I am the villain... NOT!

I now understand bullies. I feel for them, how intense their craving is to put the loser’s life in misery. It’s almost an exciting and fulfilling life to be able to search for ways to strike him at the peak of his vulnerability, the ultimate source of a bully’s gratification. In almost all the local films and telenovelas I watched that dealt with the bully and the physically and emotionally beat-up kid, I always sensed some downright hypocrisy on the customary circumstance that the beat-up kid is always the protagonist, and the bully the villain. Never have I encountered vice versa. Or if there ever was, I wasn’t able to watch it. Maybe because the material was pulled out due to a forecast of low profits or great loss, I’m not sure. But a depiction of the bully as the hero is a collision between the Pinoy’s nature and the desire of the outfit to make a story that’s out of the ordinary. Imagine Gladys Reyes ending up as the real heiress after all in Mara Clara. Or just think. The rich primadonna teener gets the guy in the end from Ms. Goody-two-shoes girl-next-door; or the insufferable brat of a character gets the highest billing in the movie posters than the sweet-looking matinee idol. Evil rules over good? A rare possibility. But hey, we’re talking about bullies here and bullies-can-not-conquer-the-earth-because-they’re-evil is not a valid argument. Actually, I have more sensitivity for the bully rather than for the character with the excessive qualities of a panting fad follower, social climber, habitual name dropper – a total loser to sum it all up – which makes the ordinary viewer want to beat him up even more. Oooops! This is becoming too personal again! Sorry. But really... what if the bullied one is the real villain?

(To be continued...)