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Monday, June 09, 2003
Amante: Lather blather
By ISOLDE D. AMANTE
HOW do you know you’re old?
You realize it when everyone else has heard and raved about a Taiwanese boy band’s hit single "Meteor Rain" and the last song you loved that had "rain" in it was either "Here Comes the Rain Again" or a little number called "Purple Rain." If it’s "Singing in the Rain" that comes to mind, don’t worry: you’re so old you’re going to get "retro" or "classic" someday soon. Either way, that’s good news.
Things are a bit more difficult for those of us old enough to remember Prince before he named himself after a pretzel, but young enough for current pop culture to matter. Sure, it’s great to know about geopolitics, literature, Baroque music and the mating habits of humpback whales, but if you want to contribute something to the discussions that start somewhere near the office water cooler, you need to know two things: show business and soap operas.
Had a meteorite fallen to Earth for every time a broadcaster mentioned "Meteor Garden" the past three weeks, all life as we know it would have been annihilated by now. It debuted on ABS-CBN in early May. A mere three weeks later, it cornered a 68-percent audience share in Metro Manila, Rizal, Laguna, Cavite and Bulacan. Pre-teens now grab posters of F4 and singer-actress Barbie Xu as soon as these hit the sidewalks.
I’m tempted to blame the network’s shameless self-promotion these past few weeks, when not a day went by that ABS-CBN didn’t run a news feature or opinion poll on their new Taiwanese import. But, if we are to believe the news wires, the year-old show has also enjoyed a meteoric rise in popularity in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia. Its pirated discs are bestsellers in China, where the show was banned for being "a threat to young minds."
Here at home, that affront to freedom of expression that we call the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) ordered ABS-CBN last week to submit the series to the board for review. MTRCB gave no details of the complaints it received. At least one congressman has even suggested banning the series. Unfortunately, all he will accomplish is make people think Congress has nothing better to do than content-analyze a romantic comedy about a poor girl and how she wins over a gang of designer-clad spoiled rich kids in Taipei.
The honorable congressman and those folks over at MTRCB are wasting their time. Worse, they are wasting our taxes. It ought to be pretty obvious to anyone who’s not comatose that when it comes to soap operas, and everything else on television, for that matter, it’s a case of watch-at-your-own-risk. (Thirty-nine people did get injured in Vietnam recently, after lightning struck a house while they were watching a popular local soap opera, but that was hardly the soap opera’s fault now, was it?)
Second, no one takes soap operas seriously. Not even in Cambodia, where a soap opera about star-crossed lovers was launched last month as part of a campaign to teach people about Aids. People follow soap operas for a few weeks, get involved in the characters’ complicated lives, then move on, none the worse for wear, when the series ends. I do not know why certain soaps fare better than others: perhaps the characters are easier to identify with, have better hair or lead lives we enjoy watching (but not necessarily want to imitate).
I do know what it feels like when you’ve found a soap that, for some reason, commands your attention. Confession: I watched "Sunset Beach" for at least five months straight. It was nothing like real life, what with all the kidnapping, scheming, voodoo and weeping that went on, but it was fun. I know now that it was time I could have spent reading the Upanishads or loosening the soil around the plants, but it was still time well-spent, as all downtime is. I still don’t know why so many find "Meteor Garden" compelling, but if the 30-minute fix helps them get through the day a bit easier, it’s a pity the MTRCB feels compelled to spoil the fun.
(ida@sunstar.com.ph) |
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