Unusual, innovative TV contests

“POGAY” contestant Alcar John “AJ” Fullido with hosts Karylle (center) and Anne Curtis. VIDEOGRAB PHOTO

Interesting talent and personality tilts have become even more popular on noontime TV shows than they used to be, with current competitions favoring the unusual, innovative and controversial.

“It’s Showtime” started the ball bouncing with its “That’s My Tomboy” tilts, and it didn’t take long for “Eat Bulaga” to tweak and twit it with its own “That’s My Tambay.”

After “Tomboy,” “Showtime” continued to dare to be different with its current “Pogay” competition for young gays who look like hunks but proudly admit to their now no-longer-hidden sexuality.

For its part, “Eat Bulaga” has come up with the eye-opening “Foreignoy” or “Foreign Pinoy” showcase, in which good-looking guys from other countries try to speak in Filipino and perform local songs and dances.

This particular tilt is potentially significant, because it could teach “colonially-minded” Pinoys out there that our own culture and language, not “imported” pop culture, deserve our appreciation and support!

The tilt for foreigners has become so popular that it recently resulted in a spin-off, this time for lovely females from other countries who now live, study or work here. The key to both “foreign” showcases’ success is their contestants’ eagerness and gumption, and the fact that all of them, female and men alike, are so good-looking.

In a sense, therefore, the two tilts’ success is tempered by the fact that they consciously showcase and uphold “colonial” (foreign) standards of beauty even as they urge, by example, local viewers to value local over foreign!

Complicated issues

Well, nobody said that the “colonial” issues, still rife and redolent in these parts, are easy to make coherent sense of!

But, the most complicated issues by far are raised by the successive “Tomboy” and “Pogay” tilts. It’s instructive to note that most of the “Tomboy” tilt contestants tried their darnedest to pass themselves off as cute, boy-next-door young men. One finalist even sported a moustache and light beard to make his-her macho-hood doubly obvious!

It’s been quite disconcerting, therefore, to see the first “Pogay” contestants also trying to look like macho men (who just happen to be gay)! It’s as if the “Tomboys” and “Pogays” were using pretty much the same template in terms of “accepted” projection!

It’s understandable why they’re playing it so safe and standard, but this approach is not at all helpful, because the gender issues involved are certainly not as simple and cut-and-dried as that. In fact, they can be confoundingly complex, so the easy way out is not the way to go.

More productively in this regard, some recent “Pogay” telecasts have fielded a few contestants who have dared to not just project their macho-hood, but have tweaked their production numbers to wittily include their gay side, as in the case of a Bontoc dance in which the “brave warrior” ended up “swishing” like a fey maiden in all “her” glory!

Now, we certainly aren’t suggesting that all “Pogay” contestants end up saucily swishing, but a similar acknowledgment of their complex nature and essence should be encouraged. What do you think?