn’t that cloyingly sweet?” And so on…and so forth. Indeed, we have become a nation of movie fans and kibitzers.

The movies, whether on wide screen or on television, have finally preoccupied us that we spend our lives in a wishful quest for moments where we can ecstatically exclaim, “My God, this is just like the movie!” Hence the adolescent Filipino teenager, succumbing to the delicious surge of hormones for the first time, inwardly and consciously makes sure that the first kiss, say, is done the way Jolina and Piolo did it on screen. The harried wife religiously schedules her various chores of housekeeping so she has time to put up her feet before the TV and vicariously experience the travails of Doña Dolores and Valentina. And there is no shortage of men, young and old alike, who have not spent time wishing they were an avenging hero of the oppressed, mowing down the bad guys with one hand while reassuringly holding the hand of the lady in distress with the other.

We want to be the leading characters in our own personal top-grossers. Failing that, we settle for being known as look-alikes. Or for the number of young men who slave their skulls because they’ve been told they’d look like Vin Diesel. Alternatively, those who have had the genetic fortune of being endowed in the hirsute department report to work with a three-day growth of whiskers because their officemates will surely notice the resemblance to Tom Cruise. And wasn’t there a time in the 1970s or was it 1980s? – the middle-aged Filipinos went around wearing a droopy moustache and a deadly squint, trying to out-Bronson poor old Charles? Today, my heart goes out in compassion for the number of young girls cringing in discomfort and embarrassment while inside jeepneys because their skirts a la Britney Spears provide more interesting scenery than the billboards along the road which extol the sensuous delights of this deodorant and the exotic feel of that pair of pants.

The make-believe, taken to the outermost limits of hype and conveniently taken the place of the real world, and entertainment has become the business of the country. These days, even the tyke who has barely learned to stand upright becomes the pride of a household of beaming adults because the poor kid can do ocho-ocho like it is on TV. And when the kid grows up, she wouldn’t want to take up, say, a secretarial course but would rather settle for the pleasures of being a Sex Bomb dancer – or its equivalent 15 years from now. No way, indeed, for any one of those ordinary, mental, eight-to-five jobs, because every kid has been weaned on TV wants to grow up to see his name up there in the marquee or in the starring credits of a movie.

The phenomenon of the movies in the Filipino psyche is that it has become a conquest of the great unwashed, the underprivileged, over the snotty elite. It is democracy’s triumph – the victory of the masses over the small group of arbiters of culture and what is often referred to ambiguously as “good taste.” To most of us, the movie is a mirror of our consciousness – limited and restrained only as far as our waking dreams would allow. Thus, it is no wonder that the limits of our credibility bear no strain when we are told that in some parts of the country moviegoers shoot up the screen into tatters whenever the hero, say, Fernando Poe Jr., looks like he’s in a situation where the bad guys might finally do him in.

The self-appointed members of the culturati will of course be right when they say, “Alas, we seem to be dreaming our lives away.” But there is a scary truth that lies out there: The realities we have come to expect to happen to us are most derived from the movies that we watch. Right now, it would appear it is the individual who watches a movie that is happier person among the rest of us who are worried about graft and corruption, unemployment and social inequity. Far and away, there are millions out there like him. Does it stand to reason, therefore, that it is they who, by the sheer force of their numbers, are likely to decide where this country is going to? Will we be reduced to a nation of look-alikes, wannabes and impersonators, all aglow with that special movie sparkle, all dreamy, all happily drifting in and out the scenes of the movies in our minds?

If this version of the future scares you, relax – go watch a movie.


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