on conservative groups slamming "Big Brother"
this is exactly why reality TV sells. it (supposedly) shows the nitty gritty things that happen in 'real life' or what resembles that once the camera is pointed at you.
granted that the sensibilities of filipinos are relatively more conservative that the audience of the original Big Brother series, to discount "dressing and undressing, going to the toilet, doing body paints, going to rooms together, going bare from swimming pools" would be an outright negation of the whole spirit of the show. plain as heck; it just wont sell.
oh nobody is challenging that 'Reality TV' reflects the 'real thing' or 'everyday lives of common people' to do so would be stupid. Reality TV is a 'simulation of reality', a simulation of human reactions that are (hopefully) unscripted. that is as plain as it gets. this is audience share we are talking here. and as bad as it sounds, the people patronizing this (and the profiteering that goes with it) is what keeps it going
on the issue of 'sex on TV' i mean what the heck are these conservative groups thinking?
so what if a contestant has experienced sex when he was 8? that does not mean it should be emulated. that is not a suggestion that 8 year old kids should go on screwing their housemaids. to not talk about the darker side of sex does not make it go away. the reality that these things happen should be acknowledged and corrected.
these conservative groups are all too aware that sexual innuendos are everywhere. but what they want to do is to eradicate everything that talks about sex, or at least those that approach sex in a way that they do not agree with. they even cringe at the thought of a married woman having a crush on a guy, or men and women engaging in sexually suggestive behavior.and even cuss words and talking about their 'first times'. in this context, what then is so unreal about all this?
we are so concerned about 'Filipino values' treating anything new as coming from outside and 'therefore not ours', not realizing that the very things that we fondly call "filipino values" are nothing but an imposed culture by the yours truly Spanish conquistadores ages upon ages ago, imposed to pacify the natives and deem them as the messengers from heaven. it is not even ours to begin with. wake up people.
i watch Pinoy Big Brother, only because i'll grow cobwebs inside my head if i cannot have anything to jiggle my mind with at that time of the night. television is already saturated with sexual innuendos from the Vic and Joey's Sexbomb Girls, to Willie's showgirls (whatever the group is called). i mean these both are even more blatant commodification of the female body, why hasn't this been stopped?
at least Pinoy Big Brother, while still commodifying sex, does so in a way that people can relate with. and please do not say that married women cannot have crushes, or you haven't ever told anybody of your 'first time', or even cuss. this after all is a simulation of reality.
i too cringe at the commercialization of sex, female/male/children's bodies, and just about everything else. but let us not make a slippery slope argument that because of the fact that the show commodifies sex, everything in it is worthless. let us not be carried away by prudishness and self-righteous indignation. it is, many times, the stone that we stumble on our way down to hipocrisy.
granted that the sensibilities of filipinos are relatively more conservative that the audience of the original Big Brother series, to discount "dressing and undressing, going to the toilet, doing body paints, going to rooms together, going bare from swimming pools" would be an outright negation of the whole spirit of the show. plain as heck; it just wont sell.
oh nobody is challenging that 'Reality TV' reflects the 'real thing' or 'everyday lives of common people' to do so would be stupid. Reality TV is a 'simulation of reality', a simulation of human reactions that are (hopefully) unscripted. that is as plain as it gets. this is audience share we are talking here. and as bad as it sounds, the people patronizing this (and the profiteering that goes with it) is what keeps it going
on the issue of 'sex on TV' i mean what the heck are these conservative groups thinking?
so what if a contestant has experienced sex when he was 8? that does not mean it should be emulated. that is not a suggestion that 8 year old kids should go on screwing their housemaids. to not talk about the darker side of sex does not make it go away. the reality that these things happen should be acknowledged and corrected.
these conservative groups are all too aware that sexual innuendos are everywhere. but what they want to do is to eradicate everything that talks about sex, or at least those that approach sex in a way that they do not agree with. they even cringe at the thought of a married woman having a crush on a guy, or men and women engaging in sexually suggestive behavior.and even cuss words and talking about their 'first times'. in this context, what then is so unreal about all this?
we are so concerned about 'Filipino values' treating anything new as coming from outside and 'therefore not ours', not realizing that the very things that we fondly call "filipino values" are nothing but an imposed culture by the yours truly Spanish conquistadores ages upon ages ago, imposed to pacify the natives and deem them as the messengers from heaven. it is not even ours to begin with. wake up people.
i watch Pinoy Big Brother, only because i'll grow cobwebs inside my head if i cannot have anything to jiggle my mind with at that time of the night. television is already saturated with sexual innuendos from the Vic and Joey's Sexbomb Girls, to Willie's showgirls (whatever the group is called). i mean these both are even more blatant commodification of the female body, why hasn't this been stopped?
at least Pinoy Big Brother, while still commodifying sex, does so in a way that people can relate with. and please do not say that married women cannot have crushes, or you haven't ever told anybody of your 'first time', or even cuss. this after all is a simulation of reality.
i too cringe at the commercialization of sex, female/male/children's bodies, and just about everything else. but let us not make a slippery slope argument that because of the fact that the show commodifies sex, everything in it is worthless. let us not be carried away by prudishness and self-righteous indignation. it is, many times, the stone that we stumble on our way down to hipocrisy.