I CAME across a copy of the Sun.Star SuperNovela Sweet Romance just when the Love Month first slipped in. And I was told how much interest the titles had for the C, D and E readers--all about 40 titles in the project’s first year. In the national experience of Tagalog book romances, 20 titles of romance novels are produced per month. Sun.Star Publishing, Inc. will resume production of Sweet Romance soon enough.
I asked our house help if she was interested to read “Anak ba sa Kagang ang Love mo?” Her face lighted up.
We are a romantic people. It’s not just on Valentine’s Day that love is celebrated but wherever love is nurtured, also in the movies and the TV romance series.
Our movie personalities go up the showy ladder of success not quite alone—there’s always the other part of the love team.
This doesn’t happen in American movies. Like your grandma won’t have any other name in mind on hearing you mention Humphrey Bogart as an actor, not the way you quickly have in mind Judy Ann Santos when someone mentions Piolo Pascual, or Bea Alonso at the sound of John Lloyd Cruz’s name.
The American romantic movies include “Casablanca” in 1942 starred by Bogart. “Roman Holiday” was an Audrey Hepburn film but you wouldn’t think of Gregory Peck as her love partner because they weren’t a love team. In fact, in “The African Queen” movie, actor Bogart this time was paired off with Katharine Hepburn.
In a more recent time, think Sandra Bullock (“While You Were Sleeping”) and no name of a male actor comes to mind. And you’d never think of George Clooney as Michelle Pfeiffer’s love just because they both starred in “One Fine Day” filmed in 1996.
I remember only Meg Ryan pairing off more than once with Tom Hanks, in “You’ve Got Mail” and “Sleepless in Seattle.” A write-up in the Internet referred to both of them as “soul mates,” not a love team.
It’s quite different here at home. You hear the name Dingdong Dantes and Marian Rivera together all the time, even when Dingdong has a new movie not with Marian. If a team-up works, the movie industry is happy.
What, when a love team doesn’t work? Richard Gutierrez and KC Concepcion were a love team; they were all over the public’s entertainment life. A touch here, a smile there for both of them to seal the union, short of a wedding, was what every fan was talking about.
But that’s over, when the young man starred in another movie. Now you hardly see them together. But perhaps there’s another romantic pairing off, of KC or Richard, with whom? The public’s eager to know the next love story.
Imagine the early love pairs, Grandma’s favorite teams. There were Rogelio de la Rosa and Carmen Rosales in the 1940s, then Pancho Magalona and Tita Duran (in one of their unforgettable movies entitled “Isang Halik Mo, Pancho”) and Nestor de Villa and Nida Blanca.
Then came many more pairs—like Rico Yan and Claudine Barreto in early 2000. Earlier than that, there were Nora Aunor and Tirso Cruz III, also Gabby Concepcion and Sharon Cuneta.
Not only is love all over the entertainment fodder but also in romance books. According to an SWS 2007 survey on book readership, romance paperbacks had the second highest number of readers in the country, next to the Bible.
Oh, yes, with the Filipino, love is it. Imagine the places where that Love Dinner takes place on Feb. 14. The dining places are all full, but more so when there are diner’s promos as another industry heeds the love call.
You have to reserve much earlier for a table. Or you’ll end up waiting in your car just outside the dining place until there would be a free table for you two as soon as any of the diners left. You have the whole night and the early dawn to wait in, all for love.
It has something to do with the Filipinos being very romantic, which many commercial sectors ride on and kindle gingerly, to push an industry’s intent--to sell. The Filipino romantic public is also willing to buy, for love.
(ecuizon@gmail.com)