These are the typical stages in the life of a female who decides to work behind the TV camera:
• She is employed by the network fresh from college (usually after her practicum).
• Immediately, she accustoms her family to her irregular late working hours. Before the advent of call centers, perhaps the only other work force next to prostitutes that came home in the early hours of the morning were staffers from TV.
• They develop confidence because if you work for TV where you are exposed to the toughest situations you don’t fear anything anymore.
• Their social circle becomes limited to those from the same network. Their chance to meet eligible men therefore becomes restricted. They only get to choose from among co-workers who are either married or gay. Some get lucky and end up with single straight men and they get married. These marriages become successful because the husbands understand the nature of work of their wives.
• The single women make sure that by the time they reach 35, they are already married (to whoever will understand their work) or they know that there are doomed to end up as spinsters.
• But the truly brilliant ones race to the top and secure executive positions for themselves. Up there, they have slaves, who will do the dirty work for them. While they are kept in meetings till late night, they still get to come home — leaving behind a workforce to do the research, writing, video editing and other behind-the-scene chores that are executed by the people below them.
• Those who don’t make it to executive positions are not necessarily bitter. It’s lonely at the top. Being a TV executive has a lot more pressure and most workers would rather stay “downstairs” where there are more of them. Where it is more fun.
That is generally the kind of life stages that happen to females who work for TV.
This cycle of life among women in TV, however, is sometimes (but rarely) broken. An example is this former Startalk staff member Barbara Dimapilis, who got married in her mid 30s five years ago to a fine Portuguese man named Paolo Riveiro.
Barbie, as we call her, began working for GMA-7 way back in 1989 as an all-around girl for the now-defunct noontime show, Lunch Date. Her main duty that time, however, was to serve as big sister to the contestants of Munting Mutya, which was the equivalent of Eat, Bulaga!’s Little Miss Philippines.
She worked in other programs after that — in Katok mga Misis, Brunch and other talk shows that required her to go on days without sleep. Fortunately for Barbie, her family maintains a house near GMA 7 and still got to see her folks. But woe to her parents. Their residence became an extension of Startalk and everyone from the show used their house to nap, eat and bathe. Giveaways that couldn’t be accommodated in the Startalk cubicle were piled high in their house – like it was an annex of the network.
But back in Portugal she misses TV work. Her husband, however, is such a good provider that he’d rather she stayed at home.
The couple came for a visit recently and had a reunion with old co-workers. Most of them had remained unmarried, but enjoy the life behind the camera. Barbie is not sure if she should envy them. I had to console her that even if she is away from TV, at least she was blessed with a good husband, while her friends in the station had resigned to a fate of single blessedness.
For those who missed their chance at getting married, their lives are not miserable at all. In this modern society where a lot of women choose to be single because of career, it’s no longer a stigma to be unmarried for the rest of their lives. For most of them, it’s a choice — proof of their empowerment. Nobody gets called old maid anymore, especially not single ladies who are financially successful and on top of their career. They don’t even have time to be cantankerous because of their workload.
Are they unhappy? No! In today’s material world, very few get lonely anymore. All you need is a laptop and you have a social life. Single ladies are also entitled to a lot of girls’ night-out, which they’ve earned since they work so hard.
Behind the TV cameras, 70 percent of the women I know have stayed unmarried. And yet they are among the happiest people on this earth. They spend their limited free time — still with co-workers — going around the malls.
They laugh, eat, get wide in the hips, but they don’t age.
Maybe because for all the pressure and stress, a television job is basically fun since you are never alone at work.
Such is the advantage of being part of the television world.