X-rated

It’s a long time away from my Sanrio days, when Lala and Kiki dominated our Greenhills shopping (for originals, not knock-offs from Divisoria, mind you). It’s also been a long time since I started huffing and puffing in this space about the separation of Church.

But alo and behold, a new Lala has oozed out of nowhere. The chairwoman of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB), Lala Sotto was given the task of safeguarding the morals of the Filipino public from film filth. And in true wholesome Sanrio style, she has stepped up to the requirements of her position, opting very decisively to X-rate the movie “Dear Satan”.

Why, you may ask? In her own words: “I have seen the film. I joined the board. I am offended as a Christian. It is not demonic, but it has a different depiction of Satan becoming good. But Satan will never ever be good.” On that definitive note, the Lala mark of X.

Oh, Lala. Whatever possessed you? Was it an angel? Because you have been led down the path of error, to say the least. Some helpful angel, that was. Of course, I am assuming there is something to possess.

The lawyers may quibble about whether there was basis in the law for Lala’s X-rating. I don’t think legal basis can be found just because Lala’s personal values were offended, but then I’m just a corporate lawyer. But even without applying the law, Lala’s own words send alarm bells screeching down to purgatory.

Satan was depicted in a different manner? Satan became good? Satan could never be good? Lala, have you heard of this modern invention called a “movie”? That shouldn’t be hard to grasp. It’s usually a story that’s been translated to the cinema, played by actors who are mouthing the words of a writer. Much like a play by Shakespeare, except recorded on film. Ever heard of Lalaland, Lala?

There are ideas in there, there are lessons too. Some ideas are left unexpressed, there to be chewed on by the audience, and hopefully arrived at with their own inductive and deductive processes. There is the beauty of a story, where each viewer is free to form her own impression, and come away struck by many different wondrous things.

You do know what stories are, right? Novels? Epic poems? Oral retelling of legends and tales, where many impracticable and even almost impossible things are described? Like, in your own Christian world, where the Bible speaks of water turning into blood? Or where, for example, angels suddenly give in to temptation and become, gasp, devils?

Oh Lala. You did know that Satan a.k.a. Lucifer Morningstar used to be an angel, yes? Why can we not admit the possibility of Satan becoming good again? Once an angel, always an angel? Except some of Charlie’s Angels, who may become Demi Moore later on.

And Satan is found in each and every one of us, because we are inherently good and evil, and each one of us can die and end up in hell where we get assigned to crappy duties like tempt humans to become film reviewers in censorship boards of third-world countries.

The producers say that the film is about a funny mix-up where a little girl writes a letter to Santa (Claus), but she misspells the addressee, and instead, shoots off the letter to Satan. That’s a hilarious premise, and the sequence of events apparently leads to Satan becoming a sort of Santa (by which is probably meant he transforms from evil to good). But Lala cannot accept that, and so the movie can only be X-rated, which is the same category, I presume, as movies with titles like “Debbie Does Dallas” and “Lala Likes Lollipops”.

I wonder which part of Lala’s job description prescribed that she must utilize her Christian values in order to judge films. More uncharitably, I wonder to what books and films Lala was exposed in her childhood and all throughout her formative years, such that in her adult life, she cannot grapple with a movie that depicts Satan as other than evil.

“Addams Family”? “Beetlejuice”? All the Twilight movies that positively luxuriate in blood-drinking vampires and shape-changing werewolves? Shall we X-rate all of them then? Dear Lord.