LilMtnCbn
03-14-2004, 07:17 AM
http://www.inq7.net/ent/2004/mar/14/ent_20-1.htm
Unique advantage
Posted: 8:29 PM (Manila Time) | Mar. 13, 2004
Inquirer News Service
LAST Sunday at 3 p.m., ABS-CBN launched a new weekly show, "Hulog ng Langit,"
that seeks to reunite separated members of families. It led off with three
youths who were given up for adoption when they were young, and now wanted to
find their long-lost birth mothers.
The first adoptee, a female singer, thanked her foster parent, but said she
wouldn't feel whole as a person if she didn't locate her mother.
Going from one lead after another, she went on a difficult, often disappointing
search that, by the end of the first telecast, had yet to gift her with her
desired sense of closure.
The second youth did experience closure, but it proved to be a sad denouement,
because he was eventually told that his mother had died.
However, this revelation was questioned by one of the people helping him, so a
surprise twist could be in the offing in subsequent installments of the show.
The third "parent searcher" was a youth who had come all the way from
Australia, where he had been reared by his adoptive parents. While looking for
his mother, he wound up meeting many other relatives-a very Filipino
development that both surprised and delighted him!
As the telecast ended, the third youth was shown about to meet his mother, so
more eventful experiences should be in store for him next Sunday.
The premiere telecast of "Hulog ng Langit" succeeded in making viewers care
about its three searchers. Their relative youth was a key factor in this
regard, because it made them look vulnerable.
The fact that they did the searching themselves, despite their being so young,
made them more admirable in viewers' eyes.
On the other hand, the show's handling of their stories was occasionally too
melodramatic, and milked both the searchers and the viewers' emotions too much.
The search for a parent is an extremely personal and sensitive theme, so the
show needs to be more judicious in its handling of the stories it features, to
make sure that viewers don't feel that the searchers' woes are being
excessively exploited to generate more viewership.
For her part, host Bernadette Sembrano comes off as a bit too detached, and
needs to get more involved in the searchers' feelings-not to the point of
mawkishness or intrusiveness, of course, but more judiciously personal
involvement would be appreciated.
Finally, what came through strongly in the first telecast of "Hulog ng Langit"
was Filipinos' unique propensity for being curious and knowledgeable about
other people's lives (and even their secrets). Thus, many people were able to
help the searchers in their quest for their birth mothers, even when the trail
would periodically turn cold.
We are sometimes criticized for being too nosey about other people's lives, but
in these three instances, our being "pakialameros" and "uziseros" has turned
out to be a unique advantage, and sometimes even a great blessing!
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
Unique advantage
Posted: 8:29 PM (Manila Time) | Mar. 13, 2004
Inquirer News Service
LAST Sunday at 3 p.m., ABS-CBN launched a new weekly show, "Hulog ng Langit,"
that seeks to reunite separated members of families. It led off with three
youths who were given up for adoption when they were young, and now wanted to
find their long-lost birth mothers.
The first adoptee, a female singer, thanked her foster parent, but said she
wouldn't feel whole as a person if she didn't locate her mother.
Going from one lead after another, she went on a difficult, often disappointing
search that, by the end of the first telecast, had yet to gift her with her
desired sense of closure.
The second youth did experience closure, but it proved to be a sad denouement,
because he was eventually told that his mother had died.
However, this revelation was questioned by one of the people helping him, so a
surprise twist could be in the offing in subsequent installments of the show.
The third "parent searcher" was a youth who had come all the way from
Australia, where he had been reared by his adoptive parents. While looking for
his mother, he wound up meeting many other relatives-a very Filipino
development that both surprised and delighted him!
As the telecast ended, the third youth was shown about to meet his mother, so
more eventful experiences should be in store for him next Sunday.
The premiere telecast of "Hulog ng Langit" succeeded in making viewers care
about its three searchers. Their relative youth was a key factor in this
regard, because it made them look vulnerable.
The fact that they did the searching themselves, despite their being so young,
made them more admirable in viewers' eyes.
On the other hand, the show's handling of their stories was occasionally too
melodramatic, and milked both the searchers and the viewers' emotions too much.
The search for a parent is an extremely personal and sensitive theme, so the
show needs to be more judicious in its handling of the stories it features, to
make sure that viewers don't feel that the searchers' woes are being
excessively exploited to generate more viewership.
For her part, host Bernadette Sembrano comes off as a bit too detached, and
needs to get more involved in the searchers' feelings-not to the point of
mawkishness or intrusiveness, of course, but more judiciously personal
involvement would be appreciated.
Finally, what came through strongly in the first telecast of "Hulog ng Langit"
was Filipinos' unique propensity for being curious and knowledgeable about
other people's lives (and even their secrets). Thus, many people were able to
help the searchers in their quest for their birth mothers, even when the trail
would periodically turn cold.
We are sometimes criticized for being too nosey about other people's lives, but
in these three instances, our being "pakialameros" and "uziseros" has turned
out to be a unique advantage, and sometimes even a great blessing!
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
