MOVIES AS CONSUMER ITEMS

A YOUNG woman thinks she needs a new pair of shoes. At the department store, she
tries on pairs and pairs before she decides which one to buy. A middle-aged clerk waiting for
homeward traffic to ease orders a glass of beer at a Quiapo eatery. He is served a flat drink, so
he sends it back with the demand that he be given the beer he wants. A business executive
gives his new car a test run. He finds the steering wheel defective. He can take it back to the car
salesman and insist that he get a car that is safe to drive.

A middle-class family on their monthly outing are attracted to a movie that has been
advertised as "heart-warming," "thrilling," and "thought-provoking." Inside the moviehouse,
Father and Mother are offended by the moral tone of the action, Sis and Brod find the pacing
sleep-inducing. There are two options open to the family -- stay and bear the consequences of
an ill-advised choice of entertainment, or walk out. In either case, they have been losers.
Whoever heard of a moviehouse refunding the cost of admission tickets to unsatisfied
customers?

It is usual for people to regard movies as entertainment that gives a man the chance to
while away unoccupied hours or get away from problems he cannot effectively confront. It is
less usual to approach movies as art, although there is a growing number of people who do just
that. These two attitudes toward movie-going have tended to blur the reality that movies are
consumer items just like Gregg shoes, San Miguel Beer or a Volkswagen. Every film is a
package of values and attitudes wrapped in glossy, colorful celluloid for the same public that is
constantly being blandished, seduced and bamboozled by businessmen offering gratification,
fulfillment, even status to those who would purchase an ever-increasing array of products.

Movies are consumer items. However, a disgruntled movie-goer has no way of getting
his money back or even an exchange receipt. Once he has pushed his currency under the ticket
window, he can only hope that the movie he is about to see is what the publicity blurbs and the
advertisements promise it will be. But as a customer, the movie-goer has a right to complain and
be heard. For 75 years, Filipinos have been movie- goers and it is only fair that they be allowed
to protect themselves from producers, foreign and local, who have cashed in on their legitimate
desire to be entertained.

Day in, day out, at movie houses all over the country, customers line up to buy those
glossy packages in darkened halls where an illusion of life is made to flicker on a "silver" screen
for the seduction or edification of the paying audience. These Filipinos, ever-present in the
calculating minds of producers and their publicity men, are never consulted as to what they want
to get in the packages they purchase. Quite often, they are even maligned as responsible for
the insipid content or debasing packaging because “ganyan talaga ang gusto ng masa”. This is
of course tantamount to saying that a company manufactures low- quality toothpaste because
the consumers' teeth have cavities anyway. The fact is that consumers for movies in our free
enterprise system are not in any position to make their preferences matter in the manufacture of
movies. They are, of course, constantly fed with the illusion that it is their collective will that
makes the movie industry run, but the plain truth is that the system is so structured that they
remain at the paying end.

The producer, representing the interests of private business, puts up the enormous sum
(we are told it is around P800,000 now) that makes movies possible, and it is his expectations of
profit that determine the content of movies. Sometimes, that content might be the dreams and
aspirations of businessmen and their associates as projected into the target audience of
students, housewives, office workers, laborers and farm-hands. Very often, the content is the
dreams and aspirations of the audience as manipulated by big business. In both cases, the stuff
that goes into movies is always drummed up as "life" or "reality." When spokesmen for the
movie industry speak of the "taste of the audience," let us make a mental note that they are
referring to the taste of producers passed off as "public insistence" or "audience preference."

The deception of consumers facilitated by the aura of glamor and skill that surrounds the
finished movie. After all, there stands between the producers and the consumers the imposing
presence of artists and technicians. The movie stars, the director, the scriptwriter, the camera-
men, the sound engineers, etc. are generally regarded as neutral agents solely concerned with
the production of entertainment or works of art. As individuals, they may be motivated by a
variety of reasons, but as group they are a corps of factory hands hired for the enrichment of a
group they investors in the movie industry.

Since their position in the economic structure of making and selling movies actually
denies them a voice in deciding what should go into the products, movie-goers get only what the
producers decide the public ought to buy. The "goodies" vary from period to period. This year, it
might be an assortment of fatalism, pietism and filial loyalty. Next year, it could be a dizzying
cocktail of fuzzy politics and moral permissiveness. Whatever it is this year or next, the content
of movies as determined by the business interests of the producers will always be "safe" and,
therefore, profitable.

Under such a set-up, what protection do the movie-goers have? There are existing
groups that could claim guardianship of public interest. These are the Board of Censors, civic
and religious clubs and movie reviewers. In lieu of direct access to the powers-that-be in the
movie industry, the exploited consumer could allow any one or all of these groups to give voice
to his complaints.

As valves for the expression of dissatisfaction with movies, how- ever, the three groups
mentioned above have their respective limi- tations. Not one of them may be said to be
representative of the needs and concerns of the masses that patronize movies. As a matter of
fact, they are all middle-class bodies and the criteria they bring to bear on movies are often
quite removed from the genuine interests of the movie-goers. Their respective functions are
indicative.

The Board of Censors was set up by law in order "to screen, censor, examine and
supervise the examination of, approve or dis- approve or delete portions from, and/or prohibit
the introduction and exhibition of all motion pictures, imported or produced in the Philip- pines
for non-theatrical, theatrical and television distribution which in its judgment are immoral,
indecent, contrary to law, and/or good customs or injurious to the prestige of the Republic of the
Philippines or its people... '' In addition, it is also ordained to classify movies into those approved
for general patronage and those for adults only, and to scrutinize publicity materials that might
be "immoral, indecent, contrary to law, and/or good customs, or injurious to the prestige of the
Republic of the Philippines or its people." As might be deduced from its duties, the Board is an
arm of government and its principal function is to safeguard the political interests of the state. As
such, its competence generally goes unchallenged, for in the history of censor- ship anywhere
in the world, censors are there precisely to protect the state. It is in the sphere of morals that the
credibility of the Board is often questioned, since moral issues require fine distinctions that lay
people in such an amorphous body like the Board might not competently make.

Civic and religious groups generally possess credibility in regard to morals and spiritual
values. However, they have time and again demonstrated a certain narrowness of vision born of
the particular sectoral interests that they represent. The desire to salvage the reputation of local
heroes or boost the attractiveness of certain tourist spots could take precedence over larger
matter like intellectual objectivity or art, and movie with serious intentions becomes proscribed.
A religious organization could very well have valid objection to a film on theological grounds, but
while its norms might be perfectly acceptable to members, they are not necessarily norms that
outsiders to the organization would take as their own. There have been many instances in the
past, as in the case of Catholic Legion of Decency listings, when mediocre films were preferred
to serious works that took a moral stance unacceptable to pious moviegoers.

Movie reviewers, even when they disclaim any social function for their writings, perform
a normative role in society. Their praise or criticism of a given movie makes of their reviews
some kind of consumers' guide for movie-goers. In contrast to the censors whose interest in
movies is primarily political, and civic and religious groups whose interest is primarily social,
movie reviewers often try for a balance between the social demands on art and the
craftsmanship that goes into the making of a film. There exists among movie reviewers,
however, a very strong temptation to set up or adhere to artistic standards that tend to make
movies seem inaccessible to ordinary movie-goers, When they give in to such a temptation,
movie reviewers forfeit the opportunity to serve the audience as a valve for the articulation of
popular complaints against exploitative producers.

In the long run, it is the moviegoers themselves who ought to act as guardians of their
interests. But this cannot come to be until they learn to see movies as consumer items whose
worth ought to be measured in terms of the good it brings the man who purchases them. And
what does that good consist in? A consumer education for movie- goers should begin with the
inculcation of an awareness of the social realities that condition their lives as Filipinos.
Philippine society has been shaped and warped by Western colonial rule the vestiges of which
continue to operate in all its institutions.
 This means movie-goers must eventually learn to demand that Filipino movies, even
when they do not directly deal with historical themes or social problems, unravel their tales and
unfold their ideas within the context of a society struggling to pull itself out of the rut of poverty
and the inequities and iniquities that poverty has bred. This is a tall order for the present, but it
certainly can be made feasible. Educational reforms could possibly include film education for
young people, with the stress less on art and more on awareness of how movies have been
used and are being used to massage the minds of consumers and manipulate and distort their
needs. Movie-goers have been exploited long enough, and any step to enlighten them about the
products they consume is a step towards their liberation.