Neil Gaiman's Commencement Speech at the University of the Arts for class 2012

For those young adults who seem to be lost in life, those who are experiencing all sorts of pressures to do things that actually contradict their passions, and those who feel like they are just lying to themselves (I, for one, am one of those young adults).  Gaiman's speech gives light to those likes us who are still lost in the adult life. I think it's about time and ask yourself, "is what I'm doing slowly helping me to get to the mountain?"

Noontime Shows

If you’re a Filipino who owns a television set (and I’m sure you probably do since almost all families here in the Philippines, regardless of their income, own a tv set), you’ve probably seen one of those noontime shows appearing on your own set. You’re also probably part of either of the two groups of television watchers that have come across these shows — either you’re: 1) someone who actually enjoys watching the shows (since it does include a plethora of entertainment segments to keep the show going and interesting), or 2) someone who wants to watch other channels since noontime shows aren’t really your cup of tea.

If you’re part of number 1, then it’s certainly sure that one or more segments of these shows have actually caught your interest. One prominent characteristic of these shows (which probably is its major selling point to the audience) is having a set of contestants best out each other in a series of trials set by the show. Regardless of the type of the show, may it be a dance-off competition (like how Showtime was during its first few rounds of airtime), or a question-and-answer portion (which is a staple in the noontime show business), it always boils down to a competition for “achieving the grand prize”. The ”grand prize” usually comes in big sums of money, a certain “showcase” (set of whatever enticing materials that’s too expensive for a normal person to by), or both.

Tv channels usually capitalize on this part of the segment since this is where the “selling image” of the show is usually molded and reinforced. It is these segments, where contestants actually have a chance at winning big sums of money and have a shot at “changing their fortune”, that become the major selling/attracting point of these shows (if one hasn’t noticed, almost all of the contestants in these shows come from the lower income strata in the society. Given the impoverished setting here in the Philippines, where hardwork isn’t really paid off with its equal share, luck and fortune is the next best thing in achieving a good life).

Now given this context of contestants who are actually poor, and noontime shows giving out big sums of money as prizes, it all seems good right? With the “deserving winners” actually getting the prize and having the chance to change their fortune, it seems that noontime shows are actually good guys. And a lot of people actually have this same sentiment towards these kinds of shows. Who wouldn’t right? With the hosts actually asking the contestants their personal stories, and the contestants actually telling the hosts that they need the money for so and so reasons, these noontime shows portray a “salvific” image. And this image is probably the main selling point of these shows.

What’s the catch? These shows actually reinforce the stereotype of Filipinos trusting their welfare more into luck than actually putting those efforts into something else that’s useful. It enforces into the Filipinos mind that if there’s a possibility that I can get rich by participating in such activities, then I might as well give it a shot, a lot of shots actually. This probably explains why such shows are a hit with majority of the society. This probably also explains why there are a lot of Filipinos who actually participate in the lotto. This mindset of trusting our welfare on luck has been, and is still is being reinforced by shows such as these.

Although such a circumstance, of entrusting one’s welfare into luck, is a byproduct of the conditions existing in our society. The reinforcing of this stereotype is only but a symptom of the real problem at hand. There is a reason why such shows capitalize on the usage of contestants that come from a poor background (no matter how noble this “salvific” image the tv industry tries to portray). It does not only call to our attention the failure of our government in its job to provide a good life for its citizens. But this stereotype mainly presents symptoms that present a bigger problem — the kind of society that we are living in, and the structures that are present in our own society. With structures that perpetuate a lot of inequality, poverty, and social justice in our society, it is only natural that such a society would soon be corrupted. Structures such as those that give more preference to those who can afford than those who are actually in need, those that allow and foster injustices to happen, those that diminish and humiliate human dignity — existing structures such as these are bound to defile a society if not destroyed immediately.

Although such structures exist, the possibility of changing it is not entirely out of hand. Such solutions are still possible in this day and age. We do not need to conform to the rules and norms that the old society keeps on imposing on us. We do not need to act in accordance to the roles that it has assigned us to. The first step in solving the problem is to think outside the box. In a society where we are kept at a proximity, where we are continuously labelled as a “nobody”, and continuously reminded that it is futile to act (one need only to follow), one must first shatter the coordinates of the old, and start demanding the impossible.

Problems in the depictions of OFWs in Philippine Media

I’ve always had a problem with how the media, and other entities (such as, sadly, our politicians and gov’t officials) have coined Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) as Modern day Bayanis (heroes). Don’t get me wrong. I think what they’re doing is really admirable. They show an exemplary testament as to how much one is willing to sacrifice in order to give their families lives that they could only dream of. They are even willing to get to or go beyond the point where it becomes too risky for them to even work overseas. It comes to a point of “kapit sa patalim” or “dancing with death” when it comes to these Filipino workers trying to provide money and livelihood to their dependent families here in the Philippines. With this kind of depiction, the OFW is truly something to be recognized and to be respected.

Now what’s my beef? My problem is how the media, and sadly, some of the local gov’t officials and politicians have shaped the image of the OFW within Filipino society. Despite the image of the OFW being portrayed as something to be respected, and to some extent, something worth aspire for (with OFWs being depicted as selfless, enduring, loyal individuals that are willing to go through anything just so that they could provide for their family), there are also negative aspects to this image.

Take for example the recent movie of Pokwang entitled, A Mother’s Story. The movie portrays a typical situation of an OFW, with Pokwang being a mother of two, who was forced to look for a job outside the country due to lack of opportunities here in the Philippines. She gets to find a job in the US, first as a receptionist in a children’s dance studio. The pay in the first job is too small for her to be able to support her family back in the Philippines so she is referred to by her friend to another job which is a personal housekeeper in an American family’s household. Pokwang is maltreated during her stay, being abused verbally and physically, but endures 7 long years before she goes back home to the Philippines. The reason for this was that she needed more money to be able to support her family. Upon her return to the Philippines, she is welcomed by a son who hates her, a daughter she never saw grew up, and a husband who has left her for another woman. The movie culminates though with Pokwang’s son also venturing as an OFW to find “greener pastures”. This pretty much sums up the movie.

Media devices such as these try to portray the story of an OFW and also try to relate their life stories to a bigger audience. They try to show how hard it is to live as an OFW— what sacrifices they have to make, what trials they go to, etc. At a first glance, it could be said that what these kinds of media do, in portraying and retelling the stories and lives of these OFWs, is to try to valorize the OFW, to portray him/her as parent/son/daughter struggling to make ends meet just so that he/she could provide a good life for his/her family. In short, it tries to celebrate the OFW as a modern day Bayani.

What’s wrong with this? It’s not that I am degrading the image of these workers since clearly, the sacrifices that entail being an OFW is a lot and great. But the problem is that, with the continuous hyping of the media of this image of the OFW, most of us forget the problems which actually face us still. For those who have not gone through the experiences of an OFW and their loved ones, some of these problems might seem small enough to be neglected . To them, what matters is that they are able to give a good life to their family and to be able to sustain them. But for those who have been affected by such circumstances, it’s something that really becomes hard to bear. As what has been portrayed in a lot of films and shows, just as with our example, families do end up being broken; children, more often than not, grow up without proper guidance coming from their parent; etc. One of the problems that face us is that material wealth is not enough to sustain a family. We cannot ignore the need for personal relationships, communication, and intimacy within a family’s household.

Now it’s not just the personal side of this issue that seems problematic. Economy-wise, this issue is symptomatic of one of the failures of the Philippine Gov’t. Fine, there exists already the phenomenon of “globalization” that supposedly “destroys borders” and makes the world a “globalized village”. People, despite whatever country you are coming from, will always be able to find a job. If that is the only thing we need solving, the problem isn’t really that much of a problem anymore (given that she/he meets the specific requirements, which also becomes another problem that the Philippine Gov’t needs to address, but we’ll discuss that some other time). But what actually is problematic with this scheme of “globalization” is that it’s not really the Philippines that directly benefits from the services that these OFWs render in their respective countries that they work in. Sure, the Philippines does get remittances from the OFWs salaries, which boosts the Philippine economy one way or the other. But that’s it. The fruits of these OFWs are only limited to remittances (and occasional media coverage when they perform heroic deeds or are stuck in another country’s war).

Imagine if these same OFWs are actually working here, rendering their services here in the Philippines. Imagine how much output would that be. Those engineers that have been hired to construct the magnificent buildings in Dubai, those meteorologists, scientists, etc. who have been recruited by multi-million companies to research and invent brilliant things, those nurses who tirelessly care for the sick — the ones actually benefiting from the labors and services that these OFWs provide are countries/companies that are not even Filipino to begin with. Please don’t mistake this as a nationalistic statement. What I’m trying to point at is that if the Philippine Government actually started doing its job, providing enough jobs locally, and instead of dodging its responsibilities by averting the citizens gaze to some other hyped-up issue, the Philippines could actually become a progressive force in the international arena.

In relation to the failure of the Philippine Gov’t in providing jobs, another thing that struck me was the ending of the movie A Mother’s Story. The scene became problematic since it concealed the problem of employment shortage here in the Philippines. Instead of achieving its intention of helping these OFWs, media depictions such as these further worsen the problem by normalizing the problem of employment shortage, treating it as something that can only be solved only by going abroad. It doesn’t help Filipino citizens to be critical of its gov’t. It doesn’t aid Filipinos in questioning their gov’t, demanding it to give them better job opportunities, and in effect, better lives.

Movies such as these reinforce such thinkings that we are powerless in the end, and that all we can do is cope up with the circumstances that life throws us. It renders the normal Filipino to accept his/her stature of poverty, and the only way he/she can escape it is either by luck (with the numerous game shows proliferating in Philippine tv programming, and the numerous participation in the lotto sweepstakes) or by actually leaving the country. We have become so distrustful of our government’s capacity to provide us with better lives that we have come to accept it as a fact of life.

It is no doubt that the label Bayani conferred to OFWs is very fitting, given the numerous sacrifices and trials they had to endure just so that they could provide for their families and loved-ones. But it doesn’t always have to be this way. People do not need to go outside the country to search for “greener pastures” just so that they could give themselves and their loved-ones better lives. If our government is to truly fulfill its job, to provide better opportunities for its citizens, given the image that new administration is portraying, it isn’t far off to realize that the “greener pastures” we have been dreaming for so long lies right only in our backyard.

There and Back Again

In Midnight in Paris--Woody Allen's penultimate essay about nostalgia--it was the 'pedantic' and marginal character of Paul who voiced out the anxiety that undergirds the film: that every generation falls into the "erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the ones [they] are living in." This 'golden age thinking', as per Allen's writing, is a romantic denial of "people who find it difficult to cope with the present." A quick survey of today's popular culture would then be very revealing, as our sensibilities appear to be hegemonized by the those with wistful imaginations. Take, for instance, most of the films nominated for Best Picture in the last Academy Awards: The Artist and Hugo harked back to the pioneering years of cinema; War Horse and The Help were period pieces; and Midnight in Paris and Tree of Life used vignettes of the past to speak about the present.

Perhaps one of the most successful attempts to tap into this collective desire for the past is AMC's multi-Emmy Award winning series Mad Men, which returned for its fifth season last night. It might appear to be business as usual for the ad men of Madison Avenue as the marketing campaign for the show hinted: the debauchery, lust, swagger, confidence, and gallantry of the sixties are definitely back. Changes, however, will be noticeable and definitely in order. Peggy Olson is no longer the naive and conservative girl who came out from the idyllic fifties, and the serene ideal of the suburban upper-middle class household has been invaded by emerging norms related to divorce and unconventional family arrangements, as embodied by the predicament of the Drapers.

The show will take place in 1965, right smack in the middle of the West's transition to more politically charged times. By 1965, the Civil Rights movement had won its most important battle; Camelot had already fallen; and while the United States had successfully averted a close shave with nuclear conflict, another war in a distant land had to be fought for in the name of progress and freedom. In a few years, the energy of the youth will burst into the streets and demand for new ways of thinking about the world--that the dichotomy between the blaring red of Communism and the metallic sheen of the Free World is no longer sufficient to explain why things are the way they are.

While it appears that we enjoy more freedoms today in the realm of thought, practice, identity, and with the use of our very own bodies, why do we still yearn to go back to the times when things were otherwise? What did those times have that we want to--but can no longer--palpably grasp in our hands? How do we explain the success of contemporary cultural products like Mad Men in capturing the imagination of a constantly distracted generation?

It might also be helpful to look at other productions that aimed to bank on the success of Mad Men in our search for provisional answers: ABC's Pan Am and NBC's largely unsuccessful and short-lived Playboy Club. Similar to Mad Men, these shows provided a basic sketch of the 60s as it integrated themes like the gender divide, cultural commodification, and heightened State paranoia. While both outputs failed to live up to the expectations of television critics and enthusiasts, they both inform us as to why nostalgia is a potent element in today's popular culture. They demonstrate the spirit that animated those times, which was the penchant for novelty and a thirst for exploring what has yet to be known. Everyone transformed benign naivete to ruthless innovation, in such a way that utilitarian goals went hand-in-hand with a sense of social restraint. In short, mass culture has not yet fully exploded and garnered currency, and novelties such as air travel and social clubs were still the territory of the privileged and the glamorous. It is difficult to think of such things in those terms today: air travel has been 'tainted' by the image of the migrant laborer, and notions about sex are no longer confined to curiosity and art but is now a contentious political discourse. Advertising as well has been 'corrupted' by the kitschy sensibilities of the masses and has relied on their purchasing power to deliver its promise to companies.

The sixties, as with previous periods in time, had something to look forward to. For them, it was the unlimited possibility of the future literally outside this world. Any innovation back then was provisional, and ultimately were tools to jettison mankind out of their wretched rock into the vastness of space. In contrast, the present seems to be marked by regression via the vessel of nostalgia. Don Draper himself defines the concept for us in one of the earlier and most memorable episodes of the show. Nostalgia is a "pain from an old wound." In essence, it allows us to "travel the way a child travels" where we get lost into our primordial aches and desires.

This trend in popular culture might be a symptom of a more menacing reality. It exposes the panopticism diffused into society, where our only means of escape is going back to our inner selves and to live off the myth of older times. Yet we should also realize that what we are living through is a consequence of the ambition of those times--we are the picture of uncontrolled economic progress, and we have transformed science into a force that feeds our insatiable need for new commodities. To use an image from Stanley Kubrick, we no longer fear the bomb--we have learned to love it.

Ironically, the only way we could probably substantiate these speculations is for our future selves to look back into the past. Perhaps, we can transform the act of reaching out to the past from a static endeavor to a kinetic one. Whatever we make of it today relies on our capacity to frame history and to fulfill promises and potentials. Relishing the ache and the pain of yearning need not numb us into lethargy.

My Name In Reverse

My Name in Reverse from Jorel Lising on Vimeo.

My Name in Reverse - a short film inspired by Rafael Antonio C. San Diego's poem of the same name.

Producers: Lara Antonio & Jaz Reyes
Director: Jaz Reyes
Screenplay: Apa Agbayani
Director of Photography/Editor: Jorel Lising
Production Manager: Tony Battung
Production Assistants: Liz Arcega, Juancho Mendoza

Featuring Brian Sy & Lara Antonio

Music: M83 - I Guess I'm Floating
Jonsi & Alex - Happiness 
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross - Of Secrets
Radiohead - I Might Be Wrong




My Name in Reverse
---------------------------------
Rafael Antonio C. San Diego

VIII. 

nothing ceases to disappear. from the beginning where the child and the star 
stain the void with brightness, to the language my teachers passed on to me to 
understand these things. I dwell in what I do not fathom. twin things: the egg 
and the whole jungle I call life. do not try to understand. the poem is the poem, 
and this does not create between us a relationship. I speak about rupture. the 
mouth opens. just one. and many things speak. don't be like adam who named 
every single thing. be like the thousands of unforgiving beasts that came after 
creation. those who dwell in the absences. those who prefer to dissent. I prefer 
to relent. 

VII. 

I am justified in killing my faith. I commanded it. I, who swore never again to 
trust in americans or jews. I, who drew my own bastard spanish blood, who 
wrote beautiful verse by the sea until the insight was struck out of me. I stayed 
in my room all day until possessed by a tongue so foreign it could only be mine. 
and no human prayer would lift the curse from my being. no benediction from 
my bodiless problem: I have no name, you see. in my tongue, there is no need 
for a name. 

VI. 

take away madness from joy and all you're left with is useless laughter. remove 
struggle and you will not find anything. this is known as peace from where I 
come from. that singular incident where you and I are lifted from our countries 
and buried in the negative equivalent of a million tons of space. the heart is the 
heart. nothing more. because it is more important to float away than to remain 
inconsolable; the whole body should shudder out of love. 

V. 

I propose that every cat must die. this way, there will be no cats. it is much 
better than destroying a race of humans. this is the simplicity of math. take a 
variable, and destroy it. 

IV. 

my forefathers insisted that they came from inside a man and a woman who 
came from inside a giant cosmic bamboo tree. this tree was split by cosmic 
lightning. this lighting was split from a single source of light. if you divide and 
divide these mythical things, you will come to realize as much as I have that it 
is a terrible waste of time to think of creation. I prefer to think about the things 
that will someday destroy us. my favorite form of extinction is poetry. 

III. 

a good preparation for death: one bright morning, when you wake up and see 
your consciousness still hanging from your bones, command yourself not to 
rise. by the time you lose track of yourself, it will feel like you are slowly 
disappearing. 

II. 

ten thousand people are starving. this is true at any given moment at any given 
time. a million people die every second. a million other animals. a million trees. 
a million emotions vanish all of a sudden. the sky retains its cruel blue. 
someday, though, that too will end. 

I. 

once, I picked a fight with the universe, and it won. it was the only victory I 
have ever had.

About The Katipunan Collective

The Katipunan Collective is a group of friends who were bored one summer after graduation and in a stroke of brilliance decided on pursuing the Culture Project. This Project is held together by a weekly session of beatniks, who all discuss politics, films, music, ideas, art, books, and capitalism. This site is the collection of their views about the world, as they continue to fight the system and define alternative realities.