By: Jea Nicole Jacot
Published: July 22, 2023
You come home from a typical school day. Necktie skewed. A mixture of oil and dust, trapped on your face. Forearms covered in chalk powder from cleaning the classroom’s blackboard. Taking advantage of the few minutes before you have to do house chores, or take a much-needed nap, you settle in the living room and turn on the TV. The screen blinks open to a show teaser trailer featuring a group of teens, probably around your age, doing those typical party stuff: dancing under strobe lights, exchanging alcoholic drinks, and quoting what sound reminiscent of 2010s Tumblr bios. Then, there appears the title: “Senior High.” You raise a brow, intrigued and confused at the same time.
Last May, ABS-CBN’s Dreamscape Entertainment teased its upcoming series “Senior High.” It features a line of teen stars Andrea Brillantes, Elijah Canlas, Kyle Echarri, and other former child actors including Xyriel Manabat, Zaijian Jaranilla, and Juan Karlos Labajo. The show will most likely trail along a group of teenagers who navigate and face varying issues, particularly surrounding illegal substances, alcoholism, insecurities, and sexuality. The visual mood follows a party club saturated in purple hues and—wait. Haven't we seen this before?
The Westernized High School Narrative
Following the release of the show's teaser came mixed reviews from netizens, some instantly pointing out its blatant resemblance to popular Western TV series, namely HBO’s Euphoria and Netflix’s Elite. They claim it is detached from the actual experiences of the average senior high students in the Philippines, which would pose questions if they are indeed its target demographic.
“Maybe they’re trying to emulate Elite or Euphoria. Senior High students from the elite and expensive schools might be able to relate to all that, but it ain’t the experience of most of us,” a Twitter user says.
The early reviews and comments mainly concern the representation of senior high students, with people online showing videos and pictures as proof of their ordinary yet genuinely youthful senior lives. On the contrary, some fans argue that the party lifestyle actually happens among high school peers. They advanced their argument with the logic that senior high school students would technically be in college if it weren't for the K-12 reform, thus being at a mature age to be in clubs. Be that as it may, the way it has been depicted on screen might seem relatable exclusively to teens living in cities versed in such culture. The hedonistic glimpse of life in the show is compared to the struggles of ordinary senior high students, such as taking all-nighters to accomplish workloads of assignments, providing their own educational supplies for a lack of tools and facilities in public schools, and stressing for college applications. The comparison could suggest a disparity between privileged and average Filipino students.
Moreover, there are also those who remind us that “Senior High” is merely a fiction work. Its intention might not be to represent the exact senior high life we see in schools. TV producers and writers are allowed to take inspiration from these Western teen-drama plots, with the thought that many Filipinos would anticipate our depiction of such themes as it had been popular among Gen-Z adolescents. The hopes are high for a large audience. However, with its bold yet clichéd premise, we wonder how different this “edgy” entry is from Filipino teen TV shows which had relied too much on recycled, cheesy dialogues and unpromising paths for a long time. Also, it further proves that local shows continue to derive plotlines from foreign series. The lack of originality and creative drive from mainstream writers would result in it being called a weak imitation of its original. We could not blame them though, given that most entertainment industries have to revolve around trends and profit.
Filipino shows may no longer be as popular to the current generation as it was given the wide range of entertainment access on the internet. However, we can at least attempt to woo audiences back to local TV by going beyond adopting Western or other foreign teen-drama plots and paving the way for stories fleshed out from our own Filipino coming-of-age experience.
Filipino High School, Actually
What does it take to make an original depiction of a Filipino high school life?
Among the local films and shows brought to the surface during the debate were Glenn Barit’s Cleaners (2019), Jerrold Tarog’s Senior Year (2007), and ABS-CBN’s TV Show F.L.A.M.E.S. The three realistically capture the bliss and crisis we experience in high school. They feature familiar figures such as the upset class president, the son of local officials, high school sweethearts, and the valedictorian who is struggling to write a speech that will inspire his classmates. These stereotypical characters find themselves in their own coming-of-age arcs, crossing paths with other people who are also experiencing the same surge of existential conflicts. We encounter scenes and remember the heated inter-grade intramural competition or that one embarrassing dance presentation on stage.
“What’s even more fascinating for me is that you don’t go through it alone," says director, Glenn Barrit, in an interview about high school and his film with CNN Philippines.
“In our own high school class before, we were co-ed with 56 students in total. So imagine every one of us undergoing these different high school trajectories and you forcibly collide us all together in a single classroom for years. Friction and natural attraction with other students will definitely ensue. It becomes beautifully chaotic. We come of age in different ways and paces.”
Indeed, high school is a significant setting as we transition from the innocence of childhood to young adults. We are all cramped in a classroom, with the chemicals of youth scattered all over the place. A good depiction of Filipinos' collective adolescence can be made possible if it stays true to its roots. For instance, Cleaners, set in Tuguegarao, is filmed in a high school of the same province and is made by people who come from there as well. This, along with Senior Year and FLAMES, showed the possibilities of depicting high school authentic to the Filipinos’ experience.
Perhaps the upcoming show ‘Senior High’ sparked a conversation just from the teaser itself because of the promise of its title. When we hear it, we tend to picture senior high school students going about their daily activities in school. We could be reading too much into what is shown on the surface. Its actors, whom we saw in our favorite child shows back then such as May Bukas Pa and 100 Days to Heaven, have certainly gone through their own long leap to adolescence. We might witness different emotions known to teenagers in their portrayal—our insecurities, stubbornness, and restless spirit.
The show has yet to be released. It might actually live up to its title and offer a fair representation of the current high school rave culture. Or it could plummet into the all-too-familiar Westernized narrative, and we hope again for better high school shows.
In the living room, you turn off the TV and stare into the void, questioning the makings of a Filipino senior high school life through your own reflection.