POVERTY PORN

I am not quite sure if the real purpose is to help.

Oh, yes: it can be quite an impressive spectacle to do an Oprah.  Nowadays it has become quite fashionable for celebrities to manifest omnipotence.  And a measure of insurmountable power is the ability to hand out everything from groceries to cars, from trinkets to house and lots.  

Nowadays television has become the new religion or even the ultimate opium. The power of celebrity has become toxic.  The public is encouraged to fulfill their fantasies or even live their lives vicariously through the tabloid existence of their favorite media stars. Moreover, the seeming bottomless and unfathomable generosity of media personalities have turned them into 21st century Messiahs. Together with their high visibility is their wealth --- not merely material acquisitions but mind-boggling hoards of treasures proving once and for all that they are blessed by the heavens to be considered demigods.

Is it not surprising that magazines and tv shows dedicate entire issues and episodes cataloging the treasure trove of stars?  Isn't the lifestyle of the rich and famous the sort of sedative you give to the hungry masses to provide some Dreamworld where they can endure the pain of every day by imagining the fantastic lives of their showbiz idols?  

Thus celebrity does not only come with the special privileges that accompany popularity.  Celebrity also means the ability to foist what you have to prove who you are.  A high-profile celeb can be discreet enough not to namedrop brands but certainly flashing your Hermes or riding your Lamborghini can give you exceptional clout over and above the rest.

From this blatant display of wealth comes the power over the 
fantasy-starved masses. 



When you have an eloquent and emotion-squeezing barker flashing money, offering cash and prizes as instant solutions to what seems like lifelong problems, you have is an epic hero who is creating his own form of mythology.

He who possesses such altruism and selflessness must be blessed by the gods. For who can pull thousands of pesos and just casually hand them to the needy without fuss but overflowing with conviction.  And tv (with all its canned applause and spectacle) can easily deify any creature, regardless of reputation or disposition, just as long as there is an audience ready, willing and able to gobble such fantasies.

The most powerful of all fantasies is the promise of a better tomorrow.  

No, we need not go as far as that.  Anything better than the here and now will do ... as long as it is instantenous and requires minimum effort aside from fervent prayers with a dash of luck.



As long as money and prizes seem to fall from heaven right into the outstretched arms and awaiting hands of the poor and the needy, the mythology remains alive, the Media Messiah is adored and television succeeds in its function to feed its audience the fantasies required. 

And I am not sure if this is really helping anybody else aside from those who make a business out of the misfortune or needs of others.

I do not even want to go into that whole "teach them how to fish rather than merely give them fishes."  Everybody foists that in so many versions for too many times before.  But apparently that sort of moralizing napplies if you are not in dire need of fish so much so that you don't have time to go fishing.  Everybody should know (or at least we assume that this is so) that mendicancy or encouraging the art of creative begging does not, can not and will never help anybody. But whoever said that it is the beggars who are actually helping themselves here,

As long as the money keeps rolling out, the sponsors will also keep the money rolling in as well. 

Lest anyone forget: television is a business --- and its principal function (like all legitimate businesses) is to make profit and not necessarily promote efforts at equality among social classes or even work on a viable distribution of wealth among the population. 


So that is why when networks go into a social conscience frame of mind, one should always see the more practical side of such promotional strategies.  That is all part of image-building, of profile posturing or even grandstanding. Networks exist to sell  shows for ratings purposes and not because of any real sense of social or moral responsibility. It is not how much they can change lives ... but how the staged acts of financial redemption entice a much larger audience to believe that lives are actually changed when the dole outs are handed with much applause and fanfare.

But then I understand how this all works ... and why this had to happen.


After all, performers are all just doing their jobs. And networks are just trying to earn money. And there is nothing illegal about that.  But what has become more disturbing are the signals that this sort of entertainment sends to the larger population. There is indeed nothing wrong with making a display of generosity ... but how does this translate in terms of values to those who seek this form of escape?  Are people entertained by such program content or has this become a national placebo for a country's real and deep-rooted grief?


In emphasizing the extent of deprivation as well as the anguish brought about by poverty, tv shows that promise instant solutions have tendencies to be downright exploitative. Exploitation her comes by being merciless to the sensibilities and sensitivities of the poor.  

As each contestant is made to narrate their lives' trials and difficulties, the viewer gets the feeling that this is a contest preliminarily judged as to who has the most miserable and anguished existence.  The more tormented your life, the more deserving you are of help because of the extent you elicited public sympathy.  The whole Kawawa Naman Ako syndrome is not only reinforced but celebrated, affirmed and validated.  The whole process of self-pity does not encourage the search for solutions but a constant tinkering and magnification of the problem blown to extra dramatic proportions.


Anguish and agony become part of the act.  Being poor is a state of existence: acting poor and agonizing become a talent.



You, as part of the audience, can only take so many sad stories --- as each contestant tends to outdo each other in raising their thresholds of pain so as to prove that they deserve the prizes being wagged in front of their faces. 

The name of the game is to "out-misery" each other, weeping and bemoaning one's fate in front of a sobbing live studio audience while provoking television viewers to shake their heads and mutter, "Kawawa naman siya..." or "Ano ba yan???"


More appalling is what takes place after the masturbatory bathos. After a tearful enumeration of tragedies and pain, fun and games follow.  From suffering tragic figures, contestants break into song and dance, perform amateur acrobatic acts or flash their toothless smiles to an audience that easily transformers from emotionally touched to extremely amused or even hysterically laughing.  

All these are part of a ritual to be rewarded so many thousands of pesos ... all these are in the name of charity, generosity and for love of the less fortunate.

Someone, in utter disgust, called this form of entertainment as poverty porn. Of course he was indulging in such hasty generalization by saying that this form of enjoyment deprives the poor of what is the only treasure they have left of their existence --- that of their dignity.



I am not quite sure if I will go so far to say that there is indeed malicious intent in undermining the needs of the needy or exploiting the cash-strapped to leap into hoops or even foist their sad stories for the sake of ratings.  What I do realize that this is a hybrid of reality television with the addiction for melodrama, the dependence on tearjerkers to provoke any semblance of catharsis. We have reached that point in which we can no longer nor do we care distinguish real life from the imaginary twists and turns of fate in soap opera plots.


This is Third World entertainment where poverty is not only a reality but has already become the fodder for fantasies.