Mainstream Entertainment Is Here to Stay

I know, I know, we strive for better stuff.
We get so curious and excited when our local films
are toasted to the highest heavens as the cinema of the times.
But when it comes back home, where have
all those interested moviegoers gone?

But honestly, we still need shallowness in our quest for
the meaning and depth of life.

The occasional stab in our minds, and punch in our guts
of true issues besetting our nation, made even more
painful by the proliferation of independent cinema,
are fillers for the soul. It prompts us to rethink
how our society and our lives have been doing.
It may have been stunted, gone backwards, or progressively presenting
a forthcoming change and upheaval.

But we also need a John Lloyd Cruz
making Sarah Geronimo blush with just a smile.
It's why we also crave for sinful candies that may
cause tooth cavities.

We need to be cathartic when a melodramatic
heroine encounters all impossible odds,
and miraculously end it with a resolution,
or becoming wiser, not necessarily richer,
or more in love, but always triumphant
in one way or the other.

We need the decadence of Pinoy Big Brothers'
multicolored characters, dimming the lines
between what is real, or what is gimmicky for ratings.
We love the circus. And it does entertain, whether
you loathe it, it still provokes extreme reactions.

We make fun of the dirty rumors from SNN,
The Buzz, and Startalk. We need something
shallow to talk about. But deep within, we are
always curious about other peoples' lives,
how they make a mess out of it, as long
as it doesn't involve our personal lives.

We got glued to the Katrina Halili-Hayden Kho video
and the aftermath and nationwide noise it created.

We need to see what stars are wearing,
praise the wardrobe, or shred it with criticism,
even if we can't even have a haute couture
creation in our own closets. Maybe, we're
envious, of glitter and glam, against
the rags and used clothes we have to
contend with in our daily grind.

We still need good old nilaga, and broth.
The recipe never changes, but will still crave for it,
in spite of exciting chef-created cuisines,
which we cannot afford anyway.

Pop culture in a way, defines
the highs and lows of a period,
and to some extent, how a certain
group at a certain time wants to be entertained.

It's the way art defines excellence,
and higher souls gifted during a certain
period of time, rising above the expected,
and always way ahead of its time.

If we are forever in a thought-provoking mode,
go deep and deeper, even if no one can
really decipher what life is really all about,
we just have to get through, and most of the time,
forget about the reason and rhyme, and simply
sing out loud, laugh a lot, have a good cry,
and escape.

I for one will not go for a DVD marathon
of art films, I can handle two,
but after a while, I need to go back
to see who's singing now in a noontime variety show,
or what is a soap opera villainess' latest bitchy act.

It's a cycle of thinking and not thinking.
It's a rhythm of basic biological hunger, and quest for soul.

In between philharmonic orchestral greatness, are
pop singer concerts. There's a high within a theaters'
bravo and cultured applause, and a gut celebration
of cheering and shouting wildly during an outdoor concert.

It always is tough to look into the mirror, and see life as it is.
Sometimes, we just need a way out too, and imagine
ourselves to be damsels in love, princes with debonair
and dashing looks and ways, and yes, be romantic
and believe in happy endings.

To cope, we need good and bad.
Bad is sinful, addictive, and good cleanses,
and removes guilt.

It's ok to be decadent, as long as
it is also balanced with a higher pursuit,
once in a while.

It is still a fact, the decadent, the tacky
still brings in the money.

There are more people who would like to escape,
be entertained and be mindless, and there's
a small percentile who always yearns
for the undefined, and looks for ways to define it.

There's a need for both,
mediocrity and art.

Oddly, mediocrity makes more money
than art. Therefore, mediocrity and formula
always find a way to be produced. And art,
if it's truly art, is subjective anyway.

In fact, it is according to one's taste anyway
of what is trash and gold.

And they always change. What is gold now
maybe considered as trash in the future.

And what was cheap and tacky before,
turned out to be cult and campy,
like Joey Gosiengfio's Temptation Island.

There's no yin if there's no yang.
There's no depth if we don't know what shallow is.
And sometimes out of fear of drowning.
we'd rather stay where the waters are waist-deep,
and not too deep our minds have sunk and we
lose our breath and drown.

We need to go to the surface always,
or else we will never make it through, alive,
to cope well with this hard-knocked life.