A one-sided picture

Manila -- The Real Thing
The Cutting Edge
SBS Television Tuesday August 23, 8.30pm (8pm South Australia)
Previewed by Peter Boyle

One of my first impressions as a recent visitor to Manila was how dim most of the lighting was. Street lights (where they existed) served to illuminate little more than the nearest cloud of dust, windows glowed a pale yellow and hopeful street vendors plied their wares by flickering candlelight. But on top of the city's tallest buildings beamed the brilliant neon calling cards of the multinational corporations: Mitsubishi, Del Monte and, of course, Coca Cola.

Manila -- The Real Thing is a BBC production about the advertising industry -- how it cynically exploits our frustrations and makes us spend what we have, often on what we don't need. The main points it makes apply to the advertising industry worldwide, but by setting the film in Manila, film maker Joe Burton can easily illustrate the cruel and cynical games the advertisers play with their audiences because the contradiction between the purchasing power of the majority and the consumer fantasies sold is so great.

This contradiction is great enough to suggest that the advertising may have transcended its original purpose of selling products and become the selling and manufacturing of dreams. But we are soon reminded of the advertisers bottom line as we see a child scavenger blow a day's earnings on a computer game and a cynical advertising executive announce that MacDonalds now targets the “CD section of the population” (CD = “culturally deprived”, a sociological pseudonym for poor). Some 60% of Marlborough cigarettes are sold by road vendors a stick at the time.

This film takes on an interesting topic but goes on for too long and paints a very one-sided picture of Manila's urban poor, as victims of the so-called information age. There is no hint of their formidable militancy.

This article was posted on the Green Left Weekly Home Page.
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