It's such a peculiar thing, turning legal for the second time, that is. At 18, you reach the age of consent and yet the braces that support you don't completely weather off. At 18, you're allowed to do certain things, but not everything. About three years later, you turn 21 and you turn legal for the second time. Only now are you actually legal-legal to do almost anything (provided that it's within the law). You may now go to bars. And for other people, at this age you might also be done with college and the real-real world, as they say, becomes your oyster. Unless you're of Asian descent and you don't ever really-really breakfree from your parents thrusts until you have your own family (and maybe not even then). But turning 21 in 2020 is the most peculiar of them all. In the peculiar world-state of COVID-19, being 21 (under General Community Quarantine in the Philippines) meant that unlike your younger peers, you are allowed to go out. Of course, going out in the "new normal" isn't the same-same. Nonetheless it's a peculiar addition to the things you get to be allowed to do after turning legal for the second time. At any case, reaching milestone ages such as 16, 18, 21, 50, etcetera suggest an air of mysticism about them. Whether you're supposed to feel accomplished or different or perhaps get washed over by the utter feeling of change as if magic dust were sprinkled all around you the second you turn these certain ages— I don't know. I doubt anyone would even be able to give you a straight answer when you ask them why they celebrate such dates. "It's tradition," some might say but tradition of who? Tradition made by who and for whom? Nihilistically, they're just just arbitrary dates, a single dot of time amongst the vastness of a seemingly infinite calendar that spans years. As for me, I certainly don't feel any different than I did almost 2 months ago when this whole shitstorm forced us inside our homes. Some people muse that time is irrelevant. Age is arbitrary. Laws are man-made. Milestones are just musings that make up for the truth that perhaps life is truly meaningless, and that purpose is the in-denial pursuit of the search for such non-existent meaning. If fiction was modeled after reality then I'd like to believe that these past few months spent in global lockdown, and however more months we'd have to continue in the same state, is nothing more than just a pocket of time separated from the greater scheme of reality. That these few months were as detached to the common realm as we are to each other, currently separated by an invisible enemy. I'd like to believe that once we get out of this and out our houses, literally— life could just unpause from the time it stopped from on March 9, 2020. It's a musing spoken from a place of privilege, I'm aware. It's an escapist stream of thoughts that ignore the cruel realities of real lives lost. That's why fiction is fiction and reality is reality. But after everything I said... ...Maybe I'm just bitter. Turning 21 was supposed to be fun. Turning 21 was supposed to be celebrated OUTSIDE, drinking, chatting and having fun with the type of people that nihilists hate— the people in your life that make you believe without a shadow of doubt that life, after all, is not meaningless. COVID-19 (that bitch) cleared out the dates in my calendar and made it look arbitrary when it once looked colourful, pockmarked by birthdays of friends, movie dates, coffee dates, and even those big, red, angry marks for dates of deadlines and tests that you wished just never came. Well we did get our wish, didn't we? Somehow. Being 21 in 2020 could possibly mean that you can go outside, what a peculiar permission to be granted by the law but then again, what a peculiar state the world is currently in; what a peculiar way to turn legal for the second time. For as long as I'm concerned, I'll turn 21 when I can finally, properly celebrate turning 21.
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In light of the recent happening at the Philippine counterpart of the popular, multi-country talent Got Talent franchise, Pilipinas Got Talent, I found myself asking: Were Robin Padilla's action justified? Or were they necessary, at least? And to top it all off, this incident hit very close to home as, I, myself, am an expatriate at a foreign country, the UAE, and have been so for quite a lengthy amount of time. However, until now, I am not capable of holding a conversation in Arabic. Therefore, have I neglected my social responsibility to the language? Or can my situational reasoning make up for its lack thereof? Unfortunately, the video above does not have English subtitles available so for my non-Filipino readers (and for those who didn't even bother to watch the whole thing), here's a quick summary of what happened. Jiwan Kim auditioned as a magician at Pilipinas Got Talent. During the initial interview, we find out that Jiwan has been living as an expat in the Philippines for 10 years; and, he has a Filipina girlfriend. That's all well and good until he asks Judge Robin Padilla to be the participant in his magic trick attempt. At first, Robin refuses for he insists that Jiwan should speak Tagalog as he is, afterall, in Pilipinas Got Talent. Jiwan eventually gets to perform the magic trick, however, with the help of Judge Angel Locsin who translates his words to Tagalog so that he can use them to speak to Robin. After the performance and before the Yes/No voting started, Robin expressed his apologies to how harsh he might've sounded, saying that it was just a disciplining act 'from father to son'. He even goes on to praise Jiwan for being able to perform under pressure. And with that, Jiwan was accepted onto the next round after a Yes from 3 out of 4 judges. And no, that no did not come from Robin, but from Judge Freddie M. Garcia (commonly referred to as simply Judge FMG). As expected, the incident blew up online and many criticised Robin for being "racist and rude". The audition video (posted above) is also now trending on Youtube. WHEW! That was a lot, but here's more. Now that I've introduced to you the situation, I want to dissect the incident further to determine whether the reactions presented in this event are rightfully justified or simply unnecessary. Point #1: Language Being the nerdy kid that I am, you bet that I have a few opinions about how the language used in the exchange affected the whole incident. And no, I'm not talking about the use of Filipino vs. English but rather the use of tone and loaded language, etc. Let's get technical:
point#2: Live humiliation The main reason people had for the online backlash on Judge Robin Padilla was that his 'fatherly scolding' humiliated Jiwan Kim in front of a packed audience, as well as television viewers at home. Personally, I thought it was unnecessary. That's that. I've found a few people online who agree with me on this point and they commented that such a thing could have just been done backstage. Why did it have to be broadcast to everyone? It's not like he committed a crime or any major act of delinquency. In fact, for anyone who's unlike me and reads way too much into someone else's words, he'd have done nothing wrong at all. So, was it necessary for him to be humiliated live? . . . Perhaps, yes. While writing this post, I opened up the topic with a friend of mine, explained to her what had happened, and shared with her these, my opinions on the topic. And, she was actually the one who told me the answer to the question above. She said, "I'm assuming that partially, he (Robin) would make it such a big deal for more publicity, everyone loves a little heat and drama." Ahhh yes, whilst getting triggered over this whole event, I forgot that PGT isn't live and all the auditions that occur aren't shown on TV. Let's say that Judge Robin's reaction had been genuine and not, perhaps, scripted, the production company could have just edited the scene out, in order to avoid more "drama" with more people reacting on the situation. But no, Jiwan's full audition had been shown both on TV and uploaded online on PGT's official YouTube account. In retrospect, are we, the netizens, the ones getting played here? the verdict Judge Robin Padilla's reaction had been justified to an extent but was unnecessary regardless. Check back to Point #1 and that's pretty much my main argument to justify Judge Robin's actions. And just a small point to add, it wouldn't have been extremely difficult for Jiwan to learn a few Tagalog phrases for his audition. His trick was simple enough to be spoken in Tagalog if he tried. Even without Robin's reaction, speaking broken Tagalog could've earned him a few brownie points to impress the judges and the audience even more. However, at the end of the day, if I didn't nit-pick on Jiwan's language, I wouldn't have much to work with as to explaining how and why he had to endure such humiliation. I just think that the 'scolding could've been done differently, nicely. As petty a detail as Jiwan's question, "Robin, can I use you?" that's the only moment that which I thought was a direct cause of Robin's actions. . . . ... but hey, it's just a theory, a tv show theory!... and, cut!... |
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