300 degrees of separation from history

Zack Snyder’s epic film 300 and Frank Miller’s graphic novel (of the same title) of which the film was an adaptation, were about the famed Battle of Thermopylae between 300 Spartans led by King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and more than a million Persian soldiers led by King Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro). Since the film was based on an actual epic war back in 480 B.C., it became rather imperative to compare the cinematic retelling to what was generally inscribed in the annals of world history.
According to press releases, the director claimed 90% historical accuracy of the events in the film. Having read the existing history of the battle, I was amazed that several episodes in 300 were indeed recorded by no less than the father of history himself, Herodotus. Found in both the film and historical records was the account of the Persian emissary who was sent by Xerxes to Greece for earth and water (which Xerxes demanded as a token of Greek submission to that time’s fiercest army in the world); the envoys were eventually thrown down a pit. There was also the consultation of the Oracle at Delphi, where it was predicted that the Greeks would suffer defeat. Even the Persian arrows blotting out the sun and the fighting in the shade as well as the number of soldiers for both sides were included. These along with other instances of historical faithfulness should make the film laudable, especially because the film as a limited audio-visual medium often falls short in terms of historical accuracy in favor of cinematic effect or informational sanitization.
Nonetheless, 300’s aforementioned general fidelity to history should not reflect complete flawlessness on the part of the film (for one, the visualization looks exaggerated—to the film’s advantage—and another, the characterizations are often flat). In fact, some of the said episodes seem to have been interpreted in such a way that certain politics emerge for and against the divided West and East. The discriminative idealization of the Spartan society was terrible—it seems to suggest that non-Spartan Greeks, whose city-states were unmentioned, were cowards or feeble. As history would have it, there was an alliance of Greek city-states and not just Spartan army that fought against the invading Persian soldiers. The city-state of Athens, for instance, also threw the Persian emissary into a pit so the latter might dig water and earth there, as Xerxes demanded. As such, Athens was Sparta’s co-leader in the war against the foreign army. Also, history was silent over the reason for the Oracle’s doomsday prediction for the Spartans, but in the film, the Oracle was portrayed as bribe-hungry: there, the Persians actually bribed the Oracle into dampening the patriotic spirit of Sparta so that it would yield to Persia without a fight.
Likewise, the Persian army was portrayed as barbaric and diabolic and as such, the Persians were practically transmogrified into monsters. One of the sexy belly dancers had a half-face monstrosity; an executioner of Xerxes has oversized blades for arms. His emissary and Xerxes himself were portrayed as androgynous, an obvious foil to the hypermasculine Spartan army. These depictions of ancient Persians are derogatory as they are inaccurate. If only with the androgyny issue, I learned that Xerxes laughed at the report that the small group of Greeks gathered in the “Hot Gates” (literal meaning of Thermopylae) was combing their long hair while waiting for the Persian warriors. Spartans adorn their crowning glory as part of their battle formation, Xerxes was told. What do we make of this very vain instance? Indeed, the visual aspect of the film was severely twisted for presumably racist and sexist ends.
Another historical gap in the film was the portrayal of the traitor Ephialtes as a hunchback. Historical records were silent about this deformed condition of the Greek who treacherously showed the Persians a path they may take to surround the Spartans after King Leonidas dismissed his desire to be a part of the Greek army. Ephialtes’ cinematic deformation seems only to suffice the ideological obssession to portray bad people as ugly.
The film was supposed to be produced to show the tremendous length at which the Spartan’s sacrifice took them which motivated the whole of Greece to come as one and fight the Persian conquerors. It might also be up to some entertainment value, seeing the hardship of adapting the graphic novel look into the film. However, in the process of swaying away from making political statements against another culture, it seemed to have done just that. If 300 ever was historically inaccurate, does this make the film more or less brilliant? For me, historical inaccuracy cannot make an artwork less glowing, in much the same way how I would react to Shakespeare’s dramatic interpretation of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, among other historically inaccurate masterpieces. However, if an artwork, whether intentional or not, becomes a vehicle in promoting racial, religious, gender, or any discrimination whatsoever, that does not make the piece any more admirable, but a plain, cheap propaganda. Therefore, 300 suffers the “unintentional” hostility against an exotic civilization and its epic beauty is not enough to save its face.

sandaang panaginip: isang muling pagsulyap

Madalas kong mapanood ang mga dula sa loob ng pormal na tanghalan, na ginagawa ng mga tao sa likod ng produksyon sa mga litaw na dahilan: nasa loob ng tanghalan ang mga basikong kailangan gaya ng mga ilaw, sound system, mga upuan, telon, bubong na panangga sa masamang panahon at iba pa. Sa pagkakataong ito na napanood ko ang Sandaang Panaginip ni Rene O. Villanueva, napansin kong iba ang produksyong ito sa karamihan ng mga palabas. Sa pangkalahatan, nalaman ko na hinulma ang dulang ito sa paraan ng pagpapalabas ng mga sinaunang komedya: itinatanghal sa labas ng gusaling tanghalan at malimit na sa lansangan o mga parang, dinarayo ng mga taumbayan dahil walang bayad ang panonood, at kailangang magdala ng upuan ang mga manonood para komportable silang masdan ang palabas. Komedya sa kontemporanyong panahon ang dula: ginanap sa bukas na Cervini field ng Pamantasang Ateneo, dinayo naman dahil rasonable ang presyo ng tiket, at nakahilera sa labas ang mga upuan. Samakatuwid, ang palabas na ito ay sinubok na balikan ang orihinal na kaisipan ng komedya sa panahon ng pananakop ng mga Kastila.
Sa panonood ng dula, maraming kaisipan at damdamin ang sumaakin. Halimbawa na rito ang alegorya ng dula sa kalagayan ng aking bansa sa ngayon. Ayon sa mga napag-alaman ko, simbolo ang dula noong Batas Militar sa Pilipinas. Wala namang akong nakitang malayong pagkakaiba sa dula at sa nangyayari ngayong paghihirap ng kahariang Pilipinas dahil sa kaaksayahan ng maraming Leonang nagsasabing pinuno natin sila ngunit hindi naman sa gawa dahil sariling mga ambisyon ang binibigyang katuparan at hindi ang sandaang libong panaginip ng taumbayan. Samantala, naramdaman ko rin naman na habang may ganoong mga walang-kuwentang pinuno ang kaharian ng Pilipinas, hindi matatahimik ang mga mamamayan sa pag-iingay para maiparinig ang kanilang mga hinaing. Pinapanood ko pa lang kung paanong magwaldas sa magagarang kasuotan si Reyna Leona pati na ang dalawa niyang anak habang nag-aalburoto sa kakarampot na sahod ang mga manghahabi ng Timog at nagugutom ang mga nasalanta ng kalamidad, naramdaman ko ang galit dahil tila walang pakialam ang mga taong iniluklok sa posisyon para mismo paunlarin ang buhay ng taumbayan. Nakasangkot ako sa dula dahil pinuno ko rin ang mga abusadong pinuno ng Tralala at isa rin akong mamamayang naghihinagpis dahil ayaw tulungan ng kaharian.
Ilan sa mga mayoryang suliranin sa kasaysayang Pilipino na sinuri ng dula ang diktaturyang gobyerno, abusadong mga pinuno at pagpapabaya sa bayan. Ang kaharian ng Tralala ay pinamamahalaan ng isang monarkang batas ang bawat sabihing salita kahit hindi na nararapat sa pagsulong ng kapakanan ng bayan. Noong panahon ni Marcos, diktador siya at lahat ng sabihin niya ay batas na dapat sundin kahit pa hindi naisasaalang-alang ang interes ng bayan. Gayundin naman, problema rin ang mga abusadong pinuno sa Tralala dahil naghihirap na ang mga mamamayan, nakukuha pang gastahin ang kaban ng bayan sa mga mamahaling damit at iba pa. May mga ganyan ding pinuno sa pamahalaan; nagpapasasa sila sa nakaw na pondo ng bayan samantalang dapat nilang gamitin ito para paunlarin ang kanilang nasasakupan. Panghuli, pinababayaan lamang ni Reyna Leona ang bayan sa halip na pagaanin ang kanilang kalagayan sa pamamagitan ng paglilingkod dito. Krimen din sa bayan ang pagpapabaya ng ilang pinuno rito dahil hindi sila tumutupad sa kanilang sinumpaang tungkulin na isulong ang kapakanan ng bayan sa halip na ang sa sarili. Samantala, dahil hindi naging malinaw kung naresolba ang mga suliranin ng mga tao matapos parusahan ang buktot na mga pinunong sina Reyna Leona, maaaring sinasabi nito na ang mga tunggalian sa lipunan ngayon ay paulit-ulit na lumilitaw at hindi matapus-tapos dahil matapos gawin ang inisyal na hakbang para sa pagbabago, walang kasunod na aksyon. Madaling nauubos ang tiyaga kaya balewala na ang nasimulan dahil hindi tuluy-tuloy ang aksyon tungo sa pagbabago at kaunlaran. Halimbawa, hindi matinag-tinag ang tunggalian sa pagitan ng mga elite at mababang uri dahil matapos ang makasaysayang People Power kung saan maaari sanang matulungang umunlad ang buhay ng mga mahihirap sa ilalim ng bagong gobyerno, may mga buwitre sa loob ng gobyerno na kinukuha para sa kanilang sarili ang nakalaang proyektong pangkaunlaran para sa mga mahihirap. Bunga nito, mas matindi ang pagkakahati-hati sa pagitan ng mga uring panlipunan.
Inangkat sa Europa ang dula o komedya o moro-moro nang masakop ng Espanya ang Pilipinas. Tangi ang komedya sa iba pang uri ng pagtatanghal sa dahilang nagtatagumpay ang protagonista sa pakikipagsapalaran laban sa mga patibong ng antagonista. Gaya ng nasabi na sa itaas, sa labas ng pormal na mga tanghalan isinasadula ang komedya, kalimitan sa mga daan o parang at pinapanood ng masa sapagkat libre ang pagpapalabas nito. Nagdadala ng sariling upuan ang mga manonood total at libre naman silang makakapanood. Ilan pa sa mga katangian nito ang martsa sa umpisa at dulo ng pagtatanghal, ang kinoreograpong labanan ng arnis sa pagitan ng mga Kristiyano at Moro (o ‘di binyagan), makukulay na damit ng mga Muslim kumpara sa mapusyaw na damit ng mga Kristiyano, banghay na kinauugnayan ng mga dugong maharlika. Sinubok ihalaw sa orihinal na komedya ang Sandaang Panaginip at nagtagumpay na maipakita ang marami sa mga katangiang ito: ang romansa o pakikiapgsapalaran, ang pagtatanghal sa isang bukirin na may nakapaligid na mga puno at kawayan, may mga upuan na hindi naman kinailangang
dalhin dahil nirentahan naman namin. May kinoreograpong labanan ng arnis sa pagitan ng batalyon ni Prinsipe Anshari at ni Heneral Tulume. Nagsimula at nagtapos din ang palabas sa isang martsa papunta at paalis sa entablado. Labanan ng mabuti at masama ang namagitan kina Anshari at Tulume dahil magkakakontrobersya kung ipriprisinta ang mga Muslim bilang masasama.
Maraming panitikan, palabas at media ang isinangkap sa dula at sa pagtatanghal nito at ilan dito ay ang alusyon sa dating Unang Ginang Imelda Marcos bilang waldas na reyna si Leona, ang motif ng wicked stepmother at evil stepsisters sa katauhan nina Leona at mga anak, ang motif ng maysakit na hari (kahit wala namang sakit talaga kundi gawa-gawa lang ng reyna), ang motif ng unica hijang ehemplo ng ganda at kabutihang loob, ang motif ng banyagang prinsipeng tagapagligtas ng prinsesa, A Midsummer Night’s Dream ni Shakespeare sa yugto ng mga nagsasayaw na lambana, clip shows sa video wall kung saan pinakita ang maraming yugto sa kasaysayan ng Pilipinas, ang motif ng fairy godmother, ang yugto ng hatinggabing sayaw sa pagitan ng prinsipe at prinsesa, tableau ng Katipunan, kundiman, aria, kulturang popular. Naging epektibo naman ang pagsasalu-salo ng lahat ng ito sa iisang dula dahil ang bricolage na kinalabasan ng lahat ay manipestasyon ng postmodernismo kung saan sabay-sabay na lumilitaw ang iba’t ibang uri ng mga pagkilos mula sa kung saan-saang genre o ginagawang nonlinear ang naratibo sa pamamagitan ng mga paningit na kantahan.
Parodiya ang ginamit na pagsasalaysay at pagtatanghal sa dula at madalas naming mapatunayan na mabisa ang nakatatawa ngunit pauyam na pagbatikos sa mga suliraning panlipunan. Kung pangkaraniwang pangyayari, manggagalaiti na tayo sa galit kung makitang isang pinuno ang nangungurakot ng kaban ng bayan pero kung nakakatawa ang paglalarawan sa kanya, sa pagtawa pa lang natin ay nakakabawi na rin tayo sa mga kabalahuraang ginagawa niya at ang sentro ng tawanang iyon ay siya mismo. Ginagawa siyang katawa-tawa sa parodiya dahil binibigyang-diin dito ang mga katangahan ng pinuno o ng mga maling desisyon niyang nagsasabing hindi naman pala siya singgaling ng akala natin o hindi talaga siya magaling sa kahit anuman. Si Reyna Leona, halimbawa, ay ipinakitang kahit anong katusuan ang gawin niya, masisiwalat din na marami siyang anomalyang ginagawa habang dapat na namumuno ng kaharian. Sa arte ng artistang gumaganap sa kanyang katauhan at sa takbo ng dula mismo, pinalitaw na katawa-tawa ang karakter niya bilang reynang tila may schizophrenia dahil paiba-iba ng emosyon depende kung anong ersonalidad ang ibig niyang ipakita. Ang pinunong tulad niya ay dapat na iginagalang ngunit sa kilos niya, hindi siya karapat-dapat irespeto bagkus ay dapat lang na tawanan at hindi seryosohin.
Napapanahon ang pagpapalabas ng ganitong uri ng mga dula sa unibersidad dahil ang panganay na proyektong ito ay isang postkolonyal na pakilos para bawiin ang pagkakakilanlan natin bilang mga Filipino. Ang pagsasaatin ng mga bagay na hiniram lamang sa mga banyaga at paglalapat ng katutubong kaisipan sa mga ito ay paraan ng pagbuo natin ng ating mga sarili matapos mabasag ng panamakop. Hindi naman na maibabalik ang panahon para maisulat sana muli sa kasaysayan na hindi na napadpad ditto ang mga Kanluranin pero sa pamamagitan ng mga postkolonyal na mga proyekto gaya ng Sandaang Panaginip, napapaunlad ang ating kultura at ang dating ginigipit na identidad ay humuhulagpos na ngayon upang pagtagni-tagniin ang kanyang sarili.

ang postmoderno at postkolonyal sa sandaang panaginip

Sa isang bansang gaya ng Pilipinas kung saan malaking katanungan pa kung tunay ngang malaya na ito mula sa pananakop o kung nakarating na nga ba rito ang mga galamay ng modernismo mula sa Kanluran, nakasisiyang isipin na may nga likhang-sining na nagbibigay-sintomas ng postkolonyalismo at postmodernismo. Samakatuwid, maaga sa tamang panahon ang pagpulot ng pulitika ng mga likhang-sining na ito. Isa sa mga ito ang Sandaang Panaginip ni Prof. Rene Villanueva. Maraming elemento ng dula ang makapagpapatunay na tumatakbo ito sa moda ng postmoderno at postkolonyal.
May postmoderno sa Sandaang Panaginip at pangunahin na rito ang pagwasak nito sa mga kumbensyon ng mga dulang tradisyunal. Pagbabalik sa nakagawian ang layunin ng huling pagsasadula, na makikita naman sa pagsusumikap nito na mag-umpisa at magtapos sa martsa, na gumamit ng bukas na lugar—ang Cervini Field ng Ateneo—imbes na pormal na tanghalan, na manatili sa kaharian ng mga abenturerong dugong bughaw, na magpakita ng pagtutunggalian ng mabubuti laban sa masasama, at marami pang iba. Gayunpaman, postmoderno naman ang pagtatagni-tagni ng luma at bagong pamamaraan ng pagtatanghal (halimbawa, kasuotang makaluma habang sa gilid, may videowall) o bricolage at pastiche: Postmoderno pa rin ang biglang pagputol sa naratibo upang bigyang-daan ang kantahan nina Reyna Leona o Prinsesa Yasmin o sayawan ng mga dama o ng moro-moro mismo (kahit pa hindi naman Muslim talaga ang nakalaban sa arnis nina Prinsipe Anshari habang naglalakbay).
May postkolonyal din sa komedya sa bisa ng pagtatalik ng Oryental at Oksidental na mga elemento. Sa tagpuan, Silanganin ang hitsura ng kaharian ng Tralala ngunit may hardin at mga haligi na inspirado ng kulturang Griyego. Ang naratibong inangkat mula sa Europa, nagtataglay ng mga dayalogo sa katutubong wika at ng mga tauhang may Kanluraning pangalan ngunit Oryental na hitsura. Imbes na gumamit ng Europeong engkantada o nympha, katutubong lambana at diwata ang ilang mga tauhan. Postkolonyal ang modang tinahak ng dulang ito sapagkat nilapatan ng katutubong anyo ang dapat sanang dominanteng Kanluraning likhang-sining. Sa bisa nito, nabigyan ng Pilipinong pagkakakilanlan ang dula ng mga taga-Kanluran kaya nabaliktad ang kalagayan: ang dating mga mananakop, sila na ngayon ang nasakop natin.

pagbuo ng identidad at sandaang panaginip

Panahon ng Martial Law nang maisulat ni Prof. Rene Villanueva ang Sandaang Panaginip. Isang represibong panahon ang Rehimeng Marcos, at sinumang mapagdiskitahan ng gobyerno dahil sa inaakalang pagtuligsa dito, hinuhuli at binibigyan ng leksiyon para magtanda. Dahil sa ganitong kalakaran, naburo ang karamihan sa mga intelektuwal ngunit may ilan ding hindi nagpasindak kaya
tinupad ang panlipunang tungkulin bilang manunulat: tulungang makapangyari ang pagbabago.
Isa na rito sa mga manunulat na hindi nagtago sa toreng garing ng pagkalimot si Prof. Villanueva. Nabuo nga ang Sandaang Panaginip, na isang alegorya ng isang kahariang inaabuso ang kanyang mga mamamayan para sa makasariling kapakanan ng kanyang monarka. Hindi mahirap ihiwalay sa imahe ni Imelda Marcos ang maaksayang tauhang si Reyna Leona: may obsesyon sila kapwa sa pagpapatayo ng mga gusali, magagarang kagamitan, at pagbagbag ng damdamin ng publiko sa pamamagitan ng pag-iyak. Hindi rin mahirap ihiwalay na ang kaharian ng Tralala ay walang iba kundi Pilipinas: isang lugar na nagpapasasa sa yaman ang iba samantalang nagugutom ang maraming mga mamamayan.
Komedya na may makabagong trato ang dula. Hindi iilan ang mga elementong makikita para patunayan na galing ito sa popular na anyo ng pagtatanghal noong Panahong Kastila. Ginamit ang mga elementong ito upang ipakita ang postkolonyal na mga pamamaraan ng pagkakabuo ng ating pagkakakilanlan. Una, galing sa mga awit at korido ng Europa ang naratibo nito. Parehong-pareho ang romansang Sandaang Panaginip sa takbo ng kuwentong nakikipagsapalaran ang mga dugong bughaw at naipapanalo nila ang laban kontra masama. Maramingpagsisinungaling ang inihanda ang Reyna Leona upang hindi maisiwalat ang magastos niyang pamamalakad sa Tralala, ngunit lumabas din ang lahat sa pagtutulungan ng magsing-irog na sina Prinsesa Yasmin at Prisipe Anshari.
Isa pang elemento ng dula ang pagiging moro-moro nito gaya noong sinauna kung saan naglalaban ang mga Kristiyano at mga Muslim. Nananalo sa mga ganoong labanan ang mga Kristiyano dahil pinapatnubayan sila ng Diyos samantalang pinapakitang masasama/hindi binyagan ang mga Muslim kaya matatalo sila. Sa dula, Kristiyano sina Anshari pati na ang nakalabang taksil na si Heneral Tulume, sapagkat kung si Tulume ay naging Muslim sa dula, magiging kontrobersyal ito sa mga umaayaw sa diskriminasyong pampananampalataya.
Isa pang elemento ang pagsasagawa ng entablado sa labas ng pormal na tanghalan dahil sa unang pagkakataon, itinanghal ang dula sa Cervini field, Pamantasang Ateneo. Mula tatlo gabi hanggang isang linggo isinasadula ang romansa; gayundin naman ang Sandaang Panaginip, na umabot ng higit isang linggo ngunit limitado ang pagpunta ng publiko dahil sa loob ito ng kampus bukod sa may kamahalan ang ticket. Nakalabas din ang mga upuan, ngunit hindi na kinailangan pang mga manonood ang magdala niyon.
Ang pagmartsa papunta at pababa ng entablado ay isang elemento rin ng dula noong sinaunang panahon. May koreograpo pang ginawa ang mga tagapagtanghal. Pati na labanan nila gamit ang arnis, angkop din sa komedya. May elemento ng kagila-gilalas sa pagtulong ng makapangyarihang diwata para mapagwagian ang laban ng mabubuti kontra sa masasama.
Ang mga kumbensyong ito ng komedya ay ginamit ngunit nilapatan ni Villanueva ng Filipinong anggulo upang huwag masabing hinango lahat sa mananakop ng bansa bagkus ay upang ipakitang ang dulang inangkat ay maaaring hiramin at ikustumbre sa konteksto ng ating bansa. Layunin ni Villanueva na maangkin natin nang tuluyan ang komedya bilang anyo ng pagtatanghal.
Maiuugnay ang mga kaisipang postkolonyalismo sa dula sapagkat lumitaw ang mga halimbawa nito sa maraming pagkakataon. May ipinakitang hybridity sa kahariang may anyong Oryental samantalang may anyong Griyego ang hardin. May ipinakita ring imperyalismo sapagkat tila isang imperyalista ang kahariang Parachibum na nagdidikta ng taning sa Tralala kung kelan dapat bayaran ang inutang na walong milyong bara ng ginto. Ang bricolage ng mga makasaysayan at makabayang clips na ipinapakita sa video wall habang may nagtatanghal sa entablado ay pakitang postkolonyal din. Sa isang banda, hindi Kanluraning kontaminasyon ang nakita ko sa Filipinong dulang ito kundi mga elementong inari natin bilang isang manipestasyon ng ating sariling pagkakakilanlan.

pasakalye: isang paunang salita para sa nobelang "aanhin ko ang init kung walang lamig?"

Sa pagdaraos ng Unang Pambansang Kongreso ng Komiks ng nagdaang buwan ng Pebrero 2007, ipinako ng midya ang atensyon ng publiko sa binubuhay na industriya ng komiks. Bukod sa balak na paglalalathala sa porma ng komiks ng sampung kuwentong bayan bawat bansa sa Timog Silangang Asya, balak din ng Pambansang Komisyon para sa Kultura at Sining kaagapay ang batikang direktor at nobelistang si Carlo J. Caparas na magdaos ng patimpalak para sa mga nobelista at dibuhistang may interes sa genre ng komiks. Sumisigla na ang aandap-andap na liwanag ng komiks sa pamamayagpag ng binase ritong mga teleseryeng Bakekang (dati’y ng Darna at Captain Barbell) ng GMA-7 at ng seryeng Komiks (dati’y ng Panday) sa ABS-CBN, ng tagumpay sa iba-ibang midya ng grapikong nobelang Ang Mga Kagila-Gilalas na Pakikipagsapalaran ni Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah ni Carlo Vergara, at ng pagkakalathala ng mga grapikong antolohiyang gaya ng Siglo.
Sa pagkakasunud-sunod pa lamang ng mga aktibidades na nauugnay sa komiks, mahihinuha nang seryoso ang pagsisikap na buhayin ang industriya ng komiks. Masasabi ngang naghihingalo na ito dulot ng pag-usbong ng makabagong teknolohiya. Ang dating dinidibuho ng kamay, magagawa na sa pamamagitan ng kompyuter. Sa paglawak ng abot ng Internet, inagawan na nito ang komiks sa tungkuling magpalaganap ng kulturang popular. Dahil din sa pamumukadkad ng manga, anime, cartoons at comics sa ibang bansa, naaagaw ang mga magagaling sa Pilipinas dahil mas malaking magbayad para sa talento sa ibayong-dagat kaysa mga lokal na publikasyon, na nagsipagsara na ang karamihan dahil lipas na ang pamumulaklak ng komiks noong 1970’s hanggang 1980’s. Huminto na rin ang ibang mga manunulat sa paglikha ng prosang laan sa komiks dahil may mas malaking pagkakakitaan, sa telebisyon halimbawa.
Sa ganitong kalagayan ko napag-aralan ang grapikong nobelang “Aanhin Ko ang Lamig Kung Walang Init?” sa panulat ni Elena M. Patron sa at guhit ni Louie D. Celerio. Inilathala sa Liwayway nang humigit-kumulang isang taon mula Disyembre 2, 1985 hanggang Enero 19, 1987, nahahati ang nobela sa 60 yugtong nakasentro sa kakaibang drama sa buhay ng pamilya Reynoso. Tipikal kay Elena Patron ang makitungo sa mga melodramang nobela gaya ng mga akdang Kapatid Ko ang Aking Ina, Nagbabagang Luha, Oras-Oras, Araw-Araw, at Kislap sa Dilim. Isa ang “Aanhin…” sa mga nobelang dinibdib niyang sulatin noong maging staffer siya sa Liwayway, ang pinakamatandang lingguhang lathalain ngayon sa Pilipinas na pilit ginugupo ang mga suliraning panloob at pangkapaligiran upang makapagpatuloy sa pagtulay sa masa ng mga katutubong kaugalian at kultura. Umaabot sa 300 nobela ang inakda ni Patron kabilang na ang mga tapusang romansang nagpataob sa mga dayuhang romansang Ingles na tinangkilik noon ng masa. Ang nangungunang babaeng nagbigay-daan sa panitikang komiks sa bansa ayon sa American Journal, ginawaran si Patron ng Gantimpalang Quezon sa Panitikan noong 1993.
Pambungad sa kuwento ang paghahanda ni Mommy Becka Reynoso sa pagdating ng anak galing Amerika. Engrandeng Bienvenida party ang ipansasalubong kay Patti na isang dekada nang patay ngunit binuhay na mag-uli sa pamamagitan ng cryogenics, isang modernong siyensiyang pinagpailaliman sa bangkay ni Patti upang mapreserba sa lamig ang katawan hanggang sa takdang panahong subuking buhayin. Pinagtakhan ng mga inanyayahan ni Becka ang imbitasyon para makita ang pauwing dalagang namatay noong labing-anim na taon pa lamang dahil sa leukemia. Payak sanang prosang Tagalog ang nobela ni Patron ngunit ang henyo sa kanya ang humulagpos para pangunahan ng ilang taaon ang espekulatibong kuwento: sa kaso ng nobela, ang kaisipan hinggil sa cryonics (sa halip na ang naipagkakamaling cryogenics). Sa akda, unang pasyenteng nakinabang sa pagbubuhay ng patay si Patti, kaya nga hindi pa sigurado ang mga bunga ng pangmedikong eksperimentong ito. Ginamit ni Patron sa nobela ang ilang ipinapalagay ng mga sumusubaybay sa cryonics: ang pagkabura ng alaala ng pasyente dahil sa kawalan ng kakayanang ipreserba ang glandula ng utak.
Inaabangang mataman nina Becka at ina nitong si Guada ang paglapag ng pangalawang asawang si Ric at ni Patti mula sa eroplano. Ipinagtaka ng mag-ina ang pagkatakot humakbang. Umaayaw man, napilitang kargahin ng amain si Patti nang makitang mangiyak-ngiyak na ang dalaga. Sa kuwento ni Ric, hindi maiiwasan ang pag-aastang sanggol ni Patti dahil isang dekada rin itong nakalibing sa yelo at, samakatuwid, ang ikalawang buhay nito ay walang ipinagkaiba sa panibagong kapanganakan. Ayon sa cryonics, hindi maiiwasang masira ang mga tisyu at organo dahil katawan lamang naman ang hindi nabubulok dahil sa pagkakaimbak sa yelo. Nagdalawang-isip si Becka na ituloy ang pagprisinta kay Patti sa idinaraos na piging dahil nahinuha ng inang si Donya Guada ang ibubungang kahihiyan sa pamilya ng pag-aasal-sanggol ni Patti. Sinubok mang iiwas sa mata ng publiko sa pamamagitan ng pag-uutos ni Donya Guada sa tsuper ng sasakyan na ituloy sa bahay ng donya ang sasakyan, may bisitang lumapit sa kotseng kinalululanan ng pamilya na ikinagulat at ikinayakap ni Patti kay Ric. Walang nang pagpipilian sina Becka kundi ituloy sa bahay ang nahintakutang anak, samantalang duda naman ang bisita sa nakitang pagkakalapit nina Ric at Patti. Komentong panlipunan ni Patron ang bahaging ito: kahit ang mga marangyang uri ay may bahagi rin ng kanilang kahihiyan at minsan, ang maralitang uri pa ang magdidiin nito sa kanila, kung paanong sinabi ito ng tsuper nina Becka samantalang ni hindi siya kamag-anak kundi isang taong may pakialam sa mga usapan. Ang kani-kanina lang ay bukal ng tuwa at pagmamalaking si Patti, bagumbuhay nga pero kumikilos naman nang hindi akma at, samakatuwid, nang magdudulot ng kahihiyan.
Pagkadaan sa garahe, binihisan na ni Becka si Patti ng cocktail dress samantalang bihis na si Ric nang puntahan sina Becka para ayaing labasin na ang mga nasa piging. Ngumiti si Patti nang tila hinangaan ang kakisigan ni Ric sa suot nitong pormal. Nilambing ni Ric si Patti para ihanda ito sa pagharap sa publiko. Nakita sila ni Donya Guada kaya pinaalalahanan ni Donya Guada hindi nito nagugustuhan ang pagkakalapit nina Ric at anak-anakang si Patti. Dito na nagbabadya ang isyu ng Electra Complex sa nobela: pinapantasya ng anak ang ama (o padrasto sa kaso ng bata-bata pa at makisig na si Ric). Tila isang Lolita si Patti na walang muwang ngunit siya na mismo ang gustong magkaroon ng makamundong karanasan. Lilitaw din sa kuwento kung gaano katindi ang galit ng bidang Electra sa inang kaagaw niya ng pag-ibig sa ama.
Sa pamamagitan ng pasaring ni Donya Guada ay nahinuha ni Becka na nilalagyan ng malisya ng ina ang pag-aaruga ni Rick kay Patti. Sa una pa, hindi pinagkakatiwalaan ni Donya Guada si Ric dangan at mas bata ito kay Becka at sa hirap nagmula. Likas ang ganito sa Pilipinas kung saan masalimuot ang pag-aasawahan ng mga tao sa iba’t ibang antas panlipunan, kultura, at paniniwala. Inaakusahan ng mga elitista ang masa bilang hayok sa yaman, samantalang walang pagkakontento naman ang akusasyon ng masa sa mga elitista. Ang panggitnang uri, alinman ang mapangasawa sa dalawa, magiging isyu ang pagkaburgis. Sa paghahambing ni Donya Guada sa buhay bilang isang malaking tanghalan, naramdaman ni Becka na inaakala ng inang umaarte ng pagmamalasakit si Ric kina Becky at Patti. Napaiyak si Becka sa paratang ng ina smaantalang ikinasiya ng mga panauhin ang pagharap sa kanila ni Patti. Gumawa na lang ng dahilan si Ric para wala ni isa mang makalapit kay Patti.
Nag-aalaala naman si Orlando, kababata ni Patti, sa kalagayan ng dalaga. Bilang doktor at dahil na rin sa lihim na pagtangi sa dalaga, inialok nito ang libreng serbisyo para mabantayan si Patti. Pinalitan ni Becka ang asawa, na nakakahalata sa malisyang ibinibigay ng biyenan. Dito, makikita kung gaano kalakas ang impluwensiya ng lehitimong pamilya kesa napasabit lang. Mas matimbang nga ang dugo kaysa tubig, kahit pa ang bigat ng dugo ang nagpapahirap sa loob ng magkakadugo. Pinagtibay naman ni Ric na wagas ang pag-ibig nito kay Becka at tao siya, hindi ahas para magtaksil. Naisip naman ni Becka na kung tao, puwedeng magkasala. Paalis na si Orlan at iaabot na lamang ang mga rosas para kay Patti nang maabutang pinupupog ng halik ni Patti si Ric. Nagpatutsada si Donya Guada habang naghinanakit naman si Ric. Namagitan sa dalawa si Becka habang magkausap sina Orlan at Patti. Pinakuwento kay Ric ang mga naganap nang ilabas sa pagamutan si Patti na walang alam sa kanyang nakaraang buhay. Sa pagtugmang ito ng paglalarawan ni Patron sa mga katangian ng patay na binuhay sa pamamagitan ng cryonics, masasabing napangunahan niya ang kontemporanyong espikulatibong panitkan.
Sinimulang akitin ni Becka ang loob ni Patti ngunit pananakit lamang ang isinukli ng anak sa ina. Iniyakan ni Becka ang pagkalmot at pananabunot ni Patti. Kinalamay naman ni Ric ang loob ni Becka sa pagpapaliwanag at paghalik. Ito ang kalbaryo ng isang inang walang inintindi kundi ang kabutihan ng anak: ang gantihan siya nito ng kawalang-pagtanaw ng utang na loob. Sa halip na ibigay sa ina ang ibinibigay sa amain, kalmot at sabunot ang ibinibigay niya kay Becka. Mas nangingibabaw sa tauhan ni Patron ang pangangailangang sekswal sa ama (Electra Complex) kaysa pag-ibig ng ina.
Matapos magsimba, kumonsulta si Becka sa pari na nagsabing humihiwalay sa katawan ng tao ang kanyang kaluluwa kaya nga naitanong nito kung ano ang espiritung nasa katawan ngayon ni Patti? Nabagabag si Becka sa sinabing ito ng pari kaya ipinagtapat niya ang pakikipag-usap sa pari kina Ric at Donya Guada. Nakiusap na muli si Ric na bigyan ng pagkakataong mabuhay si Patti. Patunay ang bahaging ito ng impluwensiyang Kristiyano sa ating mga Filipino kahit sa mga aspetong teknikal: ang kaisipan ng pagiging galing sa Diyos ang espiritu at sa pagbabalik nito sa Kanya dahil sa kamatayan, anong puwersang hindi maka-Diyos ang ginigising ng mga taong mala-Diyos sa kanilang paglilikha (pagbabalik ng patay sa pagkabuhay)? Isyu rin dito ang pagpapatawad, dahil nasaktan man nang hindi lang sa pisikal na aspeto ang magulang, patawarin sana ang anak na hindi alam ang kanyang ginagawa.
Nang pigilan ni Donya Guada sa pagdede si Patti dahil malaki na umano ito at dapat nang kumain, kinalmot niya ito pati na ang nagtangkang umawat na si Becka. Kahit ang nars ni Patti, nahirapang awatin sa pananakit ang napakalakas na si Patti. Ang pagkakaroon ng kakaibang lakas ni Patti ay isang maka-Kristiyanong mungkahi na masama talaga ang pakialaman ang nilalang ng Diyos bilang pagsunod sa layaw ng kagustuhang magpaka-Diyos. Kung may ibang kaluluwa na nga sa katawan ni Patti, masama ang ibinunga ng cryonics sa kanya. Moral ang isyung ito kung ganoon: hayaan sa Diyos ang karapatang magbigay (at bumawi) ng buhay. Balik sa kuwento, kinailangan pa si Ric para maawat ang dalaga. Ayon kay Ric, dapat pagpasensyahan muna si Patti. Pinagpaliwanagan naman ni Ric si Patti na dapat mahalin nito ang kanyang ina. Tila gusto naman ni Patti na siya lang ang mahalin. Ngumiti at humalik si Patti kay Becka, na ikinatuwa ng huli.
Nang makakita ng naghahalikan sa telebisyon si Patti, gusto nitong gayahin nila ni Ric ang napanood. Ilan ito sa mga erotikong sundot ni Patron sa kanyang kuwento. Seksuwal na triyanggulo na sina Becka, Ric at Patti. Paghuhunos sa konserbatibo ang kalakarang ito upang manatili sa dimensyong popular ang nobela. Sangkap naman talaga ng komiks ang senswal patunay na ang ang paggising sa kamuwangan ng mga tauhan, gaya ni Patti sa nobela. Binawalan ni Donya Guada na makipaglapit si Rick ay Patti. Nang sitahin si Becka ng kanyang ina, muling nagpaliwanag si Ric na dalisay ang pagmamalasakit niya sa kanilang mag-ina. Habang nagpapaliwanagan ang mag-asawa, sinimulang turuan ni Orlan si Patti, na tila ayaw paboran ni Ric dahil sa selos o malasakit kay Patti. Nang makipaglaro ng kabayu-kabayuhan si Patti kay Orlan, nagpakitang kusa si Ric kaya sumugod ang dalaga sa kanya. Nang manita si Donya Guada, sinenyasan ni Patti na demonya ito. Nagalit ang lola kaya nagsalita nang masakit si Donya Guada sa manugang hanggang sa pagbuwelta nito ng alis ay hinila ni Patti ang paa nito at nadapa.
Ayon kay Orlan, madaling maapektuhan si Patti ng damdamin ng mga taong malapit sa kanya. Nang tawagin sila ng nars, nakita nina Orlan at Ric na mabilis matutong bumigkas ng mga salita si Patti. Pumapasok na naman nito ang isa pang elemento ng kagila-gilalas na realismo: una’y ang pagkabuhay ng patay, ngayon naman ay ang taliwas sa lohikang bilis na pagkatuto sa pagbigkas ng isang asal-sanggol. Nagbilin si Orlan na bigyan ng solid food si Patti dahil sensitibong pag-aalaga ang kailangan nito. Sumusunod si Patti sa itinuturo ni Ric maliban sa salitang “I love you” na tila inilalaaan nito para kay Ric. Pinaalaala ni Orlan ang magandang tinginan nila ni Patti ngunit umiyak lang ang dalaga. Nakatulog si Patti makaraang umiyak hanggang lagnatin kaya nabahala si Becka. Dinala nila ito sa pagamutan kung saan matiyagang nagbantay si Orlan maging si Becka. Hindi pa rin nagbago ang pakikitungo ni Patti kay Becka. Nakipagkumperensiya sa mga doctor si Orlan tungkol sa kaso ni Patti at issa ang hatol nila: mas higit na milagro kaysa tagumapy sa siyensya ang pagkabuhsy n muli ni Patti. Umuusbong sa tagpong ito na pati mga doctor na dapat ay nagsasalita sa purong wiak ng medisina, sumusundot na ngayon sa elemento ng supernatural. Kunsabagay, dahil nga sa Pilipinas naman ang konteksto ng akda, kapani-paniwala pa ring may mga doktor na isinasalalay sa Diyos ang lahat nilang pantaong kakayanan at, sa oras ng matinding kagipitan, himala pa rin ng Diyos ang pinananaligan. Tugma ito sa mataas na insidente ng faith healing sa atin kung saan hindi na abot ng abilidad pangmedisina ng doktor ang iniinda ng pasyente kaya tumataya na lamang sa pananampalataya.
Pinagagalitan na si Orlan ng kayang ina dahil sa masugid na pagsubaybay kay Patti, dahilan para hindi maasikaso ang sariling klinika. Hindi mapigilan ang doktor at nagprisinta pang siya ang maglalabas kay Patti. Ang gusto naman ni Patti, si Ric ang maglabas sa kanya sa pagamutan. Sinabi na lamang ni Orlan na naghihintay na sa bahay si Ric para gustuhin na nitong umuwi. Nang hindi makita, umiyak si Patti. Inayawan nang lantaran ni Patti si Orlan kaya minabuti ng binatang asikasuhin na ang klinika, na ikinasiya ng ina niya. Sa puntong ito, sina Orlan, Patti at Ric naman ang triyanggulo.
Nagkulong si Patti sa kanyang kuwarto kaya nangamba si Becka kung ano ang dahilan ng pananahimik ni Patti sa loob. Pinauwi nila si Ric para ito ang umamo kay Patti. Pagkatok pa lang sa pinto ni Ric, niyapos na nito ay hinagkan ang padrasto. Pasunod na ang mga sangkap ng kulturang popular sa Pilipinas kung saan mala-karnabal ang pagtatagni-tagni ng genre ng drama, komedya, sex, action, atbp. Nakulong sila sa kuwarto at muntik nang matukso si Ric sa anak-anakan kung hindi nabuksan ng susi ang nakasarang pinto. Nagtago sa banyo si Ric ngunit napilitang lumabas nang tawagin ni Becka. Nagulantang siya nang makitang halos walang saplot si Ric kaya nasampal niya ito. Nasabunutan ni Becka si Patti sa sobrang galit. Mas malakas pa rin si Patti kaysa sa ina at lola ngunit biglang nahimatay. Inasikaso ni Orlan si Patti samantalang nalaman ni Donya Guada na lumisan si Ric nang walang dalang bagahe at nagbitiw pa ito sa kompanya ni Becka. Nayanig ang lola sa posibilidad na isama ni Ric si Patti sa Amerika para pakasalan. Tuluyang nawalan ng tiwala si Donya Guada kay Ric. Balak namang ipasuri ni Becka ang kabirhenan ni Patti para patiyak na dalaga pa siya at hindi sila nagniig ni Ric. Galit pa rin ang mag-ina kay Pati kaya si Orlan na ang nagdala sa kanya sa pagamutan, kung saan interesado ang mga doktor sa kaso ng binuhay na bangkay. Sumugod din sa pagamutan si Ric at nagbilin kay Orlan na lalayo na ito at ipaliwanag kina Becka at Donya Guada na wala siyang kasalanan. Sa dulo ng nobela, may mga rebelasyon pang puno ng kagila-gilalas, biglang pagkalas sa kuwento, at iba pang elementong makapagpapanabik lalo na sa masugid na tagasubaybay ng komiks.
Matalino ang “Aanhin…” sa paggamit ng lamig at init sa maraming antas sa akda. Sa lamig napreserba ang bangkay ni Patti, at kailangan ni Becka ang lamig na ito upang buhayin ang anak, na lumitaw namang malamig ang pakikitungo sa kanya. Balewala ang ginastusan ng milyong perang lamig dahil hindi maibalik ang mainit na pagmamahal ng anak sa ina. Ang matindi pa, kaagaw pa niya ito sa taong muling nagbigay-init sa buhay niya: si Ric.
Isang talon sa pananampalataya ang ilang pag-iwas sa kumbensyon ni Patron para makapagbigay ng kakaibang putahe ng panitikan: ang paggamit sa kontrobersyal na cryonics upang mailarawan sa lipunan ang mga posibilidad ng pagbabago sa ating pagtingin sa siyensya, relihiyon, etika at moralidad kung magiging talamak sa hinaharap ang pag-iimbak ng mga bangkay sa yelo upang buhayin pagdating ng panahon. Nandoon ang pormula ng kulturang popular sa komiks: ang eskapismo, ang kagila-gilalas, ang nagbabagu-bagong genre ngunit higit pa dahil espekulatibo ang genre ng akda ni Patron. Sumugal ang Liwayway sa talino ni Patron at gaya ng mga tauhang sina Kenkoy, Kulafu atbp, memorable ang pampamilyang drama ng bangkay na muling nabuhay.
Bilang tugon sa panukalang buhayin ang industriya ng komiks, maimumungkahi kong basahin ang akdang ito ni Patron pati na rin ng iba pa niyang nobela o ng ibang pang serye sa Liwayway na buhay na buhay pa ang sirkulasyon. Sa mainit na pagtanggap kina Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah, Bakekang, Pedro Penduko at iba pa sa labas ng midyang komiks, hindi malayong matanggap ng publiko ang pangunahing midyum na tumulong nagpakalat sa masa ng ating pambansang wika. Sa muling pagbuklat natin ng komiks, isang yamang pambayan ang ating binubuhay dahil init ng ating pagtangkilik ang kailangan ng popular na talaan ng ating tradisyon, kultura at pagkakakilanlan.

calatagan: an urbanite's reflection

When I and my friends arrived at Calatagan, it was as if we descended on a new planet altogether. Come to think: we came from the city, and the sight of the sea and of the rural setting seemed to us an alien seascape and landscape. However, the pristine-appearing area is not as untouched as it wished to communicate itself.
We were told that the bounty of the waters has steadily lowered year after year. The marine life is dying because of the rampant illegal fishing operations. A fish surfaced, but dove as soon as gulping enough air to breathe underwater. I thought, maybe it was wary that we humans were among those who heedlessly throw dynamites in order to obliterate fish life, great and small, off the surface of the sea. The man guiding us lamented that the unlawful fishing activities caused the sea farmers’ income plummeting. He was smiling when he recounted how pathetic it was when he staggered onto shore one fishing time, only to offer his wife a sorry batch of slim fingerlings not even worth a kid’s meal. His smile conveyed the opposite emotion of sadness.
We produced our camera and began clicking around, shooting at best angles. From afar, a black dot sailed serenely, but it came to me that maybe it was what one fisherman told us: that foreign poachers from neighboring Asian countries must be unconscientiously cruising the ocean to haul fish from within the Philippine area of naval responsibility. Some Taiwanese ship maybe, or Chinese fishermen, rolling in laughter while taking out wriggling giants out of water while their local counterparts do not even have a decent meal to eat. The sea was inviting, and the boys were too shameless to decline the allure of the bottle-green waters. Off their shirts go, and as they bob in and out of the water, they seemed to be like the only creatures belonging to the sea. Perhaps that’s what Calatagan waters and the rest of the world’s oceans are bound to experience: when the aquatic creatures are finally no more, the lonely planet may jump onto the water to try to populate it once more, to no avail.
Sea turtles used to abound the domain, but owing to the sea hunters’ perfect game that turtles were, they eventually vanished. They maybe slow, but sensing the terrible fate they would get from humans, they gradually ran for their precious lives. They, along with other underwater creatures, must have learned their lessons the hard way when even the humans formulating laws and given the stewardship role of nature were the very creatures contributing to their increasing decline.
Onshore, we were greeted by fabulously-colored starfishes. We were free to pick them up. I wondered if they were that easy to fall prey to human hunters. Did they get to use their built-in sting to express the bitterness of their bodies for creatures who caused their ruthless disappearance? Not far away, a small group gathered at the coral formations jutting out of the sea. I gathered that these corals were actually accumulated skeletons of microscopic sea animals. Did they get hurt whenever humans stomp on them or feed them dynamites to send residing fishes thrashing into the open?
Rouge-colored seaweeds with rather hard bodies were strewn along the way. We were told they were gulamans. They were a far cry from the jellies I relish during weekend afternoons back in my childhood. They serve as alternative livelihood products for the farmers, since the natural sea resources have deteriorated anyway and fish bounty were hard to come by unlike before. We took pictures of the sturdy-bodied gulamans; they must be beautiful, soft and graceful-moving down the sea bottom.
Mangroves from not so far away showed their decrepit roots, resembling an old man’s limbs reaching out for help. The industry of mangroves looked just that: dying. Having come from an urban place, I thought they looked regular, but our guide said they looked healthier when human activities were far and between. A puddle of murky water near the mangroves reflected our faces and looking at it, we could only say sorry to ourselves.

sandaang panaginip: kontemporanyong komedya

Komedya sa makabagong panahon ang Sandaang Panaginip ni Rene O. Villanueva. Maraming elemento ng komedya ang nasa katangian ng dulang ito para magpatunay na hango nga ito sa popular na anyo ng pagtatanghal noong Pananakop ng mga Espanyol.
Una, halaw sa mga Europeong awit at korido ang naratibo nito. Walang ipinagkaiba ang takbo ng kuwentong romansa nito sa pakikipagsapalaran ng mga dugong maharlika kung saan napagtatagumpayan ng mabubuting loob ang maitim na balak ng mga masasama. Kahit pa maraming pakana ang kanyang madrasta para pagtakpan nito ang kanyang maanomalyang pamumuno sa kaharian ng Tralala, nalagpasan ni Prinsesa Yasmin ang mga ito sa tulong na rin ng pag-ibig na si Prinsipe Anshari. Maging mga Kanluraning pangalan at, marahil, ang nakapangingibabaw na Kanluraning pananaw ng kagandahan ay hiniram din ng dula para masalungat ng lutang na ganda ni Yasmin ang ordinaryong hitsura ng mga anak ng madrasta. Dahil komedya, nagtatapos ito sa isang kanais-nais na kalagayan kung saan magiging masaya ang (mga) pangunahing tauhan, gaya ng kasiyahan nina Yasmin at Anshari sa pagtatapos ng kanilang pakikipagsapalaran sa isang maharlikang kasalan. Dahil moro-moro rin ito, ipinakita sa tema ng dula ang pagtutunggali ng mabubuti laban sa masasama na ipananalo ng una, at sa kaso nga ng Sandaang Panaginip, naglaban ang batalyon nina Anshari at ng taksil na si Heneral Tulume, hanggang magupo ng una ang huli. Lamang, ang kinomisyon ng reyna na si Heneral Tulume ay mahihinuhang Kristiyano imbes na Muslim gaya ng nakagawiang pagkatawan sa mga Moro bilang walang budhi.
Isa pang elementong nasa Sandaang Panaginip ang pagtatanghal nito sa labas ng kumbensyunal na tanghalan dahil sa Cervini field ng Pamantasang Ateneo, sa lilim ng mga bituin at paligid ng mga puno at kawayanan, inilatag ang entablado at inilagay ang mga upuan ng mga manonood sa loob ng mahigit isang linggo. Dahil nasa loob ito ng pamantasan, malamang na hindi ito matangkilik ng nasa publiko, dagdag pa ang relatibong may kamahalang tiket.
Kabilang pa rin sa tradisyunal na konsepto ng komedya ang mga saplot na kasasalaminan ng kabihasnan at paniniwala ng mga tauhan, dahil mararangya ang kasuotan nila. Lamang, hindi mapusyaw kundi makinang ang mga damit mula sa mga hari hanggang sa mga prinsesa.
Nagpakita pa ng isa pang kumbensyong ang dula: ang pagmartsa papunta at pababa ng entablado. Sa umpisa, umiimbay-imbay pa ang kamay ng mga dama at nasa likuran naman ang kamay ng mga lalaki. Sa dulo, umaawit pa silang lumayo sa entablado habang naglalaro ang mga ilaw na teknolohiyang inilapat sa dula at patuloy na ipinapalabas sa isang vidiwall ang clips ng kasaysayan ng ating bansa, buwan, lambana at iba pa.
Nakita pa rin sa dula ang labanan na may angkop na musika ng pakikidigma samantalang may koreograpo pa ang paghampas ng arnis sa armas ng katunggali. Gaya sa tradisyunal na dula, mahiwaga ang paggapi ng mabubuti sa masasama dahil tinulungan ni Inang Diwatang ipanalo ang laban nina Anshari kay Tulume. Nagtapos din sa maganda ang dula gaya ng dapat asahang tradisyon: nagtagumpay ang pakikipagsapalaran ng magsing-irog na Yasmin at Anshari hanggang maisiwalat na mamanahin nila ang kanya-kanyang kaharian at pinahihintulutan ang pagkakasal nila sa isa’t isa.
Sa mga nabanggit na kumbensyon at ilang pagbabago, kinakailangang ikunsidera ang pagsasakontemporanyo ng dula. Sa bisa nito, maipapasok ang ilang pulitika gaya ng postmodernismo at postkolonyalismo upang iangkop sa konteksto ng Pilipinas. Ginamit ang postmodernong mga elemento gaya ng pastiche at bricolage upang maraming maipakitang pangyayari sa dula at sa vidiwall nang minsanan lang para sa manonood. Nakakaugnay pa ang ilan sa maaksayang karakter ni Reyna Leona na walang iba kundi ang dating Unang Ginang na si Imelda Marcos. Sa isang banda naman, ginamit ang postkolonyal na mga elemento gaya ng kulturang hybrid sa Oryental na kaharian na may Griyegong hardin pati na ng kritikong imperyalista sa neokolonyal na pagdikta ng Parachibum sa Tralala na pinautang nito ng walong milyong bara ng ginto. May Pilipinong bihis kung gayon ang isang inangkat na anyo ng pagtatanghal.
Gumalaw ang dula sa konteksto ng kasaysayan ng Pilipinas. Una nang mapapansin ang alegorya ng dula kung saan ang kaharian ng Tralala na bingi sa dusa ng mamamayan ay patungkol sa rehimeng Marcos na puno ng pasakit sa bansa, mula sa karapatang pantao, ekonomiya at kalayaang pampulitika. Mahalagang usapin na isinusulong ng dula ang unibersal na apela ng kawalang-kahahantungan ng pangungurakot at pagkagahaman sa kapangyarihan. Ang nangyaring pang-aabuso sa panahon ni Marcos ay nangyayari pa rin sa konteksto ng ating panahon. Lamang, darating pa rin ang panahon na magtatagumpay ang kabutihan kung paanong nagtagumpay sina Yasmin at Anshari laban sa mga masasamang balak at gawain ni Reyna Leona.
Sa apat na panahon ng ating kasaysayan, maraming mga bagay ang naisangkap sa dula. Mula sa prekolonyal, namana ang paganong paniniwala sa supernatural na diwata sa halip na gamitin ang kolonyal na engkantada, na masasabing iisang kaisipan lamang. Mula sa kolonyal, ang dula mismo ang namana—ang paraan ng pagtatanghal nito at ang mga elemento na parehong nabanggit na sa unang bahagi ng papel. Mula sa postkolonyal, ang pagsasaatin ng dulang banyaga ang namana—binigyan ng Oryental na kahulugan ang dula upang maibalik sa atin ang ninakaw nating imahe sa pagpupumilit ng Kanluran na ianyo tayo sa mga mamamayan nito. Mula sa postmoderno, ang pagpulupot sa mga nakagawiang kumbensyon gaya ng paglalapat ng makabagong teknolohiya at pagdurog sa mga institusyon (gaya ni Imelda o ng kaisahan para bigyang daan ang visual plurality, halimbawa) ang naipakita sa dula. Ang lahat ng mga ito ay maayos na pinagtahi-tahi para isakontemporanyo ang komedya: ipinakitang naglalaro ang mga prekolonyal na lambana sa kolonyal na anyo ng hardin; mistulang eksena ni Imelda Marcos sa mga balita ang inaarte ni Reyna Leona; taal na Tagalog ang ginagamit ng mga Europeong maharlikang may Kanluraning mga pangalan.
Ang pagsasakontemporanyo ng Sandaang Panaginip ay naging epektibong daan para pagbuhul-buhulin ang iba’t ibang institusyon at sistema sa lahat ng bahagi ng ating kasaysayan kaya masasabing higit sa nakaaaliw ay henyo ang dula.

ang post-kolonyal sa sandaang panaginip

Sapagkat hindi na maisusulat pang muli ang kasaysayan, inangkin na ng mga bansang kolonyal gaya ng Pilipinas ang pulitika ng Post-Kolonyalismo. Sa kabila ng karahasang dinanas ng mga bansang kolonyal dahil sa kasaysayan ng pananakop, ginamit nila ang Post-Kolonyal na kalagayan upang mabuo ang pagkakakilanlang binasag ng kolonyal na karanasan. Naisainstitusyon man ang mga kaisipang Kolonyal, tinapatan din naman ito ng mga kaisipang Post-Kolonyal upang tuligsain ang imaheng binubuo ng Kanluran sa kanyang Iba.
Nabibilang sa mga kaisipang Post-Kolonyal ang institusyon ng Panitikan, kung saan kauri ang dulang Sandaang Panaginip ng batikang manunulat na si Prof. Rene Villanueva. Makikita sa mga elemento ng komedyang ito ang maraming katangiang Post-Kolonyal. Isa itong pamamaraan ng manunulat upang bawiin ang ninakaw na identidad sa pamamagitan ng pagpapakita ng alternatibong imahen ng nasakop.
Una na sa mga ito ang mga tauhang ginagampanan ang mga tungkuling maharlika sa konteksto ng Kanluran. Pangalan pa lamang nila, inangkat na: Alexander, Leona, Carlos, Yasmin, Anshari. Dagdag pa, reyno at reyna, prinsipe at prinsesa sila na pawing mga Kanluraning konsepto ng mga pinuno sa halip na gumamit ng katutubong pangalan ng dugong mahal. Kahit may mga katutubong pangalan at katawagan naman, ang paggamit ng mga angkat na ngalan ay tanda ng hindi-basta-matitibag na markang kolonyal na hindi naman lubusang makabubura ng pagka-nasakop. Samantala, Post-Kolonyal ang katangian ng mga tauhang makipagtalastasan sa isa’t isa gamit ang katutubong wika sa kabila ng kaanyuan nilang maka-Kanluraning konstruksyon ng mga dugong bughaw. Gahum man ng Kanluran na hubugin ang Oryental ayon sa maka-Kolonyal na hulmahan ng una, gahum naman ng Oryental ang panatilihin ang pagkakatutubo nito sa pamamagitan ng mga lantay na Pilipinong kaisipang supernatural gaya nina Inang Diwata at mga lambana sa halip na gamitin ang Kanluraning engkantada o nayadas. Kahit na kolonyal sa kaanyuan ang mga nagsisiganap, sa esensya ay Post-Kolonyal sila dahil hindi tuwirang nasira ng pananakop ang pagkatao nila.
Litaw na litaw pa rin ang Post-Kolonyal kahit sa tagpuan. Pinaghalo ang kalinangang Oryental at Oksidental sa pamamagitan ng bahay-haring hitsurang katutubo na katambis man din ng harding may mga moog na ginanyak man din ng Sibilisasyong Gresya. Gayundin naman ang pamanahong tagpuan sapagkat nagsimula ang dula na nanganganib nang bumagsak ang kaharian dahil sa patung-patong na mga problema ng mga naghihirap na mamamayan gaya ng taggutom at pangkabuhayang pag-aaklas at nagtapos na may panibagong buhay ang mga tao sa pagkawala ng imperyalistang taga-Parachibum at ang tuta nitong manunuba ng sandamakmak na bara ng ginto.
Post-Kolonyal din ang banghay sapagkat gumigitaw dito ang kaisipang imperyalismo at diaspora. Ang pagkakautang ng walong milyong bara ng ginto ng kahariang Tralala sa kahariang Parachibum ay isang ‘di-direktang pananakop ng huli sa una: hindi man tuwirang sakop ng Parachibum ang Tralala, hawak naman ito sa leeg sapagkat dinidiktahan naman ng Parachibum ang Tralala sa taning ng pagbabayad ng utang. Diaspora naman ang paglalakbay ni Yasmin una patungong Timog at pangalawa sa gubat patungong Parachibum dahil kinakailangan niyang umalis sa kaharian ng ama para tumulong ayusin ang mga gusot na pinagdaraanan ng Tralala. Ang presensya ng post-Kolonyal na mga kaisipang ito ay ang mga masasamang epekto sa bansang kolonya ng pananakop dahil nga birtuwal na walang kalayaan pa rin ang bansa at masakit mang iwanan ang bansa sa gitna ng paglubog sa kumunoy, napipilitang mangibang-bayan sa ibayong dagat para makaiwas sa problemang internal.
Sa pagsasama-sama at pagtatagisan ng mga motif sa kuwento, hindi lamang Post-Kolonyal ang dula kundi Post-Moderno pa dahil sa bricolage at pastiche ng mga pangyayari sa kasaysayan gaya ng “edifice complex” ni Imelda Marcos, sa panitikan gaya ng madrastang masama kasama ang mga anak na hindi kagandahan, sa sayaw gaya ng koreo sa arnis ng armada kapwa ni Anshari at ni Heneral Tulume. Ang paghahalu-halong ito ay dili iba kundi ang mga kaisipang hybridity at alterity kung saan sa pagkakakontamina ng kalantayan ng banghay, wala nang kasiguruhan ang pagkakakilanlan nito. Hindi ito purong Filipino, pero sa kabila ng samu’t saring pagkakahawang kolonyal, mapangingibabaw pa rin ang natitirang sarili.
Pati tema ng dula, Post-Kolonyal din. Ang sagupaan ng mabuti at masama sa dula ay masasalamin sa katutubong taguri rito: moro-moro. Dito, nagsasagupaan ang mga Kristiyano at mga Muslim, at dahil nakaiibabaw ang Kristiyanismo para sa mga Kanluranin kaysa sa mga barbarong moro, nagtatagumpay lagi ang kabutihang kinakatawan ng Kristiyanismo. Post-Kolonyal ang labanan sa pagitan ng armada ni Prinsipe Anshari at ng kay Heneral Tulume dahil nagtagumpay ang mabuti laban sa masama sa isang dulang inangkat mula Europa ngunit binigyan ng panibagong trato ayon sa pagkakagawa nito rito sa Pilipinas. Binigyan ni Villanueva ng Filipinong mukha ang Europeong komedya.
Panghuli man ang konteksto ngunit puno rin ng Post-Kolonyal na katangian ito. Gamit ang screen flash, iba’t ibang bahagi ng kasaysayan ng Pilipinas ang ipinakita, simula ng masakop ito ng mga Kastila hanggang masakop ng mga Amerikano hanggang okupahan ng mga Hapones nang panandalian noong panahon ng giyera hanggang maibalik sa pamamahala ng mga Amerikano. Mahalaga ang mga panooring ito sa konteksto ng dula bilang alegorya sa kalagayan ng bansa: naghihirap ang Tralala (Pilipinas) dahil sa pagkakautang nito sa ibang kaharian (EuroAmerica). Nananagana sa pangungurakot ang reyna (Imelda Marcos—siya ang alusyon kay Leona na isang waldas na pinuno ng kaharian) sa kabila ng pagkagutom at pagdurusa ng mga manghahabi ng Timog (mga mangagawang Filipino). Hindi maiiwasang ikritiko ang alegoryang ito dahil ang pananakop ang nagsilbing mitsa sa pambansang paghihinagpis. Kung hindi pinakialaman ng Kanluran ang Pilipinas sampu ng mga kolonyang bansa, katutubo sana ang gumitaw na kultura rito at hindi kakalakalin ng mananakop para sa pansariling kapakanan.
Sa produksyon makikita ang pagtatagni-tagni ng sandaang panaginip sa Sandaang Panaginip dahil sa nakahihilong presentasyon ng mga tauhan sa entablado habang sa gilid ay nagpapalabas din ng iba’t ibang clips ng pambayang kasaysayan, ng kalikasan at iba pa. Sa Post-Kolonyal na perspektibo, tinuturingan ng sandaang panaginip ang pangarap ng daan-daan, libu-libo at milyun-milyong Filipino na matagpuan nila ang kani-kanilang mga sarili sa kabila ng pagkakasakop na dahilan ng kontaminasyon sa pagtingin natin sa ating mga sarili. Sa pagkakatupad ng sandaang panaginip na ito, wala nang duda na tanggalin sa sistema ang ituring ang sarili bilang Amerikanong kulay kayumanggi, pagiging utak-Stateside at pagkakaari ng malay-kolonyal. Kaisa tayo sa mga manggagawa at mga tauhan ng dula na sa pagkaresolba ng mga suliraning pang-ekonomiya at pangkaharian, mas magiging malapit na ang kaganapan ng pagkasarili at tugma ito sa proyekto ng Post-Kolonyalismo na pagkakaari ng identidad na iba kaysa sa pinapalitaw ng nanakop. Sa pagkakakilanlang ito, hindi basta aliping kolonyal ang Filipino kundi may dangal sa kanyang sariling lahi, kasaysayan at kalinangan. Sa puntong ito, hindi rin basta nananaginip lamang ang mga Filipino.
Mabisa ang Sandaang Panaginip para palutangin ang konseptong Post-Kolonyal sa isang bahagi ng institusyong Pilipino. Sa pamamagitan ng dulang ito, ibang anyo ng Iba ang makikita: hindi naisasagilid ni nawawala, bagkus ay muling aangkinin ang sentro upang mabuo muli ang sarili.

vampires: an undying tale of the undead

Vampire legends hark back for millennia and are a leitmotif of cultures the world over. They come in various forms, from the vampire foxes of Japan to the half-woman, half-winged serpent Lamia of Greece to the red-eyed, green-or-pink-haired monsters of China to our very own manananggal, which is a half-woman from the waist up, with bloodshot eyes and disheveled hair.
Vampire stories in Western Europe were originated from the less sophisticated, more rustic and more “barbaric” Eastern Europe, where Far Eastern (China, Tibet and India) myths on vampires were transported via the silk route bound for the Mediterranean.[1] Long before the Irishman Bram Stoker capitalized on the vampire legends in coming up with the monumental novel Dracula and long before the familiar vampires of today got transmogrified in film and literature, the Asia-originated stories were already widespread along the Black Sea coast to Greece, the Balkans, Hungary and Transylvania.
Vampire hysteria erupted in the 17th and 18th centuries when Eastern Europeans claimed seeing deceased relatives walking about and attacking people.[2] Lots of graves were exhumed; their corpses burned and staked. These rumors jumped to adjacent Europe, creating scholastic speculations on such monsters as well as literary and artistic buzz. While the superstitious Eastern Europe lived in fear of the bloodsucking count residing in his mountain castle, the “civilized” Western Europe turned the lore on its head and sharpened the great divide from the eastern region with the moneymaking vampire-inspired artworks.
Western Europe shares the modern depiction of the vampire as blood drinking, returning from death, nocturnal human predator and others usual with the Eastern European myths. Contemporary inventions include the donning of evening clothes, tall-collared capes, bat transformation, among others. Meanwhile, certain elements of the ancient tales like the spreading of poppy seeds or millet at the tomb site in order to have the vampire count seeds instead of preying on humans, have been scrapped from modern retellings in fiction and film.[3]
The Iranian-related Slavs including Russians, Bulgarians, Serbs and Polish have the most numerous vampire folklores in all the world. The Church Schism in history influenced the development of vampire myths: the Roman Catholics considered incorruptible bodies as saints whereas the Orthodox, to whom the Slavs belong, believed these were vampires.[4] The conflict between pre-Christian pagan traditions with those of Christian’s resulted in the origin of vampire lore. According to Slavic folklore, vampirism might be caused by being born with teeth or a tail, being conceived on dreaded days, irregular death, excommunication, inappropriate burial rites, among others.[5] Meanwhile, preventive measures included affixing a crucifix in the coffin, putting millet or poppy seeds in the grave for vampires were fascinated with counting or staking the body. A vampire might be lurking in the neighborhood if there was death of cattle, sheep, relatives, neighbors, if bodies seemed alive with new growth of hair or fingernails, if the corpse was puffed up drum-like or had blood on the mouth and if the body had a reddish complexion. It can be destroyed by staking, burning, beheading, repeating the funeral rituals, throwing holy water on the grave and exorcism.
On the other hand, Romanian vampire myths are only variants of those of the neighboring Slavs. They are named Strigoi, meaning screech owl or demon or witch.[6] They emerged from persons born with a tail, born out of wedlock, who died before baptism or who died an unnatural death, who were the seventh offspring of the same sex in a family, who were the children of salt-deprived pregnant women, who were stared at by a vampire, and who were witches.[7] It was but natural that to be bitten by vampire meant being condemned to a vampiric life after death. That person would be noticed when the family or livestock were attacked. Holes in the earth, an undecomposed corpse with reddish face and one foot in the corner of the coffin were telltale signs of a vampire in the grave. Distributing garlic in church and checking who did not eat it can enable one to discover a vampire. To prevent a person from turning into a vampire, the caul of the newborn must be removed and ruined before the baby could consume it; meticulous preparation of corpses, putting a thorny branch of a wild rose by tin their grave, and placing garlic upon the same.[8] Much like its Slavic counterpart, the Romanian vampire variety may be destroyed by driving a stake through their body or shooting a bullet through the vampire’s coffin.
Greek vampire lore was popular that Aegean country during the nineteenth century. Instead of being cremated, Greek corpses are buried. Three years after, they are hauled out of the grave. The bones from rotten bodies are collected by the relatives, poured into a box and washed with wine and consecrated by the priest. Incorruptible bodies would cause a panic stemming from the vampire belief. Not unlike the Slavic and Romanian variety, the causes of such Greek vampiric tragedy were numerous. The dead must have suffered excommunion, curse by the father, or solitary when death arrived for him. Across Greece, other reasons include a feline jumping over the dead body, eating of meat coming from a sheep slayed by a wolf, incomplete baptism rites, conception during a significant religious observation, curse by a supernaturally powerful person, commission of a terrible crime, attack by a vampire when still alive, among others.[9] What was weird was that only Christians were thought of to anguish over this misfortune. Generally, this type of vampire is believed to be hard to distinguish from the living and could elude detection. Nonetheless, in some parts of Greece, they were easy to recognize. They glow in the dark of Mount Pelion, they were hunchbacked and grew their fingernails long on the Saronic Island, they had long canine fangs like wolves and they often ventured during nighttime and during the daytime, as in Amorgos.[10]
Bats cannot be dissociated from the modern day idea of vampires. The 16th century Spanish conquerors initially made this link when they noticed the similarity between the animals’ feeding habits and the mythical vampires.[11] The association became stronger over time when fiction writers portrayed bats as bloodsucking creatures, a notion that got its seal of verisimilitude when Stoker fictionalized bats as vampiric monsters.
Prior to the 18th century, vampires did not exist in the imagination of the British people. The blood predators came to the attention of the British Isles in Particular and Western Europe in general when a vampire scare in Eastern Europe became a major fanfare, so blown out of proportions that authorities were even dragged into the search and annihilation of vampires. This scandal directly spawned England’s present-day vampire legends. Because of the controversy, Western scholars seriously looked into the affair instead of shrugging off their shoulder over what was supposed to be their poorer European counterpart’s superstition. Two items that were considered were an outbreak of vampire attacks that erupted in East Prussia in 1721 and another in the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1725-1734.[12]
Two of such cases coming from the controversial vampire accounts featured Peter Plogojowitz and Arnold Paole. At the age of 62, Plogowitz died but returned frequently begging for food from his son. The son refused and was found dead the morning after. From then on, Plogowitz came back to the village, attacking neighbors who died from blood loss. Anoher notorious case involved Arnold Paole, a former soldier turned farmer who had been preyed upon by a vampire and who died while haying. His death was the beginning of a series of deaths in the neighborhood, suggesting that the ex-soldier must have been preying upon his village people.
The two cases were very well documented. Government officials examined the incidents and the corpses, churned out reports and, afterwards, published books regarding the Paole case and disseminated about Europe. The controversy lasted a generation. The problem was aggravated by rural folks having an epidemic of vampire attacks and exhuming bodies all around. Many scholars said vampires did not exist—they cited reports to premature burial, or rabies which causes thirst.
Nevertheless, a well respected French theologian and scholar by the name of Dom Augustine Calmet came up with a intricately thought-out treatise in 1746 which claimed vampires did exist. This had relative influence on other scholars during the rage.
Consequentially, Austrian Empress Marie Theresa called for her personal physician to investigate. He reported that vampires did not exist so the Empress implemented laws prohibiting the opening of graves and mutilation of bodies. This halted the vampire epidemics. However, everybody was knowledgeable about vampires by then and it took only a matter of time before authors would mine the stories and would metamorphose the vampire into something different and much more accessible to the public at-large.
Western Europe struck gold when the vampires of Eastern Europe were introduced in the weird literature and popular culture of the modern world. It was commonly believed that Lord Byron introduced the vampire theme to Western literature with its mention in the epic poem The Giaour, but his personal physician, John Polidori, wrote the original vampire fiction The Vampyre using Lord Byron as distant basis of the story’s bloodsucker.[13] The character, named Lord Ruthven, is the foremost of the much-romanticized vampires. Mary Shelley’s phenomenal Frankenstein, which also ran a parallel monster theme, was inspired from the ghost story contest generated by the buzz hounding The Vampyre. Among the earliest literary attempts dealing with the archetypal monster include Christabel, an unfinished poem, and Carmilla, a lesbian vampire story with Sheridan Lefanu as author.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula has been the prototype of the vampire character in popular literature the past 100 years. Victorian Europe with its widespread tuberculosis and syphilis seemed to have been lashed by the harsh depiction of vampirism as a devil-instigated illness and the underlying elements of sex, blood and death. The Balkan king from whom the name was taken was rumored to be bloodthirsty in a way war-freak rulers relished bloodshed of their enemy state’s people.[14] The vampiric association stuck then since Stoker wrote about the fictional Dracula.
The persistence of vampire legends seems just an archetypal inscription in the human race’s collective unconscious. These myths come to us in life-like depictions as our way of keeping in touch with our primordial ancestors that encounter strange creatures in their dreams and lives. Also, they answer psychological issues that need to be addressed, such as conquering fear despite a formidable nemesis. Meaning, we have yet to see blood-and-flesh vampires who perform real vampirism rituals in order to perpetuate their undead lives. The closest vampires come to reality is the vampirism symptoms seen in pathological cases of porphyria sufferers who are anemic and, as treatment, blood drinkers and criminals who cannibalize on their victims. In viewing Western and Eastern European folkloric history, it seems to me that the vampire concern takes on a political angle as the poorer Eastern Europe is presented as backward and, therefore, irreparably barbaric for subsisting in superstition despite the advent of modernity. On the other hand, Western Europe is presented as the elegant Other that has too many modern issues to address to take vampire legends seriously. By subverting the onslaught of the vampire hysteria, Western Europe cultivated the vampire creature in order to benefit out of it. The persisting Great Divide between these two Europes is only a microcosm of the technological West and the exotic East, wherein all the standards of the true, the good and the beautiful are set by the West for the Orientals to follow. In a sense, the West in general (the Western Europe in particular) sucks vampire-like on the resources of the Other in order to sustain its parasitic self.

Bibliography:
Barber, Paul. Vampire, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality. New York: Yale University, 1988.
Florescu, Radu R. and McNally, Raymond T. Dracula: Prince of Many Faces. Boston Little, Brown and Company, 1989.
Frost, Brain J. The Monster with a Thousand Faces: Guises of the Vampire in Myth and Literature. Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1989.


[1] Frost, Brain J. The Monster with a Thousand Faces: Guises of the Vampire in Myth and Literature. Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1989, p. 7.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Frost, Brain J. The Monster with a Thousand Faces: Guises of the Vampire in Myth and Literature. Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1989, p. 15.
[4] Barber, Paul. Vampire, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality. New York: Yale University, 1988, p. 49.
[5] Ibid, p. 50.
[6] Frost, Brain J. The Monster with a Thousand Faces: Guises of the Vampire in Myth and Literature. Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1989, p. 23.
[7] Barber, Paul. Vampire, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality. New York: Yale University, 1988, p. 56.
[8] Ibid, p. 59.
[9] Barber, Paul. Vampire, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality. New York: Yale University, 1988, p. 71.
[10] Ibid, 74.
[11] Florescu, Radu R. and McNally, Raymond T. Dracula: Prince of Many Faces. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1989, p. 119.
[12] Florescu, Radu R. and McNally, Raymond T. Dracula: Prince of Many Faces. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1989, p. 156.
[13] Florescu, Radu R. and McNally, Raymond T. Dracula: Prince of Many Faces. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1989, p. 88.
[14] Florescu, Radu R. and McNally, Raymond T. Dracula: Prince of Many Faces. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1989, p. 4.

the god in the artist

There is a god in every artist. This is what the films Being John Malkovich, Shadow of the Vampire, 8 ½ and Gods and Monsters convey. The structure and substance behind these films as well as all manifestations of the arts portray the genius that the artist is. The director, being the Supreme Being behind the film, possesses the freedom to create what he has in mind, and can pull it off especially for arts’ sake. The actors, while merely players, have the same liberation to interpret their roles. As such, an artist oozes with originality, and this is shown in all films. In Spike Jonze’s Being John Malkovich, Craig Schwartz pursued his puppetry even as he did not get paid well for his art. In fact, at one point of the movie, he got a beating from an irate father while he performed on the streeet. When a secret office portal led to the consciousness of John Malkovich, a Hollywood actor, Craig was so empowered that he seemed god-like in getting in and out of Malkovich’ body. This power got the better of him that he permanently occupied Malkovich’ body in order to taste fame as an actor and, still in pursuit of his first love, as a puppeteer. Jonze as a director is another manifestation of the artist as god, since he was able to come up with a unique movie with actors that were barely recognizable, departing from the conventions of Hollywood films many of which forego substance over form. In Shadow of the Vampire by E. Elias Merhige, F. W Murnau agreed with a real vampire, Schreck, to give the monster the leading lady as food, in exchange of a realistic performance. Murnau figuratively became the film’s true monster by pursuing his vision and feeding his crew, staff and his own humanity all for the sake of getting immortalized via his art. As a god-like being—the director—Murnau demanded blood to complete his filming, very much in the same manner as vampires nourished themselves. In 8 ½, the artist suffers some kind of block on top of his insecure relationships with women. In effect, he had nothing to say to his demanding producers but said it anyway. This statement puts the artist in god-like mode since even at the extreme poverty of the imagination, he can articulate something: that he is empowered even when he has none. Far from his protagonist, the director has a slew of things to say, from mid-life crisis, lust, parental memories, childhood, hatred for women, among other topics. In Gods and Monsters, homosexual director James Whale was shown to be the god of his filmmaking career. To go with his godness, the aging Whale was still active despite attacks of strokes. His time of shining in Hollywood was marked by absolute freedom as a creative worker, producing films that were unforgettable. At the forefront of these films were Frankenstein and Bride of Frankstein, which obtained life after creation, much like when the Frankenstein monster acquired life after a triumphant operation by Vincent Frankenstein. When people interpreted his movie, their reactions range from amusement to horror to ludicrousness, but what was important was that the artist as God was able to transmit his message in his films through the intercession of the monster.
The abovementioned films tell that the artistic process is the making of a genius. It is the most salient form of man’s use of his God-given talent. In a loose extent, man practices his godlikeness whenever he engages in the artistic process. In Being John Malkovich, Malkovich got to see what was on his own mind when he entered the mysterious portal leading to his own consciousness. What he saw in his mind was a whole lot of his replicas mouthing “Malkovich…Malkovich…Malkovich.” As such, he has seen his ego, the seat of man’s deity-ness. Being an artist, Malkovich populates his ego because for himself, he is the god. In Shadow of the Vampire, Murnau decided all alone what to happen in his film, even if it proved disastrous, if through this disaster his vision would be fulfilled. He allowed the vampire to drink the blood of the film’s cast and crew for his art’s ultimate purpose. He was the god of his film. In 8 ½, the film about an artist who had nothing to say is a stroke of brilliance of the artist who made this film as a means of saying he had something to say unlike his film’s character. In Gods and Monsters, the artistic process remains generally vivid to the gay director despite the onslaught of age, which says so much of the genius that Whale was notwithstanding the silver hair.
The films as a statement of the artistic process tell that should there be an artist in me, I can nurture it for the god in me to emerge. Art is a product of liberal expression, so I see that the god in artist is really privileged to say what one wants without having to apologize for it. I want to effect godlike traits because the artistic process occurs in a genius, and with what talent one has, one is capable of transforming the world.

art as sacrifice

E. Elias Merhige’s Shadow of the Vampire, Bill Condon’s Gods and Monsters, Federico Fellini’s 8 ½, and Spike Jonze’s Being John Malkovich are a testament that being an artist entails doing ultimate sacrifices for the love of the art. Filmmaking, like any other artform, is such a rigorous process, and it is not uncommon for me to be hearing directors, scriptwriters and actors raving about their product as one done in an extreme labor of love. As the offshoot of their respective makers’ creative juices, these films are no less than the artists’ children and, as such, are bestowed with extraordinary devotion and treatment.
For instance, in Shadow of the Vampire, director F. W. Murnau (John Malkovich) went the bizarre length of hiring a genuine vampire (Willem Defoe) in filming his horror film Nosferatu. Apparently, the director was this serious in his craft that he should be willing to endanger the lives of his whole crew if only to achieve verisimilitude in his film. On the other hand, Gods and Monsters recounts the last months of the life of a gay director (Ian McKellen) whose horror masterpieces, Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, attained eclipsing qualities. As a Hollywood director, Whale—in a true artist fashion—practiced extreme freedom in his filmmaking career. As a result, his two aforementioned works not only upstaged all other works but also gained so strong a life that he, their creator, cannot even control how these films should be remembered. Based on Gods and Monsters, it occurred to me that an artist, for the love of the craft, has to make the sacrifice of losing control of his own works once they get consumed by the interpreting public.
Meanwhile, 8 ½ is the story of a director (Marcello Mastroianni) who was problematic over what to say in his next movie and his affairs with several women. The former problem reflects the sacrifice an artist has to make after having possibly exhausted all his creative efforts in his previous works. It happens: just when an artist is in the process of producing the most brilliant piece ever to spring out of his head, he realizes not only the second-best status of his immediate past work but also the fact that he might fall clueless of what to do next.
Lastly, Being John Malkovich tells the account of an actor (John Malkovich) whose body got usurped by someone else, thereby leaving him zero control of his own mind and emotions. As that someone was an artist himself (John Cusack), he was willing to sacrifice—at the expense of the body’s owner—transferring from his body to another in pursuit of fame in the field he loved but perpetually failed in, puppeteering. Being John Malkovich afforded Craig, the puppeteer, to achieve huge popularity since Malkovich was well-known, being in universally-renowned Hollywood. In the same vein, being John Malkovich resulted to his being estranged from his bisexual wife (Cameron Diaz), a reality that said so much about the sacrifice of solitude an artist must undergo in seeking for his stardom’s fulfillment (although he was living in with the Maxine character in the movie, the artist was virtually all alone, all lonely at the top).All these films say that the artistic process is so complicated that at the work’s ultimate destination, sacrifices litter along the way. Sometimes, the end justifies the means; sometimes, not.
In Shadow of the Vampire, the director gets his due via his immortalization through his art, but not without having practically fed his whole staff to the vampire as well as having sacrificed his own humanity for the realization of his artisitic purpose. In Gods and Monsters, Whale’s Frankenstein works got interpreted in many ways from hilarity to terror to ludicrousness, although for the director himself, these reactions were possibly not the ones he was expecting but came about as a result of his works’ acquisition of life. In 8 ½, the artistic process is presented as a struggle from which one must be able to untangle himself. Director Guido’s exertion of effort to liberate himself from being dried up temporarily or permamently is one such manifestation of that struggle, but the film director himself joyfully indulges in the fact that he is unlike his character in that his creative makeup is not sterile, proven by the production of 8 ½. In Being John Malkovich, the road to Craig’s renown was paved with sacrifices, as on his way to succeeding as a puppeteer, finally, he had to use a host, be estranged from his partner in life, and live a life of hypocrisy as the world knows him to be Malkovich, not as himself. In the long run, he can be said to have emerged unhappy after all.
These films’ statement on the artistic process points to my life as something not unlike art: it is inextricably linked to sacrifices. My life, although I may not be so focused on it, is a continuous production of artform, from this reflective essay to other pieces which I come up with as school requirements or as personal articulation. Either objective entails sacrifice on my part: time, brainpower, sometimes capital, but it is an ultimate joy when the destination proves favorable, as when I get good marks or when I feel satisfied with my work. The artistic process can be a pain along the way, but can be a glory in the end.

a narrative analysis of virginia woolf’s the death of the moth and n. scott momaday's the way to rainy mountain

In "The Death of the Moth," Virginia Woolf used the narration of one’s personal experience in order to develop the thematic process of creation. She tells of a moth flying from one side of a window pane to the other and back, until the moth lays down on the window sill in the long run. After sometime, she witnesses the moth attempt to move anew but then, it moves sluggishly and awkwardly. A trial at flight frustrates the moth, its descent causing it to fall on its back, until the moth struggles to turn itself right by clawing at the air. Just as the moth is dying, Woolf sees the moth succeed at righting itself and then, it ceases from moving as its death strikes inescapably.
Woolf’s narration which resembles a conversational speech attempts to present the battle between life and death which, upon closer inspection, is both pathetic and dignified—pathetic since death will always triumph despite the stubborn desire to live and dignified when death is stared at winkless, like the moth dying nobly on its feet. Sounding existentialist, Woolf tells of a symbol—the moth’s sacrifice—which is a necessity to the consummation of the creative process for artists like her. Her personal narration brings about the working of the imagination and everything this machination springs from: the human aches and happiness, deepest desires, terrors and anxieties, emotional attachments. As she comments on the moth that “lay most decently and uncomplainingly composed,” the creative process is completed, the moth being the work of art.[1]
There is also pun intended for the use of the verb compose (to mean the end of the moth’s striving) which may likewise be defined as to create something musical, artistic or literary.
This cycle of moth’s life and death is of course symbolic of the creative process in that Woolf manages to provide survival out of a tragedy. Through her narration, there is suggestion of creativity vibrating into life, the movement of intense concepts arising from an artist’s consciousness, the abrupt awakening of a mind discovering areas of creation never before explored. Holistically, the moth represents the nonstop strivings of the human brain to inchoate something from confusion: in all likelihood an artist’s general plight. The moth image is potent enough to assist Woolf into narrating/opening a room on her artistic process.
Like "The Death of the Moth," N. Scott Momaday’s "The Way to Rainy Mountain" also involves narration of the personal experience of the author to show the process of creation, this time of Momaday’s individual identity inherently tied up to his Kiowa people’s philosophies, remembrances and experiences. The author begins by returning to Rainy Mountain, “[a] single knoll [that] rises out of the plain in Oklahoma, north and west of the Wichita Range” which belongs to the Kiowas and which “is where Creation was begun.” His journey back home has for a reason a homage to his late grandmother.
The author poetically explored his personal Kiowa world in the latter part of his essay, wherein he told his people’s summer reunions in his grandmother’s house, the gossips among women, the “frequent prayer meetings, and great nocturnal feasts.” He would also regal with stories of playing outside with cousins, of eating, the singing and laughter of people, of laying down with his grandmother as the wind stirred and frogs croaked downriver. In the end, the author heads for the Rainy Mountain to take vigil at his grandmother’s grave after a night of communing with the familiar place that is his home.
The narratives involved in the two essays use the idea of the talking voice[3] to narrate both author’s personal legends. In the process, the theme of creation becomes evident: for Woolf, the process of creation for an artist while for Momaday, the creation of identity. It is noteworthy that while the two essays involved a discussion on death, the aforementioned theme of creation gives the death some sterling quality: the death of the moth fulfills the unsettling flowering of the imagination, while the death of the grandmother is an event that compels the author to return to his Kiowa community and embrace his Kiowa self.
Woolf solely used her conversational speech in developing the theme in The Death of the Moth. In contrast, Momaday also uses local storytelling and formal scholastic narration besides the personal narration to create a three-voiced narrative of his construction of Kiowa identity. The first part of The Way to Rainy Mountain has the author narrating the Kiowas’ mythic history using the colloquial storyteller’s voice. He told of the time his grandmother was born, when “the Kiowas were living the last great moment of their history.” The Kiowas lived undisturbed as a tribe until they were overthrown by a military trackdown. Their legend has it that “they entered the world through a hollow log,” and the mythical voice of Momaday’s Kiowa ancestors handed down their centuries-old oral tradition, translated and transcribed until such time the myth is spoken by the narrator. Their legend boasts of “kinsmen in the night sky” in the embodiment of seven sisters who would comprise the sever stars of the Big Dipper when a tree brought them there to escape their bear-metamorphosed brother.
In the middle part of Momaday’s essay, the narrative voice shift to that of a local historian’s, when the narrator tells of the extinct rituals the Kiowas performed when his grandmother was still very young. The Kiowa Sun Dance involved decapitating a buffalo upon the medicine tree in the Washita River atop Rainy Mountain Creek. It was a dying tradition because buffalo were nowhere to be found, and the demise of which was accelerated by the dispersing tactic of Fort Sill soldiers. The Kiowas would remember July 20, 1890 as the day their faith was killed at the enormous bend of the Washita River.
While Woolf has one dominant existential voice narrating in her essay, Momaday remarkably recreated a journey in a triple narrative style: the colloquial, the formal and the poetic.[4] The interoral narrative[5] by Momaday develops his intensifying Kiowa identity consciousness because of the mythic and historical bind that connects his present-day narration of memories and self-construction. The idea of traveling in his essay manifests the important narrative flow of his personal legend.
Woolf’s existential narration reveals her deeper self recognized more in her essays such as "In Search of a Room of One’s Own." She seems to tell that the moth has the fervent desire to live, only to meet the ultimatum of death. She saw it flying helplessly until its inevitable life sacrifice. This, Woolf seems, is a perception of life as futile and void, as only a reprieve of something inescapable to everything with life.[6] Even the images of the world outside the window—the plowed field, the black net-like birds gliding midair—spawn an uneasy feeling of gloom. The moth is seen as a creature pointlessly attempting to gain freedom it will never approximate, and decides that the moth is pathetic.
More than the existentialism that Woolf seems to regard her life with as the doom of being secluded by life and her impending decline as a writer would overrun her, the narrative in The Death of the Moth seems to comment on the masculine oppression prevailing in her time and even before which renders the struggles of women—the “moths,” so to speak—stunted. The symbol of the moth batling against death is likened to the feminist movement wherein Woolf is one of the earliest icons. The women attempt to protest the formidable glasswall set by masculine authority. Even as they are victimized by patriarchy through slim opportunities at proving their intellectual capacities, the women try to fly to liberate themselves. There are setbacks as may be symbolized by the failure to spread their wings (their might), by the slow, awkward movement brought about by macho bondage, by the seemingly senseless clawing in the air to be able to right themselves from landing on their spine, but all these become nothing when one realizes the heightened degree of determination to strive, even to face death in full dignity.
Meanwhile, the multigeneric narrative voice in The Way to Rainy Mountain sounds just as pure and determined in its creation of the identity. It may be that the Kiowas’ golden time has faded away with the assault of a repressive state apparatus that is the military, but the Kiowas’ preservation of their sanctuary has hardly contaminated the lives of its descendants that include the author. Momaday’s ability to sustain the Kiowa in him and the construction of his Kiowa identity by virtue of his evocation of personal myth, history and experience may also qualify as a people’s struggle to keep its culture. Outside forces may be too cruel to infiltrate the Kiowas with modernity, marginality and other forms of colonization, but their postcolonial tradition lets them survive with nobility. To the present days, Momaday continues the journey of his people’s striving to remain a legendary Kiowa by being a Kiowa himself.
Both The Death of the Moth and The Way to Rainy Mountain were able to show parallelisms of cycle of life and death and evidence of constant struggles but, most importantly, both present the thematic process of creation. The moth’s death is to the artist’s crystallized imagination what his grandmother’s demise is to Momaday’s journey to identity-construction.Through Momaday’s, Woolf’s essay has shown how an idea comes alive in an ironic twist of life sacrifice.

[1] In Critical Essays on Virginia Woolf, p. 209
[2] In http://weblog.burningbird.net/archives/2003/03/28/death-of-a-moth/
[3] In The Cambridge Companion to Virginia Woolf, p. 91
[4] In Notes on Contemporary Literature, p. 6
[5] In Oral Narrative Traditions, p. 272
[6] In http://www.h2os.org/writing/living_to_die_or_dying_to_live

tell god's people

The signs of the times have spoken: the end is getting near. The predicaments are pulling down the Philippines in a quicksand of desperation. All the aspects of Philippine life are mired in grave issues in which we are all trapped.
Our political situation gets uglier each passing day. We have yet to solve the controversial cheating allegations of the previous national election, but here comes another election out to prove how personal interests are more valued over party loyalty, much less national recovery. Candidates previously identified with warring factions now sleep with the enemy. It takes no leap of the imagination to point out that instead of advancing political unity, they are all but advancing their own naked selfish motives to acquire power and wealth first by using each other, and ultimately by using their position to engage in graft and corruption.
Meanwhile, our economic situation paints an ironic picture: the government boasts of a stable economy, but millions of Filipinos comprising the masses are getting poorer and, therefore, hungrier. Some families claimed reducing their two meals a day into just one, sometimes, rather frustratingly, none at all. The rich are getting richer with their capitalistic and commercialistic tendencies, and their need to stabilize financially gets the better of their social conscience, so out they make more money at the expense of their laborers who barely live decently with their pittance of a salary.
Our social situation remains a series of scenes straight from a bad dream: a burgeoning population that can barely sustain itself with even the most basic needs of food, shelter, clothing and medication, a general crime rate that only holds on to a miracle to decrease, and a public perception that is everything but hopeful. With people growing more frustrated with the ultimate arrival of social justice that shall wipe out class, gender, age, educational and religious discrimination, the society will soon throw itself into chaos.
Our cultural situation is terribly endangered, with our heritage slowly being scrapped to give way to neocolonialist policies. We frown over local delicacies and beg for McDonald’s; we rip off American television shows and Hollywood films and feed them to the public that looked down on “inferior” local productions; we send our people away on a labor exile without so much as a flinch as to who will be left teaching our ignorant children, curing our sick people, building our national infrastructure.
Finally, our religious situation is at risk of pulling the country apart, for the Christians and the Muslims remain indifferent to one another despite the efforts of mutual understanding. The Christian community is itself demonized, with confessed members either backsliding or converting to New Age phenomena. The lure of material things, from money to sensual pleasures to social influence, makes us forget our spiritual priorities, and soon our faith in God will be irreparably damaged.
These, my fellowmen, construct the face of our current hell on earth. Long before we fall into the fiery depths of boiling sulfur and raging mud, we experience all of these right here, right now. General distraction traps us all in these problems, and we know what we lack but are too distracted to desire change. Wake up, my brethren; it’s not too late. Our return to oneness with God is all that’s begged by these helpless situations. God’s Holy words have emphasized it: that prioritizing our spirituality will produce a domino effect of goodness in our lives. It’s about time to let God reign in our midst, for what tribulations shall we find ourselves in when God’s on our side?