Exempt

Controversial author Dan Brown has once again caught the ire of Filipinos with his latest novel “Inferno” loosely based on Dante's classic tale on the levels of hell. The author writes in a character who finds herself at the “gates of hell” what with Manila's six-hour traffic jams, suffocating pollution and horrifying sex trade. These descriptions incensed MMDA Chairman Francis Tolentino, who writes an open letter to the author to change his portrayal of the city. In fact, it is the opposite, Tolentino writes, that Manila is actually the doorway to heaven with its rich religious history, particularly Roman Catholicism.

This is not the first time that one of his novels rubbed certain sectors in the country the wrong way. When the movie “Da Vinci Code” was to be shown, the Church made moves to ban the film, saying the story gave a convoluted, even perverted view of the sacred doctrines of the Church, and of Roman Catholicism in general. In the book, Brown wrote that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had children, implying that Jesus had a living lineage up to the present. According to the Church, its flock may become confused after watching the film, or in other words, they were afraid that a mass exodus from Catholicism would take place. The movie came and went, no exodus.

My question is, have we become so onion-skinned where we openly react to negative images, descriptions or portrayals of the country and its people? It seems that every time something negative is said about the Philippines or its people, there are those who take exception to the max. Are we exempt from this kind of so-called negative images, even if there is some truth to them? Other countries have been negatively portrayed constantly in both print and cinema. How many times has New York been the setting of a heinous or organized crime, a fact that is based on truth, aside from being destroyed from a gigantic lizard and aliens from other worlds? And what is Bangladesh and India known for? All you have to do is watch “Slumdog Millionaire” and you have your answer. If there was an unflattering way to show one's country, that movie was it. But do you see Indians and Bengalis protest the movie? Another examples are the cities of Bogota and Rio De Janeiro. More often than not, what are highlighted are the extreme poverty and violent crime, with drug cartels having a chokehold on the cities. Any protests? I don't think so.

What Dan Brown did was to highlight what is a known fact about certain places, and then create a story around them. Honestly, isn't there widespread poverty in Manila? Isn't there rampant prostitution of all kinds? What is Malate known for anyway? We may not have six-hour traffic jams, but we do have traffic jams. And why all the reaction over a work of fiction? The mere fact that it is fiction gives the writer all the freedom to do what he wants, because it is fiction.

I'm sure when this is turned into a movie, where Manila may be portrayed according to the book, some will raise hell. And for what? How many movies have been made showing the evils of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in the years of 1939-1945? These are parts of history that cannot be denied. We should be so lucky. 

So just relax. Nothing to get so riled about, really.