Sealed with a Royal Kiss

Royal wedding. Royal kiss. Harry and Kate. These are words, phrases, and people that will be the subject of many discussions after the world witnessed Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding last April 29.

There will be extensive news and blog coverages to discuss the significance of the wedding.  Yet many will surely question the hype, media's role, the cost of the wedding, the pageantry of the ceremony, the parade of high profile fashion labels, and its many, many embarrassing insignificance. Update: Will + Kate = sixth-biggest Web event ever

The media's role here will obviously be an easy target.  By far there are few questions that are worth pondering upon. Here is one: how did the media played its role in its coverage and hyping of the British wedding?

Are Filipinos really talking about the Royal Wedding prior to advertisements of each television media network's promotional plugging?  Or is it the buzz generated by the massive promotion of the event that quickly piqued people's curiosity?

Using this as a frame, it has always been said that local media are not pressured to come up with excellent programming.  I have a theory that people from poorer countries are looking for fairy-tale-fantasies to forget abject poverty even for a very short period of time.

As a result, the media never forget that this could be their secret formula to winning more revenues. Little education too helps in fortifying the media's money-making machine because the public becomes less inquisitive and critical of the output they consume.  So the media has no fear in producing low quality output because as experience would tell its own tale: poor people seems to be resigned for bigger change, even higher expectations.  Hope is nil.

With lower expectations, improving for quality is no longer required.  To repeat the obvious, some television stations are profit-making establishments whose goals include hiring big stars, reducing production expenses and increasing profit.  By producing mediocre programming, lower production cost is necessary, and with aggressive marketing push, jackpot will be all around - higher income as a result of higher advertising revenues and lower production expenses.

This tells us a lot about why there is also the proliferation of game shows today in the country featuring none other than our poor fellowmen.

Because when contestants are poor, sad and desperate stories will pour.  What follows after drama is exploitation and debasement, which are ingredients for a potential blockbuster. Meet one recent example, the controversy involving Willing Willie host Willie Revillame's imbroglio. The host was recently under fire for the alleged abuse and exploitation of a six-year-old kid in a game show who was coerced to dance like a macho dancer in prime time television.

This brings us back to the pageantry of the royal wedding which is of course not any less different with the Willing Willie story for both exposed the Filipino psyche. Like the game show which is cheaper to produce, buying the rights for a modern fairy tale story is cheaper than producing own's very own telenovela.

In addition, the royal wedding and the Willing Willie controversy share some similarity because both highlighted our divided world: the rich and the poor, the privileged and the underprivileged.  We are also made aware about the media's role in shaping our perception of luck, fantasy, illusion, and entertainment.

What these two issues gave us are scenarios to reflect on. Is it really worth the talk? Because for instance, the only one benefiting here is London, which needs an image booster as future host of the 2012 Olympics.

What's funny though is what escaped our attention.  As most people were caught in the dizzying frenzy of the royal wedding, a lot bigger event was never given attention in our land: one which U.S. President Barack Obama was more interested at attending. The United States unveiled the final launch of the space shuttle Endeavour at the Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Another fantasy? Yes, perhaps, that American dream of becoming an astronaut and a space man.

But on a deeper level, it gives us reason to aspire to be excellent and to restart our once upon a time attempt at targeting the moon with the Filipino invention, the Moon buggy.