Trends of the week

#TruthForTheFallen44 remains elusive

MANILA, Philippines -The Senate inquiry on the Mamasapano clash, as expected, is theater. But unlike past theatrical presentations by the Senate, this one’s a lot more frustrating. We have senators hungry for blame, police and military officers dodging blame, cabinet secretaries deflecting blame from the President, a just-resigned PNP chief doing semantic gymnastics with the word “advice,” and tons of agendas crashing into each other in a Large Hadron Collider of BS. The hearings were so frustrating that Congress held its own off-Broadway production, which inspired the most moving speech of these hearings yet, courtesy of a visibly and audibly frustrated PNP-OIC Gen. Leonardo Espina, essentially telling the MILF to stop lying over his men’s graves. Meanwhile, a new video of what appears to be an SAF being shot at close range leaked on the Internet, which only stoked the already raging flames of anger and war-mongering seizing the nation. Theater will never be as powerful as reality.

Kanye wins the Grammys

Signs that the Grammys are on:

1. People are making fun of some pop star’s dress.

2. People are making fun of Pharell’s hat.

3. People are complaining about the current state of pop music.

4. Beyonce’s greatness is trending.

5. Kanye West’s craziness is trending.

The Grammys are no longer an annual awards show — it is now an annual Internet comedy roast. No one knows who’s nominated for anything coming in, barely anyone cares who wins or not (except Kanye West), and no one even remembers who won anything at any point in the history of this awards show (quick, without googling: who won album of the year in 2004? 2010? 2013?).

The Grammys have been distilled by the Internet into what it essentially is: a circus. And pop stars, knowing perfectly well how the Internet works, are showing up in these shows with crazier outfits and doing crazier performances every year because they’re consciously trying to one-up each other in the battle for who wins the Internet that week. That’s how we end up being mooned by a 56-year-old Madonna, seeing Pharrell perform last year’s most ubiquitous song as the lobby boy in Grand Budapest Hotel, and listening to Kanye’s opinions as if they matter. So Kanye wins, obviously.

Valentine’s Day pushes through despite widespread opposition

Statistically speaking, the notion that majority of people are really into Valentine’s Day is an impossibility. Think about it: there are single people and then there are people in relationships who consider Valentine’s Day a drag (mostly men and old). Those two demographics represent a large chunk of the population.

So why do we keep up this charade if only a minority of attached and romantic people (mostly women) are “observing” the holiday in earnest? Because these are the same people who make romance alive, as corny as that sounds. Every lonely and miserable person aspires to be like them and it is this aspiration that makes Valentine’s Day necessary, even if it makes them more miserable in the interim.

People can’t stop talking about ‘That Thing Called Tadhana’

The most watched movie this Valentine’s week — and perhaps will be the most remembered Valentine movie in the next few years — is an angst-ridden trek into the heights of bitterness and failure disguised as a love story.

That Thing Called Tadhana may lead to this Valentine’s Day turning into the most emo one in recent history (it could also lead to Baguio seeing one of its most lucrative tourist seasons in recent history), but it is, in a way, the perfect Valentine’s movie. It is made for the multitudes of broken hearts that have to endure yet another Valentine’s Day. It supplies the necessary hope and grand illusion that broken hearts are always a 72-hour meet-cute away from being healed. One More Chance, the major studio blockbuster to which this movie pays homage, was more realistic when it came to break-ups and rebounds, showing how those things take years to fully settle into anything resembling a resolution. But That Thing Called Tadhana, and all of us who saw the movie, will always have Baguio and Sagada. That’s all that really matters.

Spiderman returns to Marvel

After Sony Pictures’ unnecessary reboot of the Spiderman, the company has given the web-slinger back to Marvel Studios, thus opening up the possibility for another reboot, this time a lot more necessary but still a lot more grating. I know Andrew Garfield’s Amazing Spiderman character was produced by another studio, but can Marvel just slide him into the next Avengers movie like nothing happened? How are we going to explain to children born this decade that there are three Spidermen and that Gwen Stacy died for naught? More importantly, how are we going to sit through another reboot of a reboot?

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What are your top trends this week? Tweet us @PhilStarSUPREME!