Saturday, March 15, 2008

Dumb and Dumber

While I often find eccentric little differences between Filipinos and others to blog about, today I'll note a similarity, albeit with a Filipino twist!

Since Sunday, March 9, all the Filipino communities around the globe have been abuzz over one news story. If you are Filipino, you already know what I'm going to be covering in this entry. Even Filipinos who have been living under moss-covered rocks know of this news. It is, after all, the Philippine national pastime. Much like baseball in the United States, soccer in Brazil or the Netherlands, rugby in Australia, hockey in Canada, and sumo in Japan is the beauty pageant to the Philippines!

If you aren't Filipino, you weren't expecting that, were you?!

Beauty pageants seem to be held everywhere across the Philippine archipelago. Schools, clubs, companies, organizations, barangays, cities, towns, and provinces (and regions within) all have their own beauty pageants. You name it, there's probably a Ms. Something or Other for it! And sometimes there's a Mr. Something or Other to go along with her.

But this isn't about beauty pageants.

Americans, who pretty much pushed pageants like Ms. America, Ms. World, and Ms. Universe to the height of popularity, have pretty much said a collective "who cares?" to them in the past couple decades. We're more concerned with who Britney Spears married this week, whether she was wearing panties when she did it, and when we can expect her to do something else to top Michael Jackson in making a spectacle of herself.

And that is where we come to the great similarity I teased you with at the top of this!

Spectacles.

Britney Spears is to Americans what Miss World Philippines 2008, Janina San Miguel is to the Philippines (this week).

She made news by royally flubbing her answer in the Q&A portion of the pageant. While Filipinos view it as a critique of her English grammar and pronunciation skills, I view it entirely differently.

The girl was a nervous wreck (although she exhibited great poise) and boy, will watching her make you laugh!

Just within a week, over 1.5 million people have viewed this clip on You Tube! Janina said she was so nervous she only heard a few words of the question, so really had no idea what she was saying.

If, mass-communication major (yeah, go figure) Janina seemed a little Gracie Allen-ish to you, don't be fooled. Gracie had a clearly-reasoned, well thought-out rationale for everything she did, as she would explain to husband George Burns in their weekly radio and television programs. She was never nervous.

Though she may be thought of as one of the original dumb blonds, and many may also want to put Janina into that category (maybe she really is blond?), here comes past American Idol contestant, Kelly Pickler, to prove they really do exist. And boy, do we love watching her make a spectacle of herself! Over 5 million people have watched this on You Tube:

So much for the American education system, huh? So sad it's funny! Saddest part is, she probably knows more about world geography than Bush. Actually, I think she's one of his speech writers.

Not to be outdone, Europeans have their own little songbird starlet on You Tube making a spectacle of herself here:

Now there's a problem speaking English!!

See?

The whole world can unite around one thing: we love to watch people make spectacles of themselves, especially on nationwide television! And if it isn't caught on TV, we'll put it up on You Tube so they may become a spectacle worldwide.

I've done my part to help. Hope you laughed as hard as I did!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

i was actually expecting you would include the dj montano thing hehehehe.