Manila, Philippines - Family isn’t a word. It’s a sentence,” so goes the tagline of the classic Wes Anderson flick, The Royal Tenenbaums, which I discovered, turned out to be a rather complex one for the The Smiths, a weekly reality show featuring the domestic lives of 1970’s rock god Pepe Smitih and three of his grown children, namely Queenie, 33; Sanya, 26; and Beebop, 20. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing after all, complexity makes for good TV.
Take for instance, the cast’s revelation that this is actually the very first time that all of them will be housed together under one roof. Say what? Sure, Queenie and Beebop grew up together in their childhood, but it was different for former MYX VJ Sanya who was raised by her mom, step-dad and sisters in Malaysia, only to find out that Pepe Smith was her biological father when she was 14. See what I mean? Just a tad complicated, but really, these things are non-issues for the Smiths.
“To be honest, when I met Queenie and Beebop, I wasn’t really sure if we were gonna get along because I didn’t speak Tagalog very well (and) we didn’t grow up together, so we had different backgrounds,” shares the long-lost Smith. But as she found out, those things didn’t make much of a difference with all the things they had in common. “We’re all lazy pala. We all don’t like doing the dishes pala. (laughs) The most common thing I discovered is that we either like playing or watching video games. We have yet to borrow my best friend, Ornussa’s Wii. I wanna see Papa play some tennis!”
Sitting on a sofa while his sisters get their hair and makeup done, Beebop, tries to reconcile being born into badass rock royalty and choking at the sight of his own father while performing with his reggae band, Indian Med. “Natataranta ako pag siya ’yung nanonood tapos ako yung kumakanta,” he confesses. Speaking of which, Pepe Smith swaggers into the building looking as cool as ever at 62 years old with his signature swept-up hair and carelessly thrown-on Aviators clutching what appears to be… a bubblegum-pink pearl shake. He still looks cool, though.
At the sight of his father, Beebop exclaims, “That’s my dad! The coolest dad ever!” Naks. Well, considering he is Pepe’s only son, it’s completely natural for Beebop to idolize his father, but when it comes to the performing, he maintains his own stage persona. “I got my own style kasi. Sa friends ko, tawag nila sa akin ‘clown’ kasi mahilig akong magpatawa. So pag sa stage naman, I’ll do crazy things; kahit anong ginagawa ko, mapatawa ko lang yung audience.”
On the other end of the spectrum is Queenie. A little on the feisty side, this vampy vocalist has literally toured all over Asia with several bands, deciding to take a break only recently to have seven-month-old son, Zeus, whose name is tattooed in red on her forearm. With her son all the way in General Santos City, she became the show’s default mother figure, a role that she slips into with ease as Pepe’s eldest child. “I always scold Beebop for being makulit and pasaway. I can’t scold Sanya. She just might kick me because she’s too tall!” she quips before demonstrating what it would be like to be on the receiving end of a roundhouse kick delivered by Sanya’s insanely long legs.
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With and hair makeup done, everybody huddles together for their portrait with Steve Tirona. Watching these guys make faces at each other and at Steve, it makes perfect sense to put these guys on TV. Apart from them being a welcome breather from those inescapable teleseryes, these guys challenge our notion of the basic unit of society. In our overly conservative society, they show us that it’s okay if your family’s a little unconventional, as long as you guys have each other’s backs by the end of the day. No states this fact better than Pepe himself. “Well, we got as closest to each other, it gave us more time to bond, and going right in the middle of it all, it’s such a gas,” he says. “And as the saying goes: The family that rocks together, stays together!”
The Smiths airs every Saturday from 8:45 to 9:15 pm with replays on Fridays from 3:00 to 4:00 pm on GMA News TV, Channel 11.