Philippine E-Journals

Female Warriors in GMA TV Fantasy Programs vis-à-vis the Fantasy Wars of GMA the President: Reflections on Simulated Women Engaged in Simulated Violence

Antonio P. Contreras

Discipline: Political Science, Humanities, Women’s Studies, Feminism

 

Abstract:

This paper explores alternative directions in political analysis and theorizing by examining the recent fantasy programs of GMA, the TV network, particularly the three Books of Encantadia (Encantadia, Etheria: Ang Ikalimang Kaharian ng Encantadia, and Encantadia: Pagibig Hanggang Wakas) as venues in which the image of women warriors is pervasive in the narratives, and uses these texts as a template to critically analyze Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (or GMA), the President. It distills from the discursive simulation of female warriors as depicted in the Encantadia fantasy trilogy, a parallel script upon which to locate the problematic nature of GMA’s presidency. Of particular concern is the manner by which the feminist undertones of these programs are contrasted with the masculinity of the current political leadership of the country, which ironically is headed by a woman. In the end, the paper uses the fantasy trilogy as a lens through which to view the gender implications of what appears to be a presidency that in its nature has become an embodiment of hyperreality, with its enormous capacity to weave masculinity into public policy and its capacity to rely on the imagined, the conjured, and the constructed instead of the truth, the real, and the factual.