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UNLESS
the pertinent laws are changed or amended, the problem
of censorship and/or classification will always rear its
head, and it will always be an ugly one. The ugliness of
the issue stems from the fact that when protests are
expressed by those who feel an institution has trampled
upon or limited their freedom to artistic expression,
they are confronted by this big voice behind the wall,
and the voice says: But I am only implementing the law.
The
point being is that change the law and the skies will
brighten and the horizon will appear. For those raring
to boot the body that is seen as both censuring and
censoring, that is the enervating part of the problem
for they say that if the law were to be changed, there
is no promise of rainbows but simply little bluebirds
who are not free to fly over the rainbow because
somebody decides for them the trajectory of that
rainbow. I see the job of the Movie and Television
Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) as somewhere
over this rainbow.
‘SPREAD YOUR WINGS AND FLY,
BUTTERFLY’.
The “controversial’
poster of the upcoming Will Fredo film Sa Pagdapo ng
Mariposa, which has been given an X by the MTRCB—the
poster, not the film. So far, that is.
The
MTRCB is under the Office of the President. It is the
agency responsible for rating TV shows and films in the
country. A recent addition to its job is the task of
providing ratings for optical media—VCDs, DVDs, etc. How
such rating is done, we have no idea. Obviously, this
additional task is a reaction to the technological
development happening around.
How much
of the technologies rising all over and around have been
studied before the task of classifying or even
monitoring them was thought of, and added to the already
contentious responsibilities of deciding what the
critical mass of viewers should be allowed to view?
Lately,
MTRCB, as a body and as a composite of individuals, has
been highly visible to and in the public. The body, of
course, is a composite of persons whose sense of
aesthetics and degree of knowledge about the media of
film and TV are varied, contradicting and divergent. Its
excursion into network television has reached a level of
such arresting proportion that you see the MTRCB noting
how certain singers are inappropriately dressed. Its
present head has even attempted to mediate the quarrel
and exchange of harsh words between two major hosts of
two major networks. No one can explain what came out of
that gesture. And no one did explain why the head of a
body assigned to rate films and TV shows as they come
out, acted on the potential sources of “lewd” or
“reprehensible” behavior, or “inappropriate” behavior.
If
certain celebrities in local entertainment are
castigated for their appearance, I wonder why the
dancers (they have fantastic names) are allowed to
perform those numbers that belong to girlie bars and not
to noontime shows. Are they really bringing in the
audience, or are they there by force of habit? If we
remove them, will the game shows still be absorbing and
delightful? We see these girls do splits and perform
acrobatic stunts. In the spirit of competition, they
make a fool of themselves and expose their bodies to
such grave danger. Again, I wonder why in this display
of bad taste of bad sexual politics, I do not see
mediators.
My job
as a researcher takes me to the places outside Manila.
In some of these places I have visited, presentations
are always done by communities that can be described as
marginalized. Children are generally the “victim” in
these cultural shows where they are dressed skimpily as
they dance their worries away. Always, these children
look like they are miniaturized version of those girls
on TV employed to heat up even more the daily game of
chance relayed across the nation. It is always a sad
event seeing children in these situations. It is sadder
even to think that these girls are rehearsed to do the
tricks and the dance because mothers think that is the
best way to welcome consultants and strangers.
A recent
development has given me an additional lesson on the
responsibilities of the MTRCB. The board has slapped an
X rating to a poster—yes, that is not a typo: a
poster—of the film Sa Pagdapo ng Mariposa. The
film is made by Will Fredo, who gave us Compound
two years ago. That film, slowly becoming a cult piece
among young cineastes, had its poster also Xed. I happen
to like very much Compound but I still need to
ask this question: What is with this filmmaker that he
manages always to produce an X-rated poster?
What is
an X-rated movie poster anyway? How does it look like?
Scattered all over the Internet, beyond the pale of law,
is the hot poster of Will Fredo’s latest film. It shows
the faces of two men. At the center, dividing the
half-toned faces, is a naked body of a woman with its
back shown. The body has the hue of flesh. A
butterfly—mariposa—is shown as if it has alighted on the
upper portion of the woman’s buttocks. Remove the insect
and you have a disinterested garden of faces and bodies.
The butterfly’s sharp color centers the illustration and
calls to mind the same butterfly on the shut mouth of
Jodie Foster in the film The Silence of the Lambs.
The
image is elliptical and seems to point to something. The
viewer may not like the design but it’s a takeoff point
for thinking. The reaction can even be that of
amusement. One can nitpick and question why is there a
butterfly on the woman’s behind. Is the designer calling
us to look at that part of the body? Perhaps. Why not on
the shoulder? Why not, indeed. My point is that the
poster arouses interest not of the prurient kind but of
the thinking kind—or even the laughing kind. There is no
hint of gratuitous sex or violence, which, by the way,
is all over war and action films.
I like
the poster. It is not the usual poster. It certainly
draws the eye to what it is saying. I do not think
children will grow up killing people who go naked with
butterflies on their bodies. I pray they, while growing
up, do not also kill butterflies and insects.
But for
the moment, we await the appeal from Will Fredo for the
poster to be forgiven. We also await the revisions if
they are ordered. But most of all, it would be really
nice if the board or the committee educate us and
explain to us the reason for their decision to give an X
rating to the poster of Sa Pagdapo ng Mariposa. I
see this development not as point of conflict but one
where we can learn about standards and perspectives. As
for the filmmaker, there is no need really to explain.
We wait for the film being announced by this poster.
This filmmaker better make sure that the poster has
something to do with the film. Unless the film also gets
an X rating. |
