Eye Candy Won't Make Telebasuras Taste Any Better

Ever tried eating something that looks so delicious but it turns out to taste like trash? Ever bought something fancy but it turned out to be horrible in terms of quality? Ever went to an expensive restaurant but the price wasn't worth it because the food tasted awful or nothing special about it? I would like to use that analogy to describe telebasuras and their use of eye candy. I could talk about how telebasuras whether's it from ABiaS-CBN or GMA-7 use eye candy a lot in their shows. Palyang Robin Hood (which is really a bootleg quality version of Arrow) places eye candy placements presumably for ratings. ABiaS-CBN has Shaina Magdayao is currently starring in "The Better Half" and I admit I find her attractive. There have been other gimmicks like hot men for the female audience. But eye candy never changes the fact that garbage is STILL garbage.

What's the difference between the eye candy in telebasuras vs. the eye candy in good shows? It's nothing to do with the appearance but how characters are portrayed. What I hate about telebasuras would be useless plot repetition, over-extension, really poor acting, overacting, bad choreography, poor pacing and not to mention really weak protagonists regardless of gender. I may not be a huge fan of Korean entertainment but I don't blame some Filipinos for getting hooked into them. These Filipinos who used to view telebasuras may already be fed up with the stupidity offered by the local networks' telebasuras. We've got eye candy who are not just eye candy but they really are gutsy regardless of gender. Muscles aren't just muscles for men. Some of these women may look sexy but they're roses with thorns. The leading ladies aren't usually damsel in distresses and fight alongside the hero saving people in distress serving as the heart of the man she works with. The men may sometimes look wimpy but are truly men even without the huge muscles. 

I don't deny that I'm attracted to eye candy but from what I said, eye candy won't really attract the viewer for too long if the show's so horrible. If you remembered my analogy of expensive food that tastes like dirt then you would prefer to eat more affordable food that tastes really good. You can repackage pagpag as a delicious and nutritious meal all you want but it's still pagpag meaning it's never delicious nor safe for consumption. You can have simple packaging and the food tastes so good like how some Filipino delicacies come in simple packages but sell like hotcakes. No matter how many attractive people are hired to do fanservice but if they can't give me a good story then forget it. It's still garbage repackaged in an attractive package. While I did watch some bad shows for eye candy but I don't want to watch them again. Eye candy is just a bonus but the content is what really matters. The real deal is with the substance and not just the form of the show. You can have a lot of fancy form but no substance. It's just like how some Tokusatsu or Anime series don't have so much fancy forms but they have a good plot that keep audiences hooked for more. 

Having a lot of eye candy in a bad show is just like the slogan, "It's More Fun in the Philippines" during the term of Noynoy Aquino. You can go ahead to have a lot of dancers, singers, have a catchy jingle to go along with it, make a flamboyant show, put girls in their bikinis in beaches or whatever gimmick you can come up with but the attraction is really just on the short run. While I do believe catchy jingles and promoting the best of your product gives an edge but exaggerating one's claims to sell a bad product is uncalled for. Remember Mar Roxas was advertised as the best candidate but the campaign was a failure. Tourists may soon come to see the scenic views but discover that there's a lot of poor services and a lack of peace and order. How do lack of peace and order and poor services make it more fun in the Philippines? The answer is they don't because they ruin the tourist experience. That alone could cause a lot of backfire. Speaking of which has the stupid slogan already backfired on David Guerrero's face? I hope so. Hopefully those oligarch-supportive networks will also get their fair share of backfire as well.