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By Prof. Johven Velasco
SUMMER is usually awards season
and once again the frantic search for “the best of the year that
was in movies” unravels. Actually, the award-giving has started as
early as two months ago with the Young Critics Circle, the Golden
Screen Awards of the Entertainment Press Society, the Star Awards of
the Philippine Movie Press Club and the Gawad Tanglaw, an
academe-based body, handing out their trophies. The Famas, Gawad
Urian and the industry’s own Luna Awards are slated to follow suit
shortly before or after the summer ends.
Ironically, they—and we—never
agree on what and who is the best. Yet, award-giving bodies exist
and even mushrooms, each coming up with their thrusts and their
criteria in choosing the best. There are at least two entertainment
press groups (mostly from the tabloid press), two critics’
organizations, and two academe-based groups.
At press time, the Film Academy
of the Philippines’ Luna Awards has no spin-off or splinter group
yet and the Famas can claim singular honor as the longest existing
but not necessarily the most credible nor prestigious award-giving
body. ( Although last year, a break-away group from the Famas
started to revive the Maria Clara awards. – Ed) And there is also
the Catholic Mass Media Awards, with marked moral values and
standards. Independent/digital filmmakers have their own set of
festivals and recognition, too.
They all want their choices
proclaimed as “the best.” Still, at times even within a group,
members cannot agree and so they come up with double winners,
because no one is willing to give way to the choice of others and
hence they cannot reach a consensus.
The fact is, all of us may have
forgotten the wisdom in the old adage that says that, “beauty is
in the eyes of the beholder.” And film award-giving bodies are kin
and kindred with beauty-contest organizers at all levels: local,
national and international.
They are a dime dozen and they
all have their respective advocacies, at best, or worse, their own
biases; worst, it is perceived that some of them can also be
influenced or compromised by pressure groups, either with money or
in kind. In addition, their choices are never largely or popularly
accepted. There are always disgruntled and griping spectators
somewhere. Ask the Metro Manila Film Festival organizers.
Truth is “the best” is not
chosen by any definitive scientific measure or standard. In the case
of film awards, making a choice is largely subjective and no single
aesthetic sense or framework prevails; and repeat, it is influenced.
Is this necessarily bad? Not so,
as long as no group claims to be the “most authoritative,”
“the most credible and prestigious,” “the best.” Or that we
are all aware of their respective biases. For frankly, each one is
out to give awards self-servingly to “canonize” its own
aesthetic sense, its own taste. Unfortunately or fortunately, taste
cannot be legislated or regulated, it is acquired and nurtured in
the context of one’s life, existence and environment. As no two
persons are exactly alike, they cannot always have the same taste
and preferences. Initially they may find commonalities but in time
they will differ and disagree.
Time was when film awards were
given to recognize the best efforts and encourage artists and
craftspeople to give out their utmost. Now, awards only foster
discord and animosity among nominees and their camps and leagues of
followers. Ironically, they even discourage some of the truly
talented who continue to lose to mediocre winners. When an
award-giving body singles out something or someone as “the
best,” it effectively marginalizes the rest, which may be
“equally best” or even “more so,” in the eyes of others.
So what right has any single
group to impose its own taste through awards that proclaim “the
best”? Not especially in postmodern times where a plurality of
voices are heard and noted and the primacy of any single artistic
canon is questioned. Or where film is polysemic or has no single
meaning or interpretation and can therefore be appreciated in
various levels and contexts. Perhaps it is enough that five or so
(maybe a little less or a little more as the case may be) are named
as “the best” for the year and the final choice is left to the
individual viewer.
Personally, the occasional ties
are welcome and in the right direction. That way, a lesser number is
marginalized by such proclamation. Why single out any one of them as
the best, when noteworthy talents abound among Filipino film
artists? And we never nor will ever agree on who and what the best
is, anyway. The proliferation of award-giving bodies is also
welcome, to some extent. This underscores the fact that different
groups have different tastes, critical frameworks, and standards;
hence, their choices vary. So why can’t we have our own, our
personal “bests”?
How then do we regard awards that
look for the best?
Treat them like we do most
industry or media events. They effectively drum up interest in the
industry. That will be good for a moribund enterprise. For most of
us ordinary mortals, let us trust our own aesthetic
sense—Western-influenced, classroom-bred, or homegrown and
nurtured. Anyway, unless one is a critic in a professional journal
or publication, an academic discussing lessons in a classroom, or a
member of the jury in an award-giving body, she/he is not obliged to
articulate nor explain his/her own aesthetic sense and standards.
In a sense, lay people have a
better stance. There is less danger for one to impose his/her own
taste on others, wittingly or unwittingly that is.
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