Politicizing entertainment
No matter how hard you prepare for it ahead of time, college finals season is like no other.
There are no rules. You can eat all you want, or you can also opt not to. As much as I want to protect my sleep schedule to be from 12 a.m. to 6 a.m., I found myself having to sleep from 4 a.m. to 7 a.m.—which is actually the longest hours of sleep I ever had in two weeks of the finals season.
In one subject, you have a group presentation tomorrow and you will only start preparing today. In another, you have a long test you need a miraculous grade in. As much as possible, you need to fit 30 hours’ worth of work in 24 hours.
The only real break I have is whenever I eat dinner while watching YouTube. As someone who grew up in a typical Filipino household watching “It’s Showtime,” even after moving into Metro Manila to pursue education, I brought this habit of watching Vice Ganda, Vhong Navarro, and Anne Curtis on our television back home to my phone now in my condo.
My favorite noontime show has ceased being a room for entertainment full of sunshine and rainbows. Through its hosts, it has actively participated in political discourse, one joke or side comment at a time.
Scrolling through comments online, some have aired their concerns about the show being too political. Some even asserted that the hosts simply wanted the revival of their network by driving their political discussions on air.
But that is not what I see.
I see Filipino citizens, regardless of whether they are the highest taxpayers or not, actively using their platform to raise awareness given their wide reach. I see celebrities who are privileged and financially stable, but actively step out of their bubble to experience life beyond themselves.
Even if the survival of a network—which was shut down during the pandemic, an era wherein the dissemination of information was highly needed—remains in their interests, it does not diminish the value of their political activeness. Calling out political discrepancies, after all, is a right of all Filipino people.
We also see this pattern of being politically vocal despite being in an industry shaped by societal expectations, even in other cases. Beauty queens like Catriona Gray, Joy Barcoma, and Bea Millan-Windorski have come down from their pedestal and pure glamor to go with the masses and rally for transparency and accountability.
Given the political nature of their humor, many have expressed their concern for the safety of the “Showtime” hosts. However, the very cost of them taking a stance makes it more meaningful and revolutionary, which they do for the people with significantly less security. In a society that molded them to be all fun and jokes, they refused to submit to the illusion of peace equating to silence and laughter; they use their platform for those who do not have the privilege of being heard.
What one hears in their jokes is frustration, not just theirs, but of ordinary Filipinos who share the same realities as them. They carry the voices not just of other vocal personalities, but also of those who are afraid of being one, for it might cost them their job, or social dynamics with their family members.
Growing up, “Showtime” has been in every phase of my life—from being a child who watched out of boredom, to being a young adult taking a break from studies.
If anything, “Showtime” does not just give me time to rest and laugh. During finals season, or in life in general, it is easy to fall into the temptation of focusing too much on what we are doing in the present—practicing every day for the next test or pulling an all-nighter for the next presentation. We can lose sight of what we are doing all of these for, or for whom we are fighting for.
However, little moments like this remind me, and hopefully, other Filipinos, to look at the bigger picture. Beyond academic struggles is a world that needs saving, and admittedly, as we are busy grinding, we may be in need of reminding. And the hosts and comedians we grew up with, given how visible they are on social media, are here to do that.
In a country facing intense political turmoil, comedians using politics in their skits are gifts. They do not ask us to escape. They encourage us to be vocal like them or represent us if we could not. They redefine Filipino resiliency not just as endurance, but facing problems with a smile, yet with conviction—or to fully encapsulate it, to face it with “paninindigan.”
Contrary to other comments that defend them as “Filipinos first, comedians next,” they actually embed their Filipino identity and values in everything they do, instead of treating them as different identities.
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Paulo Fajardo, 18, is a management engineering sophomore at Ateneo de Manila University. He loves watching random funny YouTube and TikTok videos from time to time.
