#i didn't choose to grow up in a questionnable neighborhood

[ano-po]

Just heard the Eddie Garcia Bill today (RIP King), and this reminded me of that time a film maker was invited to talk at our high school for our literature classes and he proudly showed his disturbing piece.

The short film was titled "The Compound" and it was pretty disturbing for high schoolers, but I don't remember our teachers handling the aftermath. So the film started with a bunch of big stars in a dark room, and they were being yelled, "Hubad! Hubad!" by a bunch of people from all corners. They were all in fear as they took off their clothes, completely nude! Only small rays from the flashlights are there, and sometimes, they were pointed at their faces. One unknown girl showed Glaiza de Castro a twenty pesos and shouted "Eto lang ang halaga mo sa compound!"

The filmmaker cut it to that, and proudly told us that they woke up those big stars at 4-5am in the morning. They were disoriented as the whole crew and the other unknown actors shouted "Hubad! Hubad!" at them, their expressions of fear were real! They stripped because they were scared. He went on to blab about the artistry, about invoking raw emotions from the actors, about cinema!

And I was there, a high schooler, sitting while not fully processing the short film for my young mind was too disturbingly absorbent. I was still pretentious about being an artist, pretending I appreciate the artistry of dark indie films, but that... that put a stop to it. It wasn't even a compelling film. Cinematography sucks. It looks like a budget film made by pretentious college kids who just wanna see naked people. Imagine being one of those big big stars who were traumatized by that filming, and for what? For a trashy end product?? And you cannot complain because The Director is King and you might be branded as someone 'who does not appreciate art'? And you have to keep it to your heart because you don't want people to actually see that film, it's just a short film anyway, not on cinemas. If you whistleblow, people might deliberately search for it. But no! A stupid director goes around schools showing it to high school students!

We needed that Eddie Garcia Bill. Because there are people out there who think they can power trip actors in the name of art. And the "Art" in question isn't even that good.