Expecto Patronum: to the Dementors who want to stop the Magical Mystery Tour

posted by Sharlyne Ang on August 20th, 2008 under Commentaries, Events, Random Thoughts, gigs

Raymund Marasigan just emailed the Cambio Mailing List this message:

dear wizards and witches

there is some disturbing news at the ministry of magic. the dementors
are doing everything they can to stop the show.

be safe

aldus dumbledore

Dare not to stop the show. It’s the law that has a flaw, Phillip Morris was able to seep into the loophole.

Now the question would be: Would you say that the fans who want this show to push through are “unintelligent” just because they don’t f*cking care whoever sponsors or ‘organizes’ the show?

I remember when I was in college, my thesis was about fandom. I wanted to do a different kind of study and portray fans as ‘intelligent’ beings in this world as opposed to the common notion of fans being the “commoners”, ” unproductive” ( meaning all they do is stalk with their idols) and justify that their idols actions are always correct.

The Frankfurt School theorists ( rooted from the believers of Karl Marx’s theories) would insist that fans are products of mass culture. As for them, mass culture is bad, monstrous and only makes people fantasize about the impossible and ‘alienates’ people from the reality of life. Mass Culture as for them operates with different apparatuses that would control the recipients of mass culture ( i.e. the fans). In this sense, we are led to have the common notion of the fan to be just mere passive audiences. If you will try to analyze it, it is somewhat a one-way relationship when fans just get pleasure from their idols and nothing can be no intellectual or cultural production can be produced from their idols. ( Try thinking about your biology in high school, it’s a symbiotic relationship called commensalism wherein only one benefits while the other doesn’t benefit at all). This kind of notion is pathological since they are the kinds of fans that media shows us.

I beg to disagree that I am like that. I am not that kind of fan. I want the show to happen.

Fans have the power to resist within their domain. Whoever the sponsor of the event is, fans will still support the show. Fans have the capability to resist whatever the motive of the sponsor is. If Phillip Morris is indeed the real sponsor ( which was by the way already confirmed), fans can still attend the event and not accept whatever Phillip Morris advocates. It’s just simple logic, it’s non-sequitur! It does not follow that if a person attends this event then people will advocate smoking. Wow, isn’t that illogical?! By the way, people have individual brains and can decide for themselves. The problem is, we are always concerned about the structural and always neglect agency ( or the individual). People are focused only on the economic structure being the big bad wolf when in fact there are other structures where we can work on. Focus on the ‘is’, capitalism or consumerism IS already here ever since and what we can do right now is to work WITHIN capitalism. Now, don’t mistake me as an elitist, I am just being pragmatic.

I understand other people’s orientation that personal is political. I accept that. But that is not always the case.

I am a fan, a logical fan.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 at 4:56 pm and is filed under Commentaries, Events, Random Thoughts, gigs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Expecto Patronum: to the Dementors who want to stop the Magical Mystery Tour”

  1. etoyang said on August 22nd, 2008, 2:53 pm

    very well said. I hope that all the fans would think like you. I hope they could involve themselves in this situation. And not just wait around the corner for whatever may happen.

    Any suggestion on how the fans could waive the decision of the parties involved?

  2. rockerfem said on August 23rd, 2008, 12:30 pm

    @etoyang,
    hmm that’s a good question. In the first place, the DOH is just an advisory body not a governing body as to whether they would issue a permit or not ( it’s the city where the event will be held right?). From what I know, the DOH’s job is to inform Filipinos of what is happening in the Health Sector and do projects that would somehow alleviate some health issues. Yes, they can advise that smoking is detrimental to one’s health however they should not decide whether or not the event will push through since first and foremost this event is not public. This is exclusive for people who will be signing up for a certain website ( which until now have not yet been confirmed as to what website it is). PM was able to get away with the loopholes in the current law that we have so they did not break any rule. If the concert was cancelled due to the reasons that ‘it’s detrimental for the health’ then, it would be irrational since first and foremost PM followed the existing rules. Now it’s not their fault if the law has loopholes on it. That is why we have rules so that we can be somehow ‘organized’. If irrationality and societal impulses will rule over this matter then why do we have the rules for? This would be needs to be handled objectively.

    Now the issue here is if Phillip Morris will let the ‘invitees’ bring 20 empty packs of Phillip Morris products. That is a big problem since number 1, it’s a waste of money and number 2 it’s abusing the Eheads fans and making them into direct consumers of the product ( especially for the non-smokers). I just hope Phillip Morris won’t do that to the Eheads fans. However, if PM would ask us to do that then we just need to be resourceful. Duhh, we don’t need to buy. Lots of people smoke. Ask for the empty packs from them. Or you can probably ask from the ‘takatak boys’ or cigarette vendors in the streets. That is how we can somehow work within consumerism and capitalism.

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