BANANACUE
REPUBLIC
Vol II, No. 04
Jan 26, 2005

 
 
 social criticism by
 Vicente Soria de Veyra

Table of
Contents


ARCHIVE:
2004
2005



Literary website:
Warphoto 

The Middle Class Will Always Be With Us

US IN THE middle class are suckers for package designs. Often we know we’re not getting our money’s worth, but with the premium we put on packaging value we often allow ourselves purchases we hope we’ll truly learn to love, even as we often can’t and one day finally tire of.

Having been cajoled by the new glamour of cheap polish, an element of the Filipino middle class will get into simple acts as getting a carbonara spaghetti from Greenwich Tacloban that would blind him to the fact that the order tastes no better than our cheaper neighborhood traditional bamboo bottom trunk marrow in coconut milk (and with a lesser nutritional value). Getting a “saver’s package” of pancakes and coffee and bacon at the ironically upscale Bo’s, he could actually grasp a bland “soaked socks” beverage and a mere sugar-in-water pancake syrup that accompanies a cheap butter, but why would he complain? Getting a box of Dunkin’ Donuts “choco rings” could hit him as getting simple bread rings coated with flour and topped with horrifically-colored sugar icing. Oh, some of these Dunkin-visiting elements might realize that they may have gotten nothing more than a bunch of “saver’s” or amply-downgraded Dunkins designed for either the poor or the poor in taste or the simple sucker for packaging and brands. But, still, they might display their new Dunkin box by the window at home as status symbol for those who have extra budget money for simple luxuries as these Americanized or franchised brands.

Incidentally, could these downgraded products or items be meant to subliminally persuade customers to buy the brands’ higher-end products? In which case, a sort of psychological blackmail that haughtily implies an improved, higher-status alternative only within the shop instead of within the hype-less and less-rich neighborhood where one came from. This is a possibility, considering that a culture of statuses has been entrenched in our society by our religion’s Roman roots, our native indigenous rajah-royalty backgrounds, our Kuomintang bosses’ new proud elitism, and our Americanization.

Whatever it is, we have become enslaved by our conventional (often hype-fooled) aesthetics that we are always willing to forego value of a package’s contents for the sake of entertaining our middle class hunger for status in the grasp or penetration of brand names.

Having worked in the advertising industry during the past ten years, I can vouch for the truth that the corporate world knows so much about this mass psychology and is forever utilizing that knowledge to maintain or increase market shares and profits.

LAST CHRISTMAS, I gifted my sister with a DVD copy of a heroic documentary film against US McDonald’s “SuperSize”, the food brand’s targeting of children, its grasp of healthy nutrition, and the American majority’s propensity for the quick and easy and addictive (that may account, perhaps, for its proclivity for electing weapons manufacturers and corporate puppets into the White House).

The movie, simply titled Supersize Me, does say a lot about the brain’s taking a back seat to the tongue’s or throat’s or size-conscious physicality’s drive. In the Philippines, on the other hand, in many cases we leave our favorite restaurants to be in the more polished (and less filling) recent shops that serve lousy food. Which makes it a case of the tongue taking a backseat to the eyes, with the brain left in the baul at home. It’s almost as if the Americans are a people governed by their tongues and throats and bellies (that may explain their greed) and the Filipinos are a people driven by their eyes (which may explain their habit of designing homes in the Western way even as they complain about the slowness of their electric fans and air-conditioners). The conclusion that one would get from this is that maybe both peoples are wanting of brains (that could actually free them from electing people from the corporate setup or otherwise the no- or bad-record background to govern them). Brains, that is, that might learn to read consumer columns, for instance, that will protect their persons from corporate greed. It is quite telling that our newspapers don’t run consumer columns anymore and, instead, sell disguised “press release” spaces as tools of a conspiring “envelopmental journalism” in feature articles. One might finally conclude, then, that it seems Americans and Filipinos both don’t have enough brains to govern their own selves against false advertising and the power of the eye-catchers and tongue-foolers.

But let’s focus on the Philippine case, which may be unique. One could perhaps conjecture that our royal rajah’s tribes’ roots (much like the Thais’) could account for our preference for the prettily-presented dish. Or prettily-photographed dish in the posters that sell the dish, however much it doesn’t appear the same on the plate. Some would facilely call in a colonial mentality as the explanation. This is not entirely true, considering that many of the brands that could be in question are known to be local.

I would rather liken the unconscious behavior to the mass reactions towards the star-system of our Hollywood-aping cinema industry. We are so persuaded into watching our favorite good-looking actors or actresses even as we know the movie is going to be a total mess. But, you see, it’s not the whole dish that one wants; it’s just one aspect of that dish. It’s the same with a brand that serves lousy food. It’s not the food, it’s the middle-class, downgraded classiness ambiance. Across the street, there could be the good-food stall that yet may have presentations of food looking like frog-cues. This is not middle class at all.

The reason why much middle-class food doesn’t have class is because, like the pretty actor fan, the middle class would rather get into a fastfood restaurant for the pretty posters, floor tiles, and polish. Who wants to talk about movie stories these days; it’s scenes and special effects, and actors and actresses, that people are concerned about. In fastfood shops, it’s interior design flairs and color boldness unconcerned with direct function and necessity (and rebellious towards aesthetic conservatism as well).

Unfortunately, with a lot of exceptions still a lot of pretty faces naturally hyped up by the human passion for beauty do come out as non-ideal partners in life to some (many) people. Compatibility seems somewhat of a truism in long-term relationships that looks can’t dictate. A Richard Gomez might make a Lucy Torres happy forever, but I doubt that it would a – say – Chin-Chin Gutierrez. But people wouldn’t buy this. The middle class would always believe that anything that looks good is good and good for everybody.

And so we marry ourselves up into the upper-class corporations’ hype on the “affordable quality” good-looking goodies. Hoping after the excitement that we’ll truly learn to love these, even as we can’t and will only one day finally tire of after so many wasted pesos.

Consumer protection and the true desire for quality and the safe and the healthy is for the intelligentsia class. In some areas it’s also for the lower class. In the suburbs, it’s for the elite class. These are the classes corporate directions love to hate.

THERE IS SOMETHING that the middle class has yet to see. While many have already seen how networking pumps up prices of “networked” products to an overpriced level, still many have yet to realize that franchising with its fees has actually the same effect on franchised products, either by way of price-pumping or product downgrading.

Alas, what happened to the once-charming Seattle hangout called Starbucks? Then again, not exactly bad news to stockbrokers inside and outside of the amalgamated brand. And what do you suppose they would say? Oh yes, the world should thank franchises for bringing all the charming things of the world into the global middle class.

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Posted 01/26/05. Send comments to: bananacue_republic@yahoo.com

"...with the premium we put on packaging value we often allow ourselves purchases we hope we’ll truly learn to love, even as we often can’t and one day finally tire of."