I was exchanging text messages earlier with the writer from the anti-soap Kung Mawawala Ka. He sent me his usual Sunday message, and I ranted at him: If this whole kudeta thing ends up in a military junta, the way the fictional Pilipinas ruled by Leandro Montemayor was captured and ran by Air Force general Gonzalo, that would be it. A weird and really horrendous case of life-imitates-art.
At the time KMK was running, they were at a fix. What makes a successful putch? Historically, all their consultants said, all the late 80s attempted kudetas bullheaded by Gringo Honasan and the RAM did not succeed. They did not get the support of the Air Force block. The Armed Forces was not united towards the goal of a military junta. So in soap country, they made the coup leader Gonzalo the leader of the Air Force. So from thereon, all events in KMK was, in their terms, fictional and futurustic. Because it's never happened before. No historical basis to draw from.
I read in an interview about how the Mafia was portrayed in Hollywood and American television. The Italian underground families didn't actually behave like the Corleones with backyard party massacres and waking up to find severed horse heads between the sheets. But that was how it was in The Godfather series. So they started behaving accordingly, with the low voices, light-and-dark silhouettes, the cigars, spewing, "Spaghetti, all we eat is spaghetti." [Actually, that was from a spinoff tomato sauce commercial.] Anyway, the point is, even the real-life mafiosis became influenced by the media portrayal of themselves. After watching the Corleones, Tony Soprano, and reading Elmore Leonard novels, they started to believe the manufactured media images.
Now that another coup was brewing, I just hope those military guys didn't actually watch KMK and told themselves, hey we can do that.
Not really related but makes an interesting read: Rina Jimenez David on what she's learned from soap operas.
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