February 8 2007 Reading Response #2 Dr. Sun Hee Teresa Lee Love Letters influence on Filipinos In Dogeaters, signs and various discourses including TV, gossip, and radio programs bombard the Philippines world. The Filipinos create a reality within the constraints of the various discourses that is superficial and underlies reality. To put into Jean Baudrillards terminology, The Filipinos ideas exist partly in the simulacrum or, semiotics extended from its common one; a copy of a copy which has been so dissipated in its relation to the original that it can no longer be said to be a copy (Cain, 1732). In other words, the pervasive discourses create a false world that the Filipinos inhabit. The discourses serve as vehicles for ideas to be conveyed about identity and roles within society. The popular serial radio show, Love Letters is an extremely powerful discourse in the novel to convey ideas of national identities specifically among lower class citizens. The ideas expressed within the show exhibit underlying themes of power struggles among classes and a reinforcing theme of the proletariat overcoming the servant or peasant. The dominant themes in the serial are reinforced every episode and the government controls the media tenaciously. Any opposition to the governments views are quelled and censored by the Special Squadron urban Warfare Unit. The Episode of Love Letter #99 begins with the audiences introduction to Dalisay. Dalisay is a beautiful young servant whos been deflowered by the handsome Mario, the son of wealthy landowner Don Pedro de Leon (Hagedorn, p.12). Immediately the audience learns of a young subordinate woman who has lost her virginity to a man of the proletariat class. The show continues to reveal that Dalisay is pregnant and wrote away to Mario who is in military
school. Dalisay is scared because she must continue in her role as a servant. She does not have any power because she is a servant and therefore cannot reveal her secret to the masters of the house. This is problematic because there is such a large class division and the love between the master and the servant is forbidden. After the parents discover the news from Marios school, the girl is thrown out with nowhere to go but to her poor tenant fathers house. The servant girl must turn to someone for aid and remains helpless and powerless. The vengeful master Dona Hilda, vows to right her sons wrongs so he can marry a proper upper-class woman by getting rid of Dalisay by staging an accident(p.13). Dalisays role in the Love Letter is a problem for the proletariats because she was impregnated. Because she is subordinate to her masters, she can easily be eliminated. The poor girl is left without any power to changer her situation. The dominating themes of power struggles between classes and genders in Love Letters are themes that are spoon-fed to the masses of Filipino culture like Gerbers baby food. A German Director at the Filipino film festival commented that the media serves as, Opiates of the people (p.135). The dominant audiences of the serial are the servants and the elders, like Lola Narcissa and the servants of her familys household. The servants can listen to the serial in a calm, complacent state because the dominant tropes are channeled through fake emotions that the serial stirs. A servant is able to with identify Dalisay because they are in the same position as her, but the servants do not realize the effects of identifying with the weak subordinate perspective. The servants situation is reinforced because instead of rebelling or thinking about any sort of rebellion, the servants can tap into their emotional outlet that lies within the serial. The Proletariat maintains a powerful position within the show because their role is reinforced as they dominate their servant and control her. The status quo stays in balance in favor of the proletariat because the show taps into the emotions of the servants. Lola Narcissa belongs to a
different, non-cosmopolitan traditions where she can relate to the themes of the serials and let a radio show distract her from the rest of the world. Rio, Narcissas granddaughter comments that her grandmother loves the show because, Theres always a lesson to be learned, and its always a painful one. Just like our Tagalog movies, the serial is heavy with puree love, blood debts, luscious revenge, the wisdom of mothers, and the enduring sorrow of Our Blessed Virgin Barbara Villanueva(p.12). A lesson is always learned and reinforced for the apt listener of the serials. The message is not always so clear and the listener learns through pain, hardship, and struggle that it is difficult to rise against the oppressive nature of the class divisions presented within the serial. The government controls and censors the media tenaciously. Different government operations like The Special Squadron urban Warfare Unit work to enforce censorship. The censorship of shows like Love Letters works to ensure that the various tropes of control are continuously enforced. The servants listen to similar themes over and over again until the identities and class divisions are reinforced. When there is opposition like when Daisy publicly denounces the beauty pageant she recently won, the government immediately censored the rest of the broadcast. Furthermore, when the rock band, Juan Tamad records a song dedicated to her, Femme Fatale, the government immediately detains the band and forces them never to record radical, deviant music (p.109). Censorship control from the government makes it very difficult for any oppositional views to be expressed through the media discourses of television or radio in the Filipino culture. The Filipino culture in the novel, Dogeaters, enjoys living within the constraints of the world created by the media. The pervasive influence of the media allows for popular tropes of power struggles and division to be channeled through the various discourses including the
popular radio serial, Love Letters. Love Letters is a serial where dominant themes of racial, gender, and division struggle are pervasive. The listener relates and identifies with their emotions created artificially within the serial. With their emotions invested in the characters of the radio show, they do not feel the other emotions that would support rebellious behavior. The government ensures that the programs continue playing the dominating tropes through censorship.
Works Cited Cain, Williams E., Laurie A Finke, Barbara E. Johnoson, John McGowan and Jeffrey J. Williams. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: Norton, 2001 Hagedorn, Jessica. Dogeaters. New York: Penguin, 1990.