The culture in poverty, if not co-opted, is highly sensationalized in the film industry, more particular with indie films. The misery or even the ordinary days of people living in poverty are objectified, worse, commercialized. Apparently, these shattered our expectations for the indie film industry as an alternative source of information.
The movie revolved around two aspiring film makers who wanted to produce a movie that would, someday, garner many awards from various international film festivals. Their screenplay was about poverty. How they tried to distort the original screenplay was not far different from what the Americans did to Igorots at St. Louis - they projected it as a "freak show" to attract audience. How? Well, the subjects of most successful films are those that project poverty (something that are non-existent in first world countries). Thus, film makers instead of demonstrating the real situation, they would tend to romanticized poverty.
Several concepts discussed in class can be applied into such situation. These are Hegemony and Parent Discourse.
Hegemony, as I've understood from the class discussion, refers to an ideology pursued by the ruling class in the society. This concept was made known by Antonio Gramsci. According to him, these ideologies are depicted to be beneficial to everyone, when in reality - it is the capitalist class who are actually gaining from it. But of course, the ruling class will make sure that these ideologies would be regarded as a norm so that they will be successful in whatever they wish to do.
The presence of award giving bodies signifies that a certain standard is being followed in criticizing a film. With this, we question who decides which films are acceptable and/or pleasing. Most of our film makers in the country usually go and join these international film festivals. By doing so, they are presenting their works to foreign people who are likely new/detached to certain issues like poverty. This is because such issue might be inexistent in their country. These foreigners will find poverty as a very exotic and interesting subject for any films and so usually, films that present poverty win.
Another interesting point that I find applicable in the movie Babae sa Septik Tank is the idea of Parent Culture. Once again, it was discussed in class that parent culture refers to the former generation (generation of our parents) and how they impose certain ideologies to the latter generation. Successful Filipino film makers in the International field are looked up by aspiring young artist here in the country. The winning product of these film makers becomes the model of the latter generations. With this, they actually “dictate the tones” or the discipline of film making - where in fact, we go back to the issue of hegemony that how they actually got the prize was just an incentive given by the dominating class (award giving body).
In the essay, discussed in class, Gramsci from the Prison Notebooks mentioned that "political power rests upon cultural hegemony." Indie films are supposed to be counter-hegemonic from commercial movies. Indie films, just like other films, are considered as part of an institution that is media. The media is a very powerful institution. It can influence people from various social classes with all the ideologies it presents. However, we are not sure whose voice it represents - is it the lower class or is it the ruling class? Unfortunately, it seemed that the media institution now has become a highly profit-driven industry. Thus, what/how the masa feel about their lives are being created into an art - and it does not stop there, the movie Babae sa Septik Tank even surrendered to commercial theaters. This is a very sad situation for it might result a domino effect to the future indie films.
Though the film gained lots of (again) awards, indie film makers should be reminded that when they produce a film, they should represent certain people and issues honestly. Aren’t they fed up of slums, of people in tattered shirts and naked children running and playing in narrow streets? There should be an end to this habit of romanticizing/sensationalizing issues like poverty. I am still not sure how they’re going to do that. Maybe they could look for other subjects for their films. Nevertheless, right now, we should focus in helping the government in eliminating poverty in the country.
ps. this essay was submitted as a class requirement. please do not plagiarize :)
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