LITFILI *: Genre Expectations vs Social Commentary

Chick Lit is western, modern, and very feminist-oriented. There are many expectations from this genre. Surely it would contain fashion and sex related topics. Surely it would contain some sort of contemporary love story. But how about on the Social Commentary part? Chick Lit deems the upper-class western way of life as something quite desirable. Like those girls in Sex and the City who party every night and fuck around and have interesting and non-boring jobs.



It's seemingly promoting this form of desirable social status. And why is it desirable? Because next to being rock stars or movie stars, the next common dream would be to be in the advertising industry, or public relations, or fashion, or publishing. WHY? because these things are the closest to art that you can get without the risk of starving to death or being a bum. And we all want to be closer to art, for this is the only thing that keeps us from feeling that we are part of a machine or that our lives are full of meaningless and alienating processes.

So regardless of my preference for Chick Lit(I'm not very fond of it), as far as I'm concerned, writers can write whatever the hell they want to write and readers should, with caution of course, read whatever they want to read.

Now with crime fiction, I'm also not very fond of it. I do find forensics very interesting, but not fiction about it, I guess. CSI has very little continuity, and I guess the same goes for most crime fiction, because it would always be the same in the end: either you solve it which makes it cliche or you don't solve it and make your story annoying.

So which is more important? Genre expectations or social commentary? I think we shouldn't really think too much about it. Genre expectations are important but if we think too much about it then it would hinder the evolution of literature, reducing them to merely categorized objects and preventing them from transcending literary paradigms. The more we think of social commentary the more we'll be pulled away from fiction. I mean, it is important for a literary piece to have social commentary, but we also shouldn't forget that fiction is also some sort of imagination commentary(I'm not really sure what I mean by that).

For me, reading literature is like looking at a painting. we'll never really know what the writers really want to portray or express. all we'll ever have are speculations based on our own interpretations. Unless of course you really really want to, cause then you could interview the writer or go to his/her seminars.

LITFILI *: Generations

Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, "No, my friends. Don't do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them..." Genisis 19:6-8 (NIV)

Here, Lot(Nephew of Abraham) offers his two virgin daughters to every man in the City of Sodom. Of course this verse is open to interpretation. Go on and look it up if you want.



It's like how the father in Generations allowed her daughter to be raped by those army people, all for his own self-interest.

And now the daughter, near the last part, kills his father. The question is why didn't he just let his father rot in jail? She would never have been raped plus she wouldn't have had to kill her father. I don't really know the answer either. There must be some sort of underlying symbolism or something.

In my opinion, women can really use seduction to get almost whatever they want, specially if they're considered desirable by society's standards.

Perhaps she killed her father because she symbolized a new generation of women who were willing to take up radical means in order to achieve justice?

Ninotchka Rosca is a feminist, so I suppose that feminism would naturally be reflected in her literature.

LITFILI *: Fairy Tales

Some people say that Ring Around the Rosie is actually about the Bubonic plague of 1665. Anyway, in Invader Zim season 1 episode 8, Dark Harvest, Zim steals his schoolmates' organs in order to fool the school nurse that he is a human being. Reminds me of this organ stealer man everyone's been talking about.



I think fairy tales are very culture oriented and have folklore ties. Fairy tales also have a lot of sub-genres, i mean, this is a very broad topic. There are fairy tales for children while there are some that are dark and suited for a more mature audience.

I've been given a chance to really observe the local TV shows since there is no cable in my schooldays home. And so I noticed that we have a lot of fairy tale soap operas. Basically, Angel Locsin can trasnform into a wolf, Richard Gutierrez can trasnform into a snake(he used to be a "mulawin"; a hawk-man of some sort), and now Marimar is going to become a mermaid or something. Yea, those things are fairy tales, I suppose. I guess that kind of thing sells to the masses, since they really saturate prime time with it.

It gives us hope, I guess, fairy tales. Hope that there will be a hero in our lives, or that our ordinary and mundane lives can somehow save the world or something. But it's not really as pathetic as it sounds. All of us have fairy tales in our heads. They might be a bit modern though. Like animals texting or goblins popping vicodin or a rock vocalist peter pan. I'm sure most of us watch Heroes. Fairy tales evolve with society and helps keep the future such an interesting place.

Oh, and I read in a friend's blog that Nick Joaquin didn't finish high school and he's like a National Artist or something. I'm not sure if this has already been discussed in class. But hey, that's Filipino Literature so there, I just wanted to share.

may you all have fun and enough rest during this holy week break thing.

LITFILI ?: Prelude to the Literature of the Future

Humanity is continuously becoming. It is yet to evolve towards its true pure form. And we can see in our literature how we have changed from how we were in the past and how we are now in the present. Literature is a reflection of our experiences.



Some canon literary works, specially some of those we have read in our class, show so much oppression. It viewed women as weak and promoted a more conservative society. While our contemporary writers show how much we value liberty and equality nowadays. The evolution towards liberal thinking was not a choice for humanity -- it was inevitable. We have finally had enough of the past's discriminatory policies and conservative values. And so contemporary writers are no longer afraid of going against customs or traditions. Fuck the past. We have proved it to be wrong. But as I have said humanity is continuously becoming and there is still a lot of things to change concerning our current policies and values.

"And when men become free then mankind will be free.
May you be free of The Curse of Greyface.
May the Goddess put twinkles in your eyes.
May you have the knowledge of a sage,
and the wisdom of a child.
Hail Eris."

In the future, they would probably laugh or get bored when they read our literature now. They would think some of our policies and values are stupid and ignorant just as how we think that the subjugation of women and conservatism of the past was wrong.

SOMEWHAT IRRELEVANT REMINDER: They put Galileo behind bars.

So I guess all I really want to say is that Contemporary writers are more liberal. so we should be more liberal as contemporary people. Ok, ngayon kain ka na. Or matulog. ikaw bahala.

LITFILI 2: Initial Conditions

Everything is revealed to us; with no assurance or guarantee. All knowledge is a collection of retrieved information from the external world. Where then do we get our certainty if knowledge is replaced almost everyday? Why do we have so much faith in everything?

We all have faith in something. Some have faith that the sun will rise in the morning and some believe that Penicillin is a treatment of bacterial infections. The same way people used to believe that the world is flat or that the earth is in the center of the Universe.



Technological Determinism. Perhaps it's just my interpretation, but I felt that Arcellana's The Mats was some sort of satire or black comedy that portrayed contemporary society's subservience to consumerism and attachment to unnecessary material goods. It showed that humanity is subjected to trends in technology; something that determines all socio-political situations and dictates social norms. Science and Technology is the guiding force in all social change. How certain are we with what we really know?

There is this part in the story where they suddenly grieved because of three extra mats. For me, this symbolized society's grief over its slavery to uncertain knowledge. It symbolized that they no longer want to be ignorant but have no capability to set themselves free. We are all just like Mr. Angeles and his family: busying ourselves with a fraction and ignoring the greater whole.

Arcellana shows how we are so attached and how we busy ourselves with such petty things. In his second story, Divide by Two, it showed directly how attachment is the cause of all suffering. Familiarity breeds contempt. It is natural for neighbors to breed contempt amongst one another. Humans are generally more social than rational. Human drama is inevitable. There is always something negative we see in other people.

So our lesson for today is: read more and sleep well. We are all just slaves to the initial conditions. Slaves to our very own kind of Mats. So always remember to take a deep breath at all times and don't forget to feed the fish.

peace.

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LITFILI 1: Filipino Culture

I saw a cigarette vendor walking down the road. "This Filipino is a hardworking man," I said to myself, "walking under the sun all day just to earn cents per cigarette that he sells..." It was like using a plunger in the ocean -- futile and idealistic. "Filipinos must be really hardworking," I thought.

After that I saw this guy in church and I thought, "this Filipino is a religious man, kneeling down inside the church introduced to him by a nation who enslaved his people for more than 300 years. He must be really faithful, truly a believer."

What is our true identity? Who are we as a collective?



It's a lot like seeing a white ball while wearing red sunglasses. The ball is seemingly red. If you look around, everything is suddenly a shade of red. And so what is our true color? How could we ever see? Our identity is being dictated to us by different means of influence. We see ourselves as red only because we are no longer conscious of the red glasses we are wearing.

Filipinos have a vast variety of beliefs, values, and customs. A person from Manila would generally have a different set of values and beliefs as compared to a person from, let's say, Cebu or Davao or Palawan or whatever. Just like in one of the texts we read, the father of Leon and Baldo were testing Maria. Maria is a Filipino too just like Leon and Baldo, only the difference is a few hundred miles of location. This shows how different we are from each other.

As a collective, are there really values or beliefs that could unify our diverse people who are islands apart? Hospitable? Hardworking? Religious?

In my opinion, there is no inherent collective identity. The way we are all grouped is not a matter of values or beliefs. How we have come to be is entirely political. All I am saying is that there is no absolute Filipino. To say that there is one is like saying that Tagalog is the official language. It's discriminatory. It's different in Mindanao, it's different in Ilocos, it's different in Manila, etc. We are all different. And ideally, according to some sections of our Bill of Rights, this is what makes us Filipinos -- our right to be different.