The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
Are we trivializing political things vis-a-vis show business denizens who ran, won or lost, in the recent midterm elections?
Or by just simply describing or interrelating comedy or melodrama with character/s of actions and ideas, we are thinking little or laughing them off?
Not at all.
It doesn’t mean to say that if we discuss politicizing showbiz in the context of entertainment news and situations, we are already underestimating the significance of entertainers and their workplaces getting involved in public service.
As a matter of fact, it even crystallizes the value of actors and actresses, celebrities from sports and multimedia, high profile personalities etc., the important roles they play in an election or the government or governance.
It doesn’t appear disrespectful or shallow or even unserious if we problematize comedian Willie Revillame off-cam or TV and film funnyman Tito Sotto as men in the corridors of powers (if ever Willie were elected) or being politicians.
Truth to tell, it adds dimension to the meaning of leadership in carnival-like socio-political institutions.
I wonder why, in Tik Tok clips, losing senatorial bet Luke Espiritu ribs on “bad boy of Philippine cinema” Robin Padilla undergoing an On-The-Job (OJT) training who has yet to pass the qualifying exams in the Senate which happened a couple of years back after not completing the correct parliamentary procedures’ expression “I move…” in “moving” the amending of a particular provision in a substitute bill.
Espiritu even goes to drag in Lito Lapid as another Senate OJT trainee who hasn’t “learned” in his stint as a lawmaker in the halls of the Upper House.
“Mabuti pa si Robin…(Robin is better…),” jeers Luke.
These august hall scenes seem drawn out from a theater of the absurd from within, some watch them with awe or sympathy or from the outside, empathy, and still others, with mockery.
Yet there are instances of legislative speeches among senators, congressmen/women, governors and other local, provincial or regional leaders, screen or society celebs with mangled English grammar or the already lingua franca Filipino in distorted prefixes, suffixes and affixes or misconjugated verbs not subject to, a corrective or remedial, linguistics scrutiny, less of all, ridicule.
In the last elections, there were singing and dancing not only among showbiz candidates, dynastic or power hungry aspirants as well to lure in voters but they, too, were not trivialized for how could gyrating or budots-ing or serenading the crowd trivial things to do in the pursuit of power?
Sourgraping among losers are melodramatic interlude but their grievances aren’t hollow or nonsense to be disregarded, for instance, by the Comelec.
Do we look down on ex-bold star Priscilla Almeda who dreamed of serving the 1st District of Paranaque City but failed or the loquacious and washer of dirty family linen in public Marjorie Barretto when the former, however novice, had the temerity to gamble in local politics while she, the latter, had considerable experiences in council procedures and protocols?
Do they trivialize the high-handedness of sycophancy if not elite politics in the country? Or do they still navigate or patronize it?
In print or broadcast journalism, blind items or no name names department insinuating scandals or malpractices of public servants are demeaning or condescending but they, too, are simply style of news presentation.