Why Nights are All Soap (no shampoo)
In this night of uninspired writing, let me take you to our sala's world.
Let us ask together: Why do soap operas reign in our free TV primetime?
(shucks, I feel like no one is behind me. They are watching that free-for-all soap of all soaps- Big Brother.)
More importantly: Why do I have to hurry in eating my dinner just to avoid soaps? (Ah, life's inconveniences!)
Answer to "group question": because we LOVE DRAMA (of other people, not ours) .
Answer to "more importantly": because soap's drama is an absurd picture of our realities. The folly of being foolish makes a story go longer. As the world is foolish enough, I have more than my fill of folly. Enough.
Hey, who got evicted? (oops... a lapse in my part!)
Why Pinoys Love Soap (let me count the whys):
1) Pinoys love tsismis (rumours).
Soap is smorgashboard of rumours put in visual mode.
What makes it more addicting is that we know all the protagonists' and villains' secrets. We can make an important remark to the ignorant... "I told you so!!!".
2) Pinoys love the underdog.
Imagine a cockroach persisting to live after whacking it several times. Got it?
Imagine a heroine or hero kidnapped, tortured physically and verbally, living in a hopeless circumstance.
Got the analogy?
The more the bida (protagonist) persists amidst very impossible odds, the more the viewers dig soap.
3) Pinoys love perfect Love stories: heaven and earth love stories. 2nd place, lost and found love. 3rd place, pretty pairs. Lurking nearby: the love triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon.... (dependent on staying power of Soap. Of course, Western soaps boast of more "complex" love affairs than ours).
What's a soap without a love story? What's life without love? In soaps, I can pick one truth (somewhat): LOVE IS LOONY & STUPID. The more insane (nay, blind) the lover is to the world plotting against his interest, the more COOL HE/SHE IS!
4) Pinoys love to watch, watch and watch. Then, Comment, comment, comment.
The boobtube (and soaps as its able assistants), has affected the way Pinoy households spend their nights! And adversely, our way of thinking.
Soaps stories are long but their endings are based on illusions of "fate", "destiny", "luck" and I daresay, fantasy. Pinoys are being encouraged to be couch potatoes at home and in life; we keep thinking that Darna, Krystala and some people ala Lord of the Rings with carnival costumes are just entities.
Soaps may cause us to forget that we are our own heroes. That underdogs can be heroes even in ordinary, non-melodramatic circumstances. That love needs a bit of wisdom and sense to be REALLY NOURISHING.
So off I go to my room to escape soaps in the sala.... I often have stomach upset in the process. Thank goodness, I have Loperamide and Attapulgite tabs in my medicine loot bag to tide me over....
On the contrary, more Pinoy homes are escaping realities/ getting too bombarded with too much reality via shows in the small screen. The sad part is, no pill can easily rectify disillusionment or illusionment.
If only soap opera producers could supply some shampoo to go with their soap.... we could get some "hair-sense" every night, somehow... ( big brother, can you hear me?)
Let us ask together: Why do soap operas reign in our free TV primetime?
(shucks, I feel like no one is behind me. They are watching that free-for-all soap of all soaps- Big Brother.)
More importantly: Why do I have to hurry in eating my dinner just to avoid soaps? (Ah, life's inconveniences!)
Answer to "group question": because we LOVE DRAMA (of other people, not ours) .
Answer to "more importantly": because soap's drama is an absurd picture of our realities. The folly of being foolish makes a story go longer. As the world is foolish enough, I have more than my fill of folly. Enough.
Hey, who got evicted? (oops... a lapse in my part!)
Why Pinoys Love Soap (let me count the whys):
1) Pinoys love tsismis (rumours).
Soap is smorgashboard of rumours put in visual mode.
What makes it more addicting is that we know all the protagonists' and villains' secrets. We can make an important remark to the ignorant... "I told you so!!!".
2) Pinoys love the underdog.
Imagine a cockroach persisting to live after whacking it several times. Got it?
Imagine a heroine or hero kidnapped, tortured physically and verbally, living in a hopeless circumstance.
Got the analogy?
The more the bida (protagonist) persists amidst very impossible odds, the more the viewers dig soap.
3) Pinoys love perfect Love stories: heaven and earth love stories. 2nd place, lost and found love. 3rd place, pretty pairs. Lurking nearby: the love triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon.... (dependent on staying power of Soap. Of course, Western soaps boast of more "complex" love affairs than ours).
What's a soap without a love story? What's life without love? In soaps, I can pick one truth (somewhat): LOVE IS LOONY & STUPID. The more insane (nay, blind) the lover is to the world plotting against his interest, the more COOL HE/SHE IS!
4) Pinoys love to watch, watch and watch. Then, Comment, comment, comment.
The boobtube (and soaps as its able assistants), has affected the way Pinoy households spend their nights! And adversely, our way of thinking.
Soaps stories are long but their endings are based on illusions of "fate", "destiny", "luck" and I daresay, fantasy. Pinoys are being encouraged to be couch potatoes at home and in life; we keep thinking that Darna, Krystala and some people ala Lord of the Rings with carnival costumes are just entities.
Soaps may cause us to forget that we are our own heroes. That underdogs can be heroes even in ordinary, non-melodramatic circumstances. That love needs a bit of wisdom and sense to be REALLY NOURISHING.
So off I go to my room to escape soaps in the sala.... I often have stomach upset in the process. Thank goodness, I have Loperamide and Attapulgite tabs in my medicine loot bag to tide me over....
On the contrary, more Pinoy homes are escaping realities/ getting too bombarded with too much reality via shows in the small screen. The sad part is, no pill can easily rectify disillusionment or illusionment.
If only soap opera producers could supply some shampoo to go with their soap.... we could get some "hair-sense" every night, somehow... ( big brother, can you hear me?)
posted by alecksky | 2:54 PM
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