PBB Teen Edition Plus Big Four

A reality show will soon end with four teenagers all after the big prize and while I am writing this entry, I am listening to Toni Gonzaga on TV talking about each of the four teenagers left inside “Kuya’s House.”

But then again, you can sense the bias of the script writer. All teenagers, except Robi, were presented in a way that would convince the viewers to vote for them. Robi’s VTR was written in a different way compared to the rest. In my personal POV, it was written not to convince the viewers to vote for him but to question whether he deserve the prize or not.

This is not to show that I am for Robi nor I am saying that the others don’t deserve to win specially Ejay. I am simply commenting, reacting, violently posting my POV on how the script was written.

That’s all!

Caregiver: An Attack to Patriarchal Society (Male Chauvinism)

Caregiver is the latest film of Miss Sharon Cuneta under Star Cinema Productions.

My Reactions

This is a story of an English Teacher in an elementary school who took a short course in care giving for her to follow her husband in London.

The story opened with a conflict between the protagonist and her son Paulo who doesn’t want his mom to follow his dad in London.Then again, the protagonist explained to her son the importance of her leaving with exact reference to social reality – POVERTY.

When she arrived in London, several problems unfolded – personal, professional and marital. It seemed as if this film never ran out of conflict. But I can’t really identify the conflict in this film because it’s like a pot of all problems Atlas wouldn’t want to put his hands on.

Here are some of it:

1. The protagonist, before leaving the country, had issues with her immediate family and that includes her son.
2. The protagonist, before leaving the country, was offered with a promotion to be the English Department Head.
3. Her personal issues with her work – its difficulties and racial discrimination.
4. Her husband is ONE BIG PROBLEM.
5. Her self (yes. her (space) self)

The film showed the difficulties an OFW suffers in a foreign land. The film was promoted in this manner. Miss Cuneta even mentioned in one her many interviews that “you will surely have more respect to caregivers after watching this film.”

But looking at it closely, this film is not just about caregivers. Caregiver as a profession was used as a facade to show to the rest of the world both the good and bad sides of the Filipinos. The perseverance and dedication to the work at hand and on the other hand, how pride, a positive Filipino trait, can be so destructive. This film showed the Philippines as a Patriarchal society flooded with male chauvinists. This is not just about economic poverty, it is more of a cultural problem – how the colonizers implanted in our minds the wrong way of running a country, how media defined what is good and bad, how society dictates the definition of every word that runs the Filipino people – family, husband, wife, son, rich, poor etc.

The protagonist, at the end of the movie, triumphed not just as a Filipino in a foreign land, but as a Filipino woman in general against patriarchal society and male chauvinism.

Let us not take films lightly. Just because it is the story of a caregiver doesn’t mean it is all about caregivers.