Season for ‘risky’ topics, themes and tilts on the tube

DENNIS Trillo, left, and Tom Rodriguez star in “My Husband’s Lover” photo: Arnold Almacen

Don’t look now, but the current TV season is turning out to be much edgier than usual, with producers opting not to play it safe, as is their usual wont, but taking risks and tackling “controversial” topics and themes, to keep viewers agitated—and watching.

One of the early trend-setters was “My Husband’s Lover,” which risked ruffling some feathers by dramatizing the heretofore “hidden” life and issues of married gay men, as represented by lead actor Tom Rodriguez.

While the series bent over backwards to point out that its lead and supporting actors were “straight” men just playing “gay” roles, the series has been productively, persuasively controversial, eventually gaining more adherents than dissenters.

To keep potential critics at bay, the show has scrupulously avoided forthright kissing scenes involving male characters, thus abstracting and sanitizing its dramatic depiction to some extent, and its “compensatory” use of “symbolic” closeups of hands has become a major distraction—and caution.

Still, the series’ strong ratings cannot be pooh-poohed away, and other new TV initiatives appear to be riding on the same “edgy” bandwagon that MHL has helped set in motion.

For instance, TV5 is launching a new series, “Positive,” about HIV patients and their hitherto glossed-over travails and issues. And on Oct. 7, “It’s Showtime,” unveiled its latest tilt—“That’s My Tomboy.”

After many years of using male gays as “comic relief,” local TV is now giving lesbians their own showcase and, judging by public reaction to the buena mano telecast, it looks like it’s a potential winner.

Cannily hedging its bets, the tilt does not feature so-called “bull dykes,” or huge, burly women trying to be more macho than even the toughest guys out there.

MARTIN Escudero plays an HIV-patient in “Positive.”

Instead, the new tilt’s first two contestants were both rather small, cute, fey and appealing tomboys who made some ladies in the studio audience giggle and shriek with delight. Yes, they were professed lesbians, but they were so cute that, not only did they appeal to some women, but they also did not threaten and turn off the guys in the audience.

To make the “selectively edgy” situation even more “acceptable” to the generally straight TV audience, one of the fey contestants even admitted that she wasn’t ruling out having babies in the future. That would probably require a romantic relationship with a guy, so the “softening” essence of that admission wasn’t lost on the audience.

The new tilt’s strong and unique appeal made it a “trending” event that should add to the noontime show’s popularity and cachet. On the other hand, on the new contest’s second day, the reaction was less avid, especially when a contestant didn’t sing as well as expected in the talent portion.

Thus far, the tilt’s main strength appears to be the opportunity it provides viewers to get to know a heretofore recondite aspect of the human psyche, which in past, less “open” times was clouded by stigma and controversy.

“THAT’s My Boy” Oct. 7 daily winners Rejoice Faraon, left, and Kim Claudine Andaya YouTube video grab

In time, we hope that the initial “thrilling novelty” of the new encounter will go beyond looks and exotic appeal, and help viewers gain more instructive insights into an alternative lifestyle and gender choice once frowned upon, and held up to question, and even scorn.

In the midst of this new openness, however, TV people should constantly remind themselves that impressionable children are watching, so they need to be helped to understand all these new and potentially confounding inputs with the right perspective.