Pinoy (Rin) Ako, Pinoy Tayo: A Textual Analysis on How Pinoy Big Brother Represented Badjao Girl as the Cultural Other

ABSTRACT

TINIO, H. A. (2018). Pinoy (Rin) Ako, Pinoy Tayo: A Textual Analysis on How Pinoy Big Brother Represented Badjao Girl as the Cultural Other, Unpublished Undergraduate Thesis, University of the Philippines, College of Mass Communication

The Philippines being a culturally diverse country, is home to many indigenous groups. Despite this, the media still present indigenous people as eccentric and different from the ordinary Filipinos. Using a textual analysis, this study focuses on how the 13th season of Pinoy Big Brother (PBB) used orientalist ideals in representing its housemate Rita Gaviola, who belongs to an indigenous group. The analysis was conducted with Edward Said’s Orientalism. Guided by these assumptions, it examines how PBB treated its indigent housemate as the cultural other. The primetime episodes of PBB wherein Rita entered, up to the last episode where she was still inside being the ones to be analyzed. The paper analyzes the kinds of strategies that Big Brother used in attempt to present Rita to her co-housemates as someone who is peculiar. This study explores the exoticized representation of Rita’s indigenous identity. It also aspires to offer a criticism of how broadcast productions package our indigenous people.

KEYWORDS: indigenous people, PBB, Orientalism, reality show, Edward Said

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