Media brainwashing in the Philippines

What to do, what to do…. just watch tv I guess. What is up with Philippine television? All this “ka pamilya” “ka-puso” hoopla. What is behind it? What does it do to us Filipinos? Or just a major waste of time. Why discuss it, well pretty much local tv giants abs-cbn and gma own tv shares but what you see-from an intellectual view of things- you get nothing but duds. But people still watch it.

Okay so let’s get our facts straight, check out past soap operas and variety shows. They all are the same right no difference from the old ones. Sucks that plots are always the same, all the “boy 1 meets girl, girl falls in love with boy 2, boy 2 makes her rich, boy 2 is a convicted felon, girl goes back to boy 1, lives happily ever after.” Something like that if you catch my drift. We never get to see fresh twists not even tagalog movies that these networks bring out. Same plot different actors. Incredibly bad lines. And what’s with the critics here, I’m sure they get paid by the networks to come out with good reviews. I’ve seen Feng Shui and was given A or B ratings but we know it’s a carbon copy of sixth sense with a little chinese twist to it. Amazing isn’t it?

We can link this to how Filipino’s work, yes yes people love a story were in someone is so good but poor and falls in love with a rich person or some plot like that, but do we need to see it being repeated every year? We Filipinos are told to have a shallow kind of happiness when it comes to movie or tv appeal but is it our fault? The truth is no, it is the Network giants’ fault, they can not come out with fresher and original ideas, they want to cash in to what we are accustomed to. Instead of stimulating the Filipino mind, they cage us with their ways of handling things. Or are we just too starstruck?

How does it affect us with our everyday responsibilties? Check it out, we pretty much take the B.S. that politicians say. We are forced to accept how things work from extemely long lawsuits from bad policemen, to pricing injustice for basic goods. Just like TV and Movies, we learn to accept that just as long as we get our simple enjoyment. It may sound good that we can take it but compare that to other countries who’s supposed to be poorer than us like Malaysia and Thailand? Our minds are set to accept things and my theory blames it on bad media.

ABS-CBN and GMA, should try to come out with original shows and not let us be fooled by the packaging that they provide. Good plots please. Check out the US, NBC was consistently number 1 for so many years using the same formula but when CBS, Fox, and ABC stopped copying them and came out with fresh ideas things did turn around and suddenly NBC was number 4. If it happened to them for sure it can happen to us.

Let me end by saying fresher ideas will open to new jobs, come on, ASAP letting actors sing? Who are you kidding?…… us! and we are forced not to know better. Let the singers be singers and actors be actors.