Post-Duterte Media and the Age of Digital Streaming, Vivamax, and Darryl Yap
Since the age of digital streaming, theatrical releases of X-rated films were declining, because simply, MTRCB does not hold legal authority to rate and monitor online streaming releases (Gulla). The censorship board lacked the power to regulate video-on-demand, similar to the culture of compact DVDs and homevideos trade in the ’60s and ’70s that carried on the bomba genre. But this also equals as a byproduct of post-Duterte media: exhibiting the “mass-oriented” political spectrum that dichotomizes us vs. them politicking in favor of “the people” against anti-establishment discourses (Parmanand 3), streaming sites has provided the Filipino moviegoer larger access to movies that were previously only screened in institutions of mall chains and cinema houses. After all, it is far cheaper to subscribe to sites showcasing a variety of films you can pause or play, rather than spending almost five-hundred pesos to see only one. Further, streaming sites are underground economies that are fertile ground for sex-oriented films whose scenes in theater releases could not pass through the board alone. Notorious as it is, Duterte and streaming sites proved to be popular because of their massive reach, powering the populist approach of Duterte’s regime similar to the marketable fascination of movie stars. This “underground economy” provides and sustains the movie industry in general due to the highly feminized labor (Tolentino 102) and specifically because of Duterte’s severely misogynist and sexualized ruling.
Vivamax was introduced in 2021, a streaming site under Viva Films. Through Vivamax, they have resumed the tradition of producing sex-oriented films. As of today, a number of 76 films were released exclusively through the Vivamax platform, all of them containing adult content. Vivamax preserves the right to release adult films threatened by the mere existence of the censorship board.
All of these pinpoint to one film accurately encapsulating the end of Duterte’s regime and marks the beginning of Marcos Jr.’s return: Paglaki Ko Gusto Ko Maging Pornstar (2021) is a Vivamax-exclusive film written and directed by Darryl Yap, which narrates the story of a teen girl who aspires to be a star in sex-oriented films seeking her adoptive father’s last wish, known to her as the founder of bomba films. Yap attempts to reclaim the bomba industry through metafilmic elements by casting Alma Moreno, Ara Mina, Maui Taylor, and Rosanna Roces, who were former stars of soft-porn films during the ’90s and early 2000’s. The role of these stars was to teach Twinkle, played by AJ Raval, of pornographic deeds and exploits to assure the next generation of Filipino moviegoers of sensual female-led performances. It also introduced Raval to the adult film market as she stars in the consequent Vivamax films. It traded the teachings as a rite of passage for the future productions of sex-oriented films in the industry. The women of Pornstar unknowingly willed themselves to ‘reclaim’ bomba but this did not remind them of the labored bodies that run in highly sexualized economies in the indie movie scene. Pornstar is the last film in Duterte’s time defining his unreserved persona of atrocious vulgarity, and notoriously being the only X-rated film by the board since Estrada documentary To Live For the Masses (2006) came to light.
This was Darryl Yap’s attempt at reclaiming bomba, and an introduction to the future trademark of Vivamax; a recognizable machinery of his transition from serving Duterte and Marcos Jr from his rise in 2020 to his peak at 2022. His pseudo-films were welcomed at the end of the Duterte administration and further asserted its position in the market during the 2022 elections. He spearheaded the Imee Marcos-produced Maid in Malacanang (2022) that unarguably paramounted the swarming false information propagated in favor of the Marcoses. Yap’s overt political opinions in favor of the Dutertes and the Marcoses made experts and critics push to deplatform him, and yet his films continue to be the most popular mode of movie-making today. His grasp on both sides of the industry, independent and mainstream, was enabled by a transfer of power granted to him, overlapping the borders between fetishistic-viewing (independent) and spectacle-viewing (mainstream).
Other film directors follow his lead in Vivamax sex films: most prominent are Crush Kong Curly (2021), Eva (2021), Boy Bastos (2022), and Hugas (2022), to which two of them are starred by Raval. Most of these are attuned to what Tolentino describes as “PP” or private part films exposing the male genitalia that reveals the virile machineries of the phallocentric reality. Advertised as a comedy, Yap’s Sarap Mong Patayin (2021), a non-mainstream Vivamax-exclusive, drew from Duterte’s self-exhibition of exaggerated machismo while envisaging Marcos Jr.’s foreseeable victory in 2022. Sarap Mong Patayin designates the body as a desirable object for punishment and death. The film tells the story of a man who gets involved in a catfishing scheme of a woman and her homosexual friend, which ends in an unpredictable perilous night. A 30-minute scene as its climax provides masochistic fetish through a desensitized display of sexual violence, encompassing the years of Duterte’s inhumane drug war. The masculine (Kit Thompson) unleashes his power by exerting disciplinary acts on the body of the feminine (Ariella Arida) and the queer (Lassy Marquez), that he deems fit as a punishment for their crime, denoting Duterte’s violent suppression of their rights, while permitting the inexorable success of Marcos’ deceptive deliverance. While no character attains redemption in the film, Yap encompasses the transition of the political conditions under the two presidents, which we may declare as an unconscious allegory for their incompetent politicking. We cannot foresee the role of bomba in Marcos Jr.’s presidency, but we will in anticipation recognize its inescapable disposition in his political landscape, and how it would parallel bomba from his father’s years.
Conclusion
The number of succeeding films are symptomatic of the skyrocketed popularity of the genre. Labored bodies of Vivamax stars attempting to reclaim bomba only reiterate Tolentino’s notion of vaginal economy and its effect on the film industry’s crippling negligence. While one may argue the moral gravity of enabling soft-porn films to public access, the lack of bomba’s position in cinemas affirm the MTRCB’s unwavering servitude to the ruling class. The Aranetas, Sys, Villars, and Ayalas, that run the mall-chains and distribution rights of films as well as media exports, own the only accessible cinemas in the country. Their power is disproportionate to the average Filipino moviegoer, who seeks the Filipino film identity — even when one may consider bomba a significant constituent of that very identity. After all, it is one of the only few genres that inarguably shaped the Philippine film industry.
Sex-oriented films of today demanded sex to be seen; it did not tease or simulate, it reprised the “TT” and “ST” bomba permutations. The age of streaming brought them into literal light instead of hiding in reputed darkness. It evolved from distinguishable categories because of their elements affected by the political situation of their time. Sex-oriented films reflected the dimensions of their respective leaders, molded after the structures of their government. Censorship boards sought the approval not only of the presidents that appointed them but also maneuvered by the ruling class that controls the flow of commerce, thereby shaping culture, in the local cinemas. But we determine the rise of bomba ultimately caused by the pre-Martial Law political condition wherein restrictions and censorship laws shape the sex trade and its underground market. Sexual workers and adult-content filmmakers sustain the film industry by working in the shadows, to assist laboring bodies that continue to make ends meet under an economy that fails to provide basic needs for its people.
This essay is an excerpt from my critical paper on Bomba films.
