Drama and Too much of it….

Sunday, 29 January 2012 00:00

Written by Aaron Benedict De Leon

If you’re a keen observer, and if you’re pretty much in the loop as far as watching television is concerned, you may be able to inference the rapid growth of telenovela and reality drama shows in the past few years.

During the 90’s, we only had around 1 drama show after lunch, and 2 telenovelas in the evening. The most notable ones were Annaluna, Mara Clara, Valiente, Esperanza and Mula sa Puso. But after two decades, if you closely monitor the newest shows on the major networks’ afternoon and primetime blocks, you can point to this fact-

“On an average of 20 hours allotted by a major network’s station for regular programming, they spend ¼ of their daily programming show on drama and reality drama programs. This equates to a spread of 1 drama show in the morning, 3 drama/reality drama shows in the afternoon and 6 drama/reality shows in the evening.”

The thing which now comes to mind is “Why the sudden increase in the number of drama/reality-drama based programs?”

One thing we have to understand about private media outfits is that they are semi-proactive and more reactive. They are private in nature, and so, they depend on the taste and preferences of their consumers, as far as their products and services are concerned.

So it is incorrect to solely claim that the network giants are feeding us with the same shows over and over again. It is wiser to claim that the watching public gives the network giants’ reasons to have these kinds of programs made and shown for everybody else’s consumption.

When you look at it on face value, these programs do not contain gothic, adult and bad content for the general audience, since it goes through a Classification Society called the MTRCB. But there are a lot of suggestive acts or undertones within these programs that are probably not covered by sufficient censorship. And when people get so hooked-up to these programs, and when the characters become so effective in portraying their roles, the general public sees these acts, whether good or bad, indistinguishably the same in their eyes, because most of the viewers are from the masses bereft of education and learning.

What are clear manifestations of its effects to the masses?

When one character uses a gun to fight for his/her love
When one character slaps and answers back against a parent concerned about his/her well-being-

How many crimes can be assimilated to what normally happens in a drama program? How sure are we that these drama programs have nothing to do with these incidences of crime?

It may be inaccurate to say that this may have been caused by watching too much drama. But then again, the media, through these shows, should have been an avenue to correct these acts or just even clarify that these things should not be imitated in real life.

There’s nothing wrong in exposing the truth through these drama shows. But what lacks in television is that it is incapable of debriefing its viewers, something that only education can provide. And who gets normally glued in to these types of programs? Your guess is as good as mine- the masses.

Worse is that having too much drama occupying regular programming has created a domino effect on programs which should contain less or no drama at all. You have noontime and variety shows filled with dramatic undertones to catch the audience’s attention, and get the audience’s money, in some cases. Heck, you even have news and public affairs programs that use a lot of drama in supposedly reporting facts, editorializing news more than reporting it as it is.

And people have become so attuned to drama, they even expect drama in the impeachment trial, and eventually get disappointed when there seems to be none at times when the proceeding is focused on presentation of facts and evidence.

The truth can be said- Drama has become a habit, a culture, a way of life for many Filipinos, but most of the time, it is not helping us get through the tough economic times, and neither does it help us in the formation of solid values and attitudes.

We have made it so easy for the media networks to capitalize on our natural flare for the dramatic, because we have been conditioned to think we should just take in whatever is being fed to us. To add to that, government agencies have been held hostage about it because of the numerous favors they get from these media entities.

If we want this country moving in the right direction, perhaps it’s time for us to start thinking more, and feeling a bit less about certain situations that require careful scrutiny.

We just cannot afford to cry and expect someone to give us money out of compassion for our situation. It is not sustainable, and they will not forever be there to do that for you.

We just cannot afford to use outrage as a form of expression and expect something meaningful to come out from it. Instead of threatening, let us use viable and peaceful ways of getting the approval of others.

We cannot afford to exercise too much drama in our daily lives, because at the end of the day, we were created to both have heart that feels, and a mind that thinks, and we don’t feed on emotions alone to satisfy our physiological needs.

We also have to subject the media networks to public pressure for reforms to take place in their station’s regular programming.

We have a right to demand from our television stations, because at the end of the day, we are consumers, and we have the option not to patronize the product once we deem it starts to deteriorate in quality. We are guaranteed by the constitution of our freedom of choice, and we must exercise it in telling these networks that we indeed have one in case they do not heed our conscious call for reform.

Without much fan fare, I would like to end this article on a simple note

“Less Drama, More Facts, More Actions, Better Country…”