Saturday Soliloquy 5: Poverty porn, fash speak and celebrity spawns

It's been a long while since I wrote on a Saturday night (last September to be exact), in reaction to the Saturday paper--The Philippine Star. In short, my Saturday Soliloquy. So to (sort of) start the 2010 right (meaning: informative) here goes my first Saturday Soliloquy for 2010, and my fifth overall, which centers on three key phrases that made noise/s last 2009:

1. "Poverty porn" Filmmaker/columnist Pepe Diokno (Engkwentro) wrote about "poverty porn", as defined to him by a filmmaker friend, being prevalent in Phillipine cinema, particularly the independent filmmaking industry. He says Adolf Alix's Adela, Ralston Jover's Bakal Boys, Jim Libiran's Tribu, and even his own film Engkwentro are a lot like, if not perfect examples of, poverty porn which, in a nutshell, are those films that make its audience "get off" on sad (and inspiring, maybe?) stories of poverty that leaves "that sinking feeling."

Well, if some (if not most) of the audiences "get off" on sad stories of poverty and plight, I think sappy love stories of unrequited/not-so-happy-ending love do the same thing for me. Think Sweet November, Prime, (500) Days of Summer and so on. So that would be called... Unrequited-Loves porn? Bleh. Basta.

I couldn't agree more with Mr. Diokno when he said, "Two centuries ago, it took Rizal's books to spark change. I have no doubt that motion pictures will do that for this age. Today, we read Rizal's books to remember what it was like then. In the future, people will watch films to remember what it is like now."


2. "fash speak" The so-called "fashion-forward people" were asked by Daryl Chang to name "their particular choice of fashion jargon" for 2009. Here are the interesting ones that I may use despite my not-so-fashion-forward status:

aura n. scene in the context of hooking up (Pam Quinones, stylist)

fresh adj. an alternative to fierce, extremely hot (Omar Ermita, makeup artist)

kabog adj. local vernacular that means it beats everything else. Winner. (Rajo Laurel, designer)

scurr v. derivative of scared. Something that's a bit too much to the point of being frightening

wisel adv. a response that expresses no, or I don't, or I can't

3. "Celebrity spawns" If you haven't noticed, today's news is dominated by the sons and daughters (biological, adopted or otherwise). From Jon and Kate Gosselin's (yes, I know they are not that famous but still) eight kids to Maddox and Pax of the Jolie-Pitt brood to Michael Jackson's kids (Paris, Prince Michael I and Prince Michael II) to Baby James to the likes of Frances Bean Cobain (the Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love's daughter), Mick Jagger's children and other Rolling Stones babies--what Gino De La Paz calls the "rock 'n roll offspring." All of them made the news last year, and will sure be making 2010's news as well. De La Paz says that the offspring to look out for is, drumroll please, Lourdes Leon, the Material Girl's mini-me. I say Tom Cruise's and Nicole Kidman's "kids" Isabella and Connor are also age-capable of becoming newsmakers for 2010.

There, done.

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You may want to read:

Saturday Soliloquy 1: Must Sees
Saturday Soliloquy 2: Tsk, tsk, tsk
Saturday Soliloquy 3: Quickie
Saturday Soliloquy 4: Meeting the Mother
Saturday Soliloquy 4 (Pahabol): Winners and Losers (Emmys 2009)