Joseph R. Daoang
IP 368B
Spring 2009
Module 2 Summary

Module 2 Summary

Module two talks about the five different types of practices to interpret and explains films in society. Semiology is the study of sign systems. Signs include gestures, fashion, table manners and business etiquette among others. Structuralism locates existence of basic patterns or structures in human life. Marxism looks at things in terms of the struggle between the ruling class and the working class. Feminism analyzes things in terms of the relationship of women to power and society. Last is the Neo-Freudian where actions are driven by sexual desires repressed by social norms.
Each of these types of analysis can be applied to the Philippines. For example, in semiological interpretation: Film-makers always try to make it clear to the audience that there is barrier between the upper class and the lower class. Class or regional differences in gesture, fashion, table manners and etiquette are used to signify particular classes or regions. An opening scene signifies a rich young woman in this way: she is in a very big room, she is groomed well and wearing a robe made of silk. From these few objects and context, the director is conveying a clear message: she is very rich and living in luxury. A subsequent scene takes the viewer somewhere else: a young, dark man waking up at the break of dawn; tight quarters, lack of lightning and no bed. The director is presenting an opposite sign: poor and harsh conditions. Popular Philippine movies use lower-class living quarters as always dark and very minimal furnishing. After this scene, you will already know the difference between the two actors because of the utilization of these signs.
Likewise, there is always some tension in Philippine movies about the struggle between the rich and the poor. Drama, action or comedy, you will almost always see the difference between two extremely different economic classes. I have seen movies where a poor homeless child is taken to a rich family’s home. The child awed about the grandeur of the place and its beauty. They then take the child into the dinning room for a meal. You will have the rich kid sitting quietly with napkins on their laps and using utensils in upper class “proper” etiquette. On the other side of the table, we see the poor kid eating with his hands and talking at the same time. Depending on the director’s point of view, the rich family might look at each other and feel disgusted on what they are seeing or be amused or otherwise express emotion to show this child’s difference.
Struggle between the upper class and working class using semiological practices and also involves gendered issues. When a rich woman invites a working class man to meet the parents, it always end up in a disaster. The rich family ridicules the poor man and shows him that a poor person should not mingle with the rich because there is a huge social difference between them. For the ice breaker, the rich family will first ask what type of jobs his parents are doing. On some occasions, that person will lie to impress the rich woman’s parents.
Fashion is where they show the huge difference between the social classes. The rich will always have their best clothes and jewelry on – sometimes foreign clothes – as if they are going to a ball, even if their just hanging inside the house. The poor are presented wearing dark, raggy garments, messy hair as if they just rolled out of bed. In Philippine movies, you will either be rich and beautiful or poor and ugly.
Rich people are shown to have more fun. That is one of the messages that movies always try to tell the audience. Rich people travel the world and they waste their day shopping and buying things. They hang around the house sitting by the pool while having servants do the smallest work like bring them drinks. People on the lower classes just work and work. Filmmakers make it look like that they just work and nothing else. They will always show their struggle in their work and how their hard work is not enough to make ends meet. Rarely, their hard work will be rewarded by promotions and end up owning the company – through highly unlikely situations.
One of my favorite Philippine movie of all time is “Tanging Ina”. This movie starred Ai Ai Delas Alas. She is a comedienne that had been in the Philippine movie industry for a while until she was given her big break to play the lead role in “Tanging Ina”. She played an unlucky woman widowed by several men having twelve children by them. The beginning of the movies shows Ina is poor and works for her mother in a carnival. A wealthy gambler pays her mother and marries her. She becomes a rich woman but because of her fate, her husband dies and is widowed. She then finds another love who ends up dead as well. In each of these marries and deaths, her husbands are lower in class than the previous. In the end, she losses all her business and had to work to support her large family without a husband. Throughout the movie, it showed Ina’s struggle to balance time between family and her many jobs. The movie’s message is all about accepting your fate and class. In life sometimes you’re on the top, and sometimes you’re on rock bottom. You can work really hard and get rewarded and sometimes you work hard and don’t.
Philippine movies always shows the difference between the rich and the poor. Sometimes the have movies that shows rich lifestyles as unwanted by the character playing the role. Sometimes it shows that richness cannot give you happiness. Sometimes it gives a message of hope. Hope that with hard work, richness and wealth can be held. A message sometimes I feel untrue. I feel that those who achieved richness are those one in millions. Sometimes hard work will not take you anywhere.