RINGING the curtain down on its second season last December, Pinoy Big Brother (PBB) Celebrity Edition seemed to have improved the reality-TV franchise, but only on the surface. Reality TV essentially remains problematic.
The most apparent change was the airing period. Instead of prime- and late-night viewings in the previous edition, PBB Celebrity Edition 2 was shown twice on ABS-CBN daily, one in the afternoon (Pinoy Big Brother Über, hosted by Bianca Gonzales) and the other in the evening (the main prime-time edition, hosted by Toni Gonzaga). It also had a live feed on Studio 23.
Another innovation was the “two-in one housemate,” represented by the pairs of Marylaine Viernes and Jen Da Silva, and Baron and Donald Geisler III. The improvement added a new dimension to the game’s voting mechanics since each pair would share the same vote.
Other changes iincluded the doubling of the price money, the extension of the housemate’s stay from 56 to 80 days, the appointment of a household head, and the season-long task of the housemates–taking care of a sow, Peggy.
A highlight of the show was the addition of the reluctant guest housemates–Mariel Rodriguez, Toni Gonzaga, and Bianca Gonzales — who were trapped in the house by “Big Brother” while hosting the show.
Kris Aquino and Angel Locsin also entered Kuya’s house as houseguests to perform special tasks. Aquino was assigned to cook Carbonara for the other housemates, while Locsin acted as cupid to fix the relationship of Ruben and his wife.
But their brief visits along with those by other guests — American rhythm and blues recording star Akon, dinosaur mascot Barney, and the stars of the ABS-CBN’s new show, “Kung Fu Kids” — were more of promotional gimmicks rather than attempts to improve the show.
Compared to the previous season, which featured diverse and interesting personalities, this year’s batch was composed by an almost homogeneous good-looking bunch of television personalities, such as Megan Young, Maria “Yayo” Aguila, Baron Geisler, Silva, Viernes, and Ethel Gabina (the sexy comedian “Ethel Booba”), models such as William Devaughn, Victor Basa, and Jonathan Avila, and beauty queens such as Riza Santos and Zephora Mayon.
Also included as housemates were sportsmen Donald Geisler III and Gabriella Merced, as well as a musician, Marco Fundales.
Ruben Gonzaga, who emerged winner, seems the Pinoy Everyman although he is a television personality from Davao, where he is an entertainer of the local ABS-CBN station.
While the previous edition focused almost on the love affairs of the housemates, the new edition seemed to avoid to focus on superficial relationships and intead trained the spotlight on personality development, giving the housemates challenges in order to reveal and mold their character.
Voyeuristic
Perhaps avoiding another censorship rift with the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB), PBB Celebrity Edition 2 tried to play it safe.
But not so safe, as it turned out. During AIDS Awareness Day, the show was sponsored by a condom brand and featured a quiz game in which the housemates were made to divulge their sexual experiences. By accepting a condom advertisement, the show displayed a bias for “safe sex” which relegates sexual responsibility to just plain prevention of unwanted pregnancy and of contracting sexually transmitted diseases. Filipino Catholics know deep in their minds and hearts that sexual morality goes much, much deeper than simmply having protected sex.
Moreover, by conducting a sex quizz, PBB again betrayed the voyeuristic tendency of reality TV shows, their bias for the titillating and largely private–and unsavory–aspects of human behavior.
A sex quizz was likewise hardly proper for a show that was shown on prime time.
Also quite improper were the displays of Baron Geislers’s drunken behavior and Ethel Gabina’s suicidal tendencies (she played with a razor blade and seemed to have threatened to cut herself after “Kuya” refused to let her out of the house).
So by and large, the PCC Celebrity Edition retained its original concept, forcing characters to live in a doll-house and making audiences play with the housemates’ fate via text vote.
While the show prided itself as the “teledrama ng totoong buhay,” Pinoy Big Brother Celebrity Edition 2 was nothing more than gutter television. If it mirrored reality, it was more like reality from the gutter. Samuel Raphael P. Medenilla
