Monday, 31 March 2008
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This One’s for the Masses (Trash Those Socialites, Brian!)
While surfing channels last Saturday out of lacking of something productive to do, I came across Media in Focus, a show on the ABS-CBN News Channel supposedly tackling issues about media. The usual corporate social responsibility media crap. They were discussing this issue about Brian Gorrell and his infamous blog (that struck me almost immediately after I realized this was the cheesy thing Bikay was talking about while my head was fixated on the laptop doing x-sight and Barry was busy polishing his Socio101 paper about a week ago) that attacked the junior crowd of our society’s upper echelons. Hahaha, mud slinging in the higher-ups, this is getting exciting.
I was about to discuss this issue in a pseudo political science - slash - elite families approach to Philippine society manner but my mind is currently in a state of goo after a hell of a month of research papers, so I think I’d just talk about it in the usual way—the twistedsasori way.
I know, Harry would argue that I was once a fan of Tim Yap (who is gravely involved in this issue), at least of his eclectic fashion style. But ever since I have read Brian’s blog (which is like, two minutes ago), I have lost any kind of admiration to this person. And yes, I am also talking about his clothes. Brian Gorrell’s blog is basically instated as his mechanism to recover the $70,000 his ex-boyfriend had duped him off. The guy was DJ Montano, of which the full name was slathered across Brian’s site that I am starting to have hallucinations of the name everywhere I look. According to Brian, he sent DJ money amounting to that for a restaurant they were supposed to put up in Greenbelt named Bonanza. And from here Brian’s blog branched off to a variety of topic, including cocaine abuse and biting off people’s heads.
I am not afraid of libel, and neither am I being salaried by any major network like ABS-CBN, so I think I can namedrop some of the people Brian mentioned in his blog. Oops, I think I already did in the previous paragraph. Anyway, the personalities included Tim Yap, Celine Lopez (Yes, the Celine Lopez of the Lopez clan and STAR columnist. The same clan that owns the TV network. I hope you’re starting to get the big picture), DJ Montano and I think a whole lot of other personalities that Brian referred to as ‘The Gucci Gang’. He could have not named it any better to capture the extravagant, apathetic and pseudo bacchanalian lifestyle these people live. Brian claimed this gang to have been really coked up people, judging from the way Brian described them. This issue has also been like the case study for Australian and Philippine libel laws, as Brian himself noted in his blog. Brian, welcome to the Philippine press experience where the freedom of speech is celebrated as long as it does not brush against the interest of those from the upper regions of society. This is the kind of freedom Korina Sanchez got a memo for, by just mentioning a news story about Lucio Tan on radio.
I liked the way Brian attacked the Philippine social structure in general (oh no, I’m starting to feel RED. You know what I mean. The crescent and the hammer wink wink). Its very refreshing when every once in a while a people from the outside slaps us into consciousness about the state we’re currently in, inequalities and all, because sometimes we get to become so desensitized about the issue of social disparity to the point that it reaches the state of normalcy to many of us. Brian pointed out that this kind of thing would never happen in Australia, and in terms of freedom of speech, it is held there at a premium, over any single family’s supposed ‘reputation’. Brian also laughs at the kind of media we have, especially ABS-CBN who has done so little to bring the spotlight to the story, and the one time they did, they warped the facts, which can be attributed to the reason that one of their kin is involved. The only media outlet Brian was happy about was the Inquirer though.
Back to the ANC show, the pace of the program was very restrained, and Luchi Cruz-Valdez also admitted that she is becoming extra careful not to be liable for libel herself (because broadcasting a libelous story, etc would be libelous too). The few things I liked about the whole discussion were UP anthropology professor Michael Tan’s view on the situation, explaining that the whole experience might be a way of people from below the economic ladder to get back at the elites (more specifically the middleclass laughing at the upper class, since those from the classes D to E have very little, if any access to the internet) and the addition of a new word to my vocabulary, schadenfreude (that means taking pleasure from other people’s miseries). I also liked the way that in the legal aspect, it was stated somewhere in the show that our brand of libel law is designed to protect the well-off in life.
Right now, Brian is being harassed by the tentacles of our few well heeled families. He was investigated by the police took his computer away, as a response to the request of some blockhead there in the Philippine embassy in Australia, and of course we know who the people behind those actions were. This is so Gossip Girl. The only difference is that this is neither a novel nor the TV adaptation of it. This is real life. In this age of reality TV, its great fun to see that our supposedly prim and proper counterparts up there are really equally messed up like us.
For crying out loud, media, speak up! Do not hide under your corporate crap, refuse to be censored by corporate interests! Talk about this issue Goddammit! It tells a lot about our dysfunctions as a society and as a people. But I think the media will choose to be silent, that’s what bound to happen when money talks here in the Philippines, anyway. So I think it is left to us, the youth to do our part. Let’s talk about this in our blogs, send the issue through our emails, or even utilize text brigades if needed be. I’m just so sick of hearing families giving a Picasso to their daughter while 80% of the population is under the poverty line. Okay, I’m blabbering now, and I ended up giving it this entry a shade of red but I don’t know, maybe this issue just struck a patriotic nerve somewhere. I just hope that it did struck one in you too.
XOXO, twistedsasori.
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