The Representation of the Filipino "Good Life" through a textual analysis of the Nestle Short Film "Kasambuhay, Habambuhay"
ABSTRACT
Advertising provides a link between economy and culture and this study aims to discover the kind of culture that emanates from Filipino-made advertisements. This will be done by analyzing the images, language and symbols that can be derived from the representations of the “Good Life” in Kasambuhay Habambuhay: A Short Film Anthology.
The ten short films were produced in celebration of the 100 Years of Nestlé’s establishment in the Philippines as a subsidiary of the transnational company, Nestlé S.A . With its slogan, “Good Food, Good Life”, the brand attempts to cultivate a consumerist culture among its audience by showing how “Good Food” will lead to a “Good Life”. In the anthology, the producers, writers and directors of each film have created stories that translate this slogan by representing Filipino lifestyles through the identities portrayed in the films. This study examined how the Filipino “Good Life” was shown by fleshing out the narratives in the anthology and looking at the existence and/or reoccurrence of Filipino values.
The research is a discourse on how Filipino producers, writers and directors represent the Filipino “Good Life” and how this has been influenced by colonial patronage and globalization. Narrative analysis was used in examining the ten short films by focusing on the lifestyle, traditions, values and relationships of the actants in the narrative. This gave rise to patterns that showed how Nestlé have subscribed to cultural hybridization to create a consumerist culture among Filipinos.
Ceriola, P. (2012), The Representation of the Filipino “Good Life” Through a Narrative Analysis of the Nestlé Short Film Anthology Entitled ‘Kasambuhay, Habambuhay’, Undergraduate thesis, University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication
Keywords: Representation, Post-colonialism, Advertising, Lifestyles, Narrative