Cowboy with the Bat Ears

In anticipation of tomorrow’s screening of “The Dark Knight Rises”, I unearthed an essay I wrote for my Pop Culture class in sophomore year–an examination of the film “The Dark Knight” through the juxtaposition of some its conventions with the classical conventions used in old Western films.

LOL that sounds so college-y doesn’t it? I wish I could write a better introduction but it’s a Friday night and I’m exhausted.

Anyway, I decided to post the whole essay here, just because I found myself editing some of the stuff I wrote while I was reading and I feel like I might as well make it public since I already wasted precious minutes of my Friday trying to make it readable…for no one in particular.

It’s a bit long and has an academic-y tone to it. Otherwise, I think it makes for a pretty interesting read.

This goes out to all the Bat-fans out there.

Behold the Man

One man lies at the center of  the “Poletiesmo” controversy, and his name is not Mideo Cruz.

So many groups and individuals have voiced out their two-cents on the issue, but in truth, all I hear is noise. Most have missed the point completely.

It seems the cumulative effect of centuries of tradition has rendered Filipinos unable to see the Crucifix as anything other than a religious symbol. This, I think, is true whether we identify as Christian or Muslim, atheist or agnostic. We just can’t help it. We see the Crucifix, we think Christianity. We think Religion.

But if we strip away all of the discourse on politics, censorship, religion, etc., we’re finally able see the Crucifix for what it really is–the likeness of a human corpse nailed to an instrument of torture.

I’m against Cruz’s work not because it’s blasphemous or offensive, but because it’s dehumanizing. By drawing phallic symbols on an image of one person’s anguish, it makes a spectacle of human suffering. By hanging a condom across a memorial of a man impaled on a cross, it tramples on the face of human dignity.

Consider the following: If an artist were to draw Mickey Mouse ears on photographs of victims of the Maguindanao Massacre, what Filipino would not be horrified? If an artist mounts a plastic penis onto the sculpture of a dying Rizal in Luneta Park,who would not demand for it to be taken down? These are things no one would ever dare to call “art”. These are acts of violence  no one would tolerate for the sake of “freedom of expression”.

So why, pray tell, should we tolerate this one?

The Importance of Keeping a Journal

I used to think it tedious and unnecessary. Gratuitous, even. It also seemed to me very childish, and whatever I did, I couldn’t shake off the image of a little girl lying on her stomach in her bed, a scented notebook open before her, her small voice chirping, “Dear Diary…” while she scribbled the words and swung her legs in the air.

Now I know better, which is not to say I hadn’t kept journals before. I like to write, and I wrote a lot and kept notebooks. But I was always conscious of not writing in a dear-diary way, and I resisted it all the time, but also sometimes I’d let slip a few. The result was a lot of journals with a lot of fragments of script–abstract, out-of-context, ultimately inconsequential and forgettable. The few dear-diary entires that I did have, which were composed mostly of furious bedside recollections of dreams from the night before, were, on the other hand, what I had found to be the most memorable and riveting. Proof again that nothing beats a good story.

I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out earlier. To write is to tell stories. And to write a journal is to tell the story of you. Gratuitous? Perhaps. But that hardly matters anymore. When it comes down to it, I write only for myself and I mustn’t be ashamed of it. One day, when I’m old, no-one else will have the patience to read through all these unedited accounts of my daily life. No-one else except me, which is fine.

I make no apologies. Not even to myself.

What Child is This?

They say the Son of God was born today, in a town called Bethlehem, south of Israel. Born–as any son of man is born, emerging from his mother’s womb. The big word for it is Incarnation: God assuming flesh, God becoming man. The other word for it is Christmas.

But why a child? Why should an almighty God become a defenseless infant? Surely there were other ways for him to come into the world. He could’ve descended fully-grown from heaven, a choir of angels announcing his entrance. He could’ve materialized out of thin air if he wanted to, in the midst of a crowd for full effect. It would’ve been the greatest magic trick mankind has ever seen.

Instead, he chose to be born, like us. This God, this Boundless Spirit, chose to be small and dwelt in the womb of young Jewish woman. After nine months he emerged, slipping from one world to the next in near silence. No choirs of angels (that would come later). No magical flourish. Just the whisper of his first breath followed by the soft sound of his crying. This is the heart of the mystery–Infinite Wisdom rendered speechless, the first sounds to come from his lips not words of profound meaning, but the plaintive cry of a newborn.

So it was as God had made it, and it was good. For he knew that words are fragile and can be misunderstood, manipulated, contradicted, or ignored.  But the cry of an infant newly born is undeniable. Indeed, it is the most undeniable thing there is–the first irresistible call of love.

Bros and Shows

I’ve already made Apa promise to watch “Battlestar Galactica” when he’s older and just recently, I made him promise to watch another show that I fell in love with. When I told him the name of it, he groaned and said, “Another geeky show?”. Then I said, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” To which he idiotically replied, “But “Freaks and Geeks” is not a book.”

He’s right, though. “Freaks and Geeks” is not a book. And I totally understand his concern about its name because I can imagine how weird it is to be 12 and to be told to watch shows with words like “Galactica” and “Geek” in their titles. It makes me want to sit him down and explain everything.

First, I want to tell him about “Freaks and Geeks”. I want to tell him to watch that before anything else. If he asks what kind of show it is, I’d say it’s many kinds–comedy, drama, teen show, family show, period piece–but at the same time, it isn’t any kind at all. Then I’d tell him how I fell in love with it. How it was just a single, specific scene from the pilot that won me over completely. It’s the scene where Sam and Lindsay, brother and sister, have a quiet conversation in Lindsay’s bedroom.

Sam Weir is 14, scrawny, and a high school freshman. In school, he and his two geek friends get in trouble with a boy named Alan who threatens to beat them up. Meanwhile, his big sister Lindsay is a junior and former “Mathlete” who’s in the middle of an identity crisis. In the episode, the two go around trying to deal with their problems, but at home they eat dinner like a normal family. Their parents love them both to death, but as nice as they are, Mr. and Mrs. Weir just don’t have a clue. So when Lindsay’s inner turmoil culminates into her walking out during dinner and shutting herself in her room, it’s Sam who inadvertently comes to the rescue.

He’s too worried about the bully and too young to realize his sister’s dealing with a problem much bigger than his own. All he knows is that Lindsay’s his big sister, and big sisters are supposed to be there to help you out. And so he tells her about Alan the bully and he tells her about Neal and Bill and he asks her if there’s a chance that they might survive the attack. Lindsay’s a good sister, but she’s also a realist. When she tells Sam that their chances of beating him are pretty bleak, he sighs and turns to leave. But even as he does so, he hesitates just a little bit. That’s when Sam asks Lindsay, “Why are you throwing your life away?”

This catches Lindsay off-guard. She demands to know if it was their Dad who told him to ask her that, and Sam says no–that it was actually her friend Millie who did. Defensive, Lindsay waves them all off and tells them to mind their own business.  As soon as she sees how hurt Sam is, though, and realizes that he’s genuinely worried about her, she calls him back, softly. He stays and waits. Then, she starts to tell him about their grandmother’s death.

Lindsay: Sam, did mom and dad ever tell you that I was the only one with grandma when she died?

Sam: No.

Lindsay: Yeah. They went to the cafeteria to get some coffee, and all of a sudden grandma looked so terrified. I didn’t know what to do. She grabbed my hand, told me she didn’t want to go. She looked so scared, Sam. So I said, well, you know, can you see God or heaven or a light, or anything.

Sam: What did she say?

Lindsay: No. There’s nothing. She was a good person all her life and that’s what she got.

“Freaks and Geeks” is a show about growing up, and growing up is about suddenly coming to face to face with harsh realities. For Sam, it’s standing up against a school bully. For Lindsay, it’s dealing with the possibility of life having no meaning. These two problems could not be any more different from each other, and yet, in this scene, they exist side-by-side.  Still, this works out just fine because that’s how real life is like anyway. As rational beings,  there’s a part of us that transcends, that can’t help but ask these deep, philosophical questions on life and death. But as mortal creatures, there’s also part of us that has to deal with the more mundane aspects of survival, of just getting through the day unscathed.

What I love most about this show is not the fact that it deals with such themes, but the very specific manner in which it deals with them. Its greatest strength, I think, is its refreshing honesty. It’s not a show that tries too hard to look smart or funny or profound. It’s quite content with just being as true-to-life as possible. Lindsay’s existential crisis, for example, is not borne out of some highly pretentious intellectual navel-gazing. Instead, it’s grounded on a real-life encounter that was as much emotional as it was philosophical–an encounter that the writers could’ve chosen to make a real, dramatic scene out of, but opted to flesh out through simple dialog instead.

The result is a scene that is both understated and profound: a teenage girl telling her younger brother about how their grandmother died.  It’s a conversation that can happen in any bedroom in any country in any time or era. And though the story is about the grandmother, the essence of the scene is ultimately the interaction between Sam and Lindsay. When Lindsay finally finishes telling the story, she is met only with silence. If this were another show, an adult figure would probably step in and offer words of wisdom to console Lindsay. But this is “Freaks and Geeks”. This is a show about what really happens in real situations and the reality is that Sam is only 14 and though he loves his sister, he’s not mature enough to think of anything else to say but, “So do you think we could beat up Alan?”

Lindsay’s reaction to Sam’s innocent question basically establishes her as one of my most favorite characters ever. The sadness in her eyes left over from when she was recalling the death of their grandma quickly turns into confusion which then slowly softens into this amazing, older-than-life look of understanding that just shatters my soul. It’s not an understanding of life’s greatest questions, but an understanding of love.  There are a lot of things that Lindsay doesn’t know yet, but right now she knows the only thing that matters: she loved her brother Sam. She loved him enough to realize that even though he couldn’t possibly relate to her problems, he was just as scared as she was and that was just as important. So after Sam had asked, “Do you think we could beat up Alan?”, she was silent for a while, but afterward, she put on the bravest,  most encouraging smile and told him, softly, “Yeah. He’s a goner.”

That’s what it’s about. That’s what everything is about, love. You can call me a sap for saying so, but I believe this with my whole heart. And what I want most of all is for Apa to know this, which is why I wanted to sit him down and tell him all of this. Tell him about that scene, break it down for him. Tell him that it was Sam’s love that saved Lindsay, and Lindsay’s love that saved Sam, and it is love that saves all of us, always. But Apa is only 12 and might not understand. So all I can do is make him promise to watch “Freaks and Geeks” when he’s older, and reassure him that it’s a show that isn’t geeky at all. Or at least, not all the time.

Goals

Sometimes, I was so much better than I thought I was, and I’d score goals I never even dreamed were possible. Sometimes, I wasn’t as good as I thought I was, and I’d fall flat on the ground tripping on my own shoes.

But I’ve also never been more sure of myself than when I was playing the beautiful game. I knew who I was and what I needed to do every time I stepped into that field and heard that whistle blow.

My very being, my whole existence, revolved around a singular objective: to send that black-and-white ball to the back of the opponent’s net. Nothing could be simpler. My goal for the next 90 minutes of my life was always, quite literally, a goal.