Raving on pop culture and a certain...prof.

I once tried and failed to read the Twilight series. For one, I have never been a huge fan of vampire flicks or literature. For another, I didn't like Stephenie Meyer's writing style. The first few pages bored me to death (or perhaps I was just sleepy at the time, and I didn't give it the benefit of the doubt because I'm not really interested in its story). And so, I didn't join all the hype over Twilight. Then again, I'm a huge Harry Potter fan and in my book, Meyer's style just doesn't compare to Rowling's.

But now it seems that I have no choice. It's now a requirement for my scriptwriting class to not only watch the movie but also to read the book before next Friday. Talk about trying and failing to avoid consuming Twilight media products.

Since the whole point of the exercise is to see the differences in film adaptations and the literature they were adapted from, I think she should give us a choice of which film/literature to read/watch and review. There are lots of those—Harry Potter, for one, The Notebook, A Walk to Remember, Secret Garden, Secret Window, The Mist, Princess Diaries, War of the Worlds, Devil Wears Prada, Bridget Jones' Diary, (Shopaholic is having a movie as well, right?)...because this is all part of a trend, media convergence.

Ah. I'm ranting because I really don't want to read/watch Twilight. But then, I don't think I can escape this one. As if, with everything that's happening within and outside the walls of UP, I can find the time to stop and consume a bit of pop culture.

*She (my professor) just said something about political economy again. Yes, it's true that the economy determines the culture and politics of a country. But economy isn't determined by the physical technology and innovations we see today—progress isn't defined by bullet trains or the latest gadgets.

In fact, the emerging culture today is that of over-consumption—a result of the surplus economy of the country. We are urged to consume more and more (to wit: cellphones crop out every month or so, urging you to discard your old one for the new one) because corporations are producing more. We are the market for excess products. And we are so saturated with them that soon, they will no longer have a market for their products.

Let's not be brainwashed into believing that the Philippines is progressing just because we are flooded with first-world products, just because "globalization" is giving us an illusion of progress. The Philippines is still a third-world country. 75 percent of the population are considered poor. I can give you facts and figures. We only see a fraction of the scene, and pop culture tends to limit what we see to the middle class (but if you think about it, everyone's in crisis, even middle-class, seemingly problem-free people).

Grr. I don't really like the way she sees things. Subjectivity is passe in my book. It's a shallow way of looking at things. I just hope she doesn't become my thesis adviser. I hope. (Right now I'm worrying about my pre-thesis class because we haven't discussed anything new just yet)

Don't mind me, I'm just ranting. And discoursing a bit.