Showbiz wants you!

Would you or would-n’t you?” my friend asked, interrupting our slothful silence, the remote control finally laid to rest between us. It was the summer after college and there was nothing much to do. And in early 2007, we had found ourselves at the nadir of Nothing To Do, which, apparently, was watching several borderline-attractive nobodies become somebodies; the house-arrested auditions of which were engaging in aimless activity and pointless conversation.

This was Pinoy Big Brother and as closeted viewers for many a reason, the question my friend had slid forward — this “Would you join PBB, a.k.a. knock on the new ‘boarding house’ of showbiz if you had a chance?”—was tainted with hypothetical humiliation. Like I was under the dim light of drunken, shallow questioning: “For [insert reasonable amount to abandon self-respect], would you have sexual relations with [insert name of most unattractive female you know]?” or “How much could [insert name of most pedophiliac male teacher you know] pay to take advantage of you?” While I recall a price tag attached to the question of succumbing to showbiz, neither of us suggested any this time. In fact, we had both agreed we wouldn’t mind the exploitation; my friend, with his strategy to win housemates’ hearts and myself with, well, I would join even with the likelihood of an early exit; the effect shedding a little too much of myself on the bathroom floor.

Both of us might have even paid our way into that attention whorehouse, now that I think about it.

Krista, Have Mercy

How high the fumes of fame have made us in viewing something once regarded ever so lowly. I seem to recall a time not so long ago wherein the mention of the Jolina-jump-started buzzword “chuva” (its meaning still eluding me to this day), much less the mention of Jolina per se, was coughed up with so much derision by late-’90s intelligentsia. Now, patroness of both high and lowbrow arts Cecile Zamora’s Chuvaness is one of the most raptly read blogs, clicked upon by YES! Magazine-raised baby gays and Alabang housewives alike.

“Kailan ba nag-umpisa sa Philippines … I’m really trying to think when showbiz started not to be so baduy anymore,” the venerable Iza Calzado pondered, sitting across from me. At a Persian restaurant in Pasig where, serendipitously enough, settled-down startista Donita Rose Villarama was conducting official business at a neighboring booth, I had become curious about Iza becoming the newest judge on StarStruck alongside Lolit Solis and Darna ’94 screenwriter Floy Quintos. What did critic-congratulated, craft-committed Iza think about all of reality TV’s get-fame-quick schemes (PBB, PFF, Survivor Philippines, etc.), where, to become a celebrity, actual talent was replaced by clocked-in face time.

“Have you seen Glee?” she asked. “They said it in the first or second episode: ‘Fame — that’s what everybody wants now.’ And that’s true. Nung sumali ako sa showbiz, nandun pa siya sa stage between Ang TV and TGIS, hanggang Click or after Click, medyo baduy ang showbiz. Now, even super socialites want to be in the center of it all.”

Perhaps mass appeal has become ’mas appeal to a more aware affluent. A new coño-scenti, if you will. Those able to pronounce the names of esoteric fashion houses and appreciate the new Kimerald soap as well. Zamora can be considered one of the mavens of this movement; Chuvaness as an online purveyor of haute hipster culture, which also happens to scratch the kitsch of showbiz, serving up a Piolo sound bite or covering the Krista Ranillo crisis that’s been eating at the country lately.

Hell, even Krista is a redeemer of local entertainment as all-around fixation and a viable career option for the educated. If you saw the Interdisciplinary Studies graduate ambling around Ateneo with her Louis Vuitton bag slung over her shoulder and a bright future stretched out before her, you wouldn’t think that checking into the Mandarin with Manny Pacquiao — allegedly — would be part of it. This, from someone who starred in a promotional video for her university with co-alums Myx VJ Nikki Gil (BA in English, 2009) and GMA host Chris Tiu (BS in Management Engineering, Master of Applied Mathematics, etc.). It makes you think, is going showbiz — rather, being at the mercy of the masa — a new spin on the school’s “man for others” motto?

‘Mag-showbiz ka nalang ...’

Answering the question Iza raised on when this all came about has proven difficult. It was sudden. Like when we’d woken up to find that vampires were sucking hard on the jugular of culture. And as the giving of life to fangs was inviting, so was letting it go for fame, if the once-contemptible opportunity was ever offered, of course. Still, while the “Viva La Vampire” campaign had its Twilight, it’s unclear exactly what had re-stimulated an appetite for showbiz as admissible obsession and possible profession.

Maybe the pilgrimage of Fil-foreigners to our showbiz shores had something to do with it, what with the value we place on imported goods and all. Movies had also gotten better at the turn of the century. There was Tanging Yaman, which happened to star Fil-Aussie student model-turned-actress Janette McBride (yes, I’m citing her). We saw more of her kind; a people who didn’t seem to need the industry but indulged it anyway; from worldly Derek Ramsay to art crowd pleaser-to-artista Victor Basa to unlikely porn star-to-actual rising star Maricar Reyes. Also, amid the industry’s squalor, we found lots of endearing showiness (Ruffa’s high life abroad, Greta’s extra-high Louboutins); class acts (Paris-edition KC, New York Borgy); and the Belo-ification of the local celebrity through the status symbol of surgery. Then came the power, glory, and money of Manny, which all knocked out and bought out every last bit of this nation’s snobbery.

“My God, ikaw din?” Iza asked, curious about my showbiz aspirations, given that I had the height of Hayden Kho and man tits as prominent as the dude on that Folded & Hung billboard. “It’s what everyone wants now. Wala na ‘bang gustong maging lawyer? Doctor? Ako, gusto ko ganun anak ko.”

Oh, come on, Iza, everyone knows that if you want to run this town, you’ll have to run the show. Or, like Krista, run Manny, who, by the way, is almighty proof that once you’ve got the celebrity thing down, you can do anything — sing, act, meet Mark Wahlberg, even. Or run for office. And why not, in a country where an affinity for entertaining the public equates to an ability to serve it? If you want to work for “the common good”, your name or bod will need to be common knowledge to people (Alfred Vargas for 2010!).

So forget Political Science and Mass Comm. What schools need to start offering is a BS in Artista Arts, otherwise known as Masa Communications. There has to be an academy where what has to be the only dream of the Pinoy youth today can be realized. Oh wait, I think they already do, just with very limited slots. Televised too — but that shouldn’t be a problem, right?