Amusing Ourselves to Death with Hugot

I observe that commercial art in the country has become increasingly uniform (i.e., more homogeneous). The films, television shows, books, and music produced for the masses have increasingly been populated by love stories, which of course include hugot stories.

Half of the films at the 2020 Metro Manila Film Festival, for example, tackled romantic relationships. If you read a list of the country’s highest-grossing films of all time, you’ll see it’s populated with love stories too, the majority of them in the hugot variety. 

Sentimental romances and “love teams” don’t only populate the big screen, but television shows too. Some of the country’s most popular teleserye (soap operas) in recent years include Forevermore, On the Wings of Love, Be Careful with My Heart, and Pangako Sa ‘Yo (apologies to GMA fans, I only know ABS-CBN shows). While these shows certainly tackle other themes as well, they still revolve around the central romantic relationships featured in each show.

The Filipiniana sections of the country’s biggest bookstores are also saturated with love stories. They’re stacked with romantic Wattpad novels, while classics such as Lualhati Bautista’s “Dekada ‘70” or Ninotchka Rosca’s “State of War” are nowhere to be found (believe me, I tried). Appreciation for poetry in the country was practically non-existent too, but poetry became popular around 2014 when Lang Leav and Juan Miguel Severo each published poems about love, loss, and heartache.

And what do we hear on the radio these days? It’s often Ben&Ben, Moira Dela Torre, December Avenue, and Silent Sanctuary crooning songs about failed and unrequited love. There’s also a reason why Lauv became particularly big in the Philippines; the majority of his songs revolve around heartbreak. Hugot.

Because the arts are an indicator of what a culture is preoccupied with, then this bombardment of romance from the arts worries me. What does it mean when Filipinos are mainly preoccupied with love stories as we face constant economic and political challenges? 

Manalastas (2019) argued that “hugot, by all accounts, was never the point. It is merely the vehicle with which the point is brought across” (par. 34). I deeply question this now. It seems to me that in the arts, hugot is the end. Hugot is the point of a book or a movie or a song. It’s not just about catharsis anymore, but a vehicle to both entertain and profit from the masses.

Now, I completely understand why companies and artists constantly produce art about love–because those stories do indeed sell. But we have to be more responsible than that. Similar to Rivera (2019), I have no doubt that the constant bombardment of love stories has already skewed our recognition and support for artists; artists who don’t make romantic or comedic stories are already being left behind (box office numbers will show you that). And if we continue to homogenize the arts, then we also continue to homogenize thought, which is dangerous if we want to strengthen our critical thinking.

It’s like a cycle that never breaks. Our history and culture already predispose Filipinos to be a romantic bunch, so companies capitalize on that and now, we’re oversaturated with love stories. The fact that it’s so common to hear hugot in everyday conversations means that this obsession with love is deeply ingrained in Filipino consciousness already. And this obsession is further capitalized upon, is thus ingrained in us deeper, and on and on the cycle goes. Panaligan (2017) argues a similar point, “Big media industry has a hand in conditioning Filipinos to be absorbed with telenovelas and Filipino movies. They lure viewers in, and in effect people become fascinated with hugot lines” (par. 6).

I’m not saying we should stop producing art related to romantic love or hugot; what I argue is that we should increase access and support to artists who want to do something else. I understand how stories about love and laughter are a welcome escape from the difficulties of reality. But critical thinking is also more important now than ever. And if we diversify our arts, we diversify the things we think about and how we think about them too.