A few days ago I received a text message that informed that I had won 2.2 million pesos, and I should contact so-and-so so that I may claim my prize. I do not know what P.C.C.N. is, and I didn’t know that people gave out cartloads of cash to strangers. Anyway, I ignored the message. Let them give the 2.2. million to some other luckless fellow.

I had a satori or enlightenment of sorts a few days ago- regarding literary theory, of all things. I’m not sure if the tao practitioners would find this normal or just offensive, but it is, indeed, possible to have enlightenment by way of theory. Or I’m just too far gone to be saved.

Anyway, this satori was like a bulb snapping on, illuminating the dark recesses created by the likes of Camus and Sartre. I started seeing clearly the progressive placements of different theories, and thus, the irreconcilable anguish I often have about the numerous approaches disappeared. I think this is a significant improvement on my part, which is for my professors to judge in my critical papers. I do hope that my satori manifests itself in my writing; otherwise, patay na.

***

In a class of mine, the professor asked whether Wowowee or performances at the CCP was the epitome of Philippine culture. I, with a few others agreed that it was Wowowee that was the epitome of Philippine culture. The professor agreed to a certain extent, and I quoted Terry Eagleton to clarify my adopted stance with the matter: in the drive for national liberation, it is the popular culture that would be far easier and more powerfully utilized. The long-time conception of subcultures containing the answer to society’s socially-patterned neuroses has been abandoned in favor of the broader popular culture. Many Marxists would probably hang me for this, but let me once again expound on the merits of popular culture, as propagated by the media.

First, manifestations of popular culture like Wowowee reach a much wider audience; to put it bluntly, programs like Wowowee can teach dancing to the blind far better than Marxists would be able to teach hegemony and reification to private Catholic schools in Metro Manila.

Second, the longetivity of such tv programs rests on the wide audience, enjoying themselves daily and learning a thing or two; the only reason that the arcane are preserved in universities is because the weird are listed down and called the curriculum.

Third, popular culture tends to assimilate nearly everything. Assimilation is characteristic of programs whose origin is bourgeois; because the capitalist enterprise, in its restless search for markets, illuminates and relegates to the fringes at the same time: the characters that compose Wowowee are both mainstream and marginalized at the same time. It appeals to and hides at the same time. If we are to situate this using Raymond Williams’ model of hegemony, we can say that Wowowee contributes directly to the “education” of the individual Filipino who regularly watches it, because it excludes and emphasizes certain values. For instance, it emphasizes that dancing for money is well and good, and crying in front of balikbayans has its just rewards.

Given, all these things are just plain bad for the health. But still, we should see the awesome power of the media apparatus as a pedagogic tool; with the right persuasion, these shows have the ability to subvert and correct dominant ideology.