Drama in real life

SHAKESPEARE said it first: All the world’s a stage in which we are merely players. These days, however, the teleserye craze has influenced our view of life so much that, in some instances, real events play out or are perceived as “reality TV’s” versions of soap operas!

Take news clips of crimes, accidents and disasters: When eyewitnesses are interviewed at the scene of the incidents, some of them talk like characters in hokey drama shows, even resorting to “quotes”—“Sabi ko sa kanya, huwag tumawid, delikado. Sabi n’ya, nagmamadali siya, baka ma-late sa trabaho. Sabi ko, mag-ingat siya. Sabi niya, sila ang mag-ingat sa akin—ayun! Nasagasaan!”

‘Colorful’ lines

Sometimes, we even feel that the people being interviewed have been given interesting or “colorful” lines to say, especially those women who go to police precincts to hysterically accuse their husbands or live-in partners of all sorts of sins of commission or omission—“Hayup ka! Ang dapat sa iyo, mabulok sa bilangguan, para pagsisihan mo ang ginawa mo sa akin, hayup ka, ang pangit mo, batugan, palamunin, tapos mambababae ka pa habang kami ng mga anak mo ay nagdidildil ng asin? —Hoy, mahiya ka naman sa mukha mo!” (etc.)

Just last month, “drama in real life (on TV)” took a really unexpected turn on Willie Revillame’s show, when he was bantering with one of the production’s floor directors, named Arlene. Willie teasingly revealed that she had told him she was getting married to a veterinarian based abroad. Full of warmth and good cheer, he asked her to tell him more about her fiance and their impending marital union. Then, she floored him—and the show’s many viewers—with her response: The wedding wouldn’t push through, because her fiance had just been involved in a car accident in Malaysia—and was now in a coma.

The mood in the TV studio changed completely—as Willie and everybody else realized that, in an instant, the blithe and sparkling world of entertainment had been “rudely interrupted” by drama in real life.

Suddenly, and most tellingly, the parameters of the shared experience had changed, and everyone was focused, not on having the usual, breezy, shallow good time, but on sharing Arlene’s shock and pain.

Our final instance of real life intruding on TV “entertainment” is the similarly recent video clip of the US TV program host who was breezily interviewing a couple of firemen with their rescue dogs, when one of the “cute” pooches—bit her in the face! Once again, show biz was completely upstaged and turned on its ear by reality, with not just sad but potentially tragic consequences.

Since we used to host some TV shows (and conducted our share of interviews featuring animals and their handlers), we felt deeply for the hapless host—and hope and pray that other TV people will henceforth be on their guard and protect themselves from such unexpected and harsh intrusions of real reality!