MANILA, Philippines??Taboo? on the National Geographic Channel makes for an absorbing viewing experience, because it blows the lid off some really controversial beliefs and practices. Other shows also tackle controversy, but ?Taboo? is generally more detailed and avoids shock tactics for shock value?s sake.
Last week, the edgy weekly series? episode, ?Gender Benders,? focused on the growing transsexual trend, with males transforming themselves medically into women, and vice-versa.
The documentary eschewed ethical or religious norms, and concentrated on the physical and psychological effects of sex change.
Impersonators
In the process, it revealed that in Thailand alone, the transsexual population count has reached over 100,000. Granted, most of them are ?showgirls? or female impersonators, so they can?t be said to have moved into mainstream society.
Arresting images offered by the production included two couples who turned out to be cross-gender ?adventurers??in both directions: The males turned out to have been originally female, while their now female spouses were once men!
If that complicated and even convuluted state of affairs gave some people the heebie-jeebies, the transsexuals involved appeared to have no such doubts or scruples, and professed to be perfectly happy with what they had become.
They explained this by pointing out that, psychologically, they felt like ?women in men?s bodies??or vice-versa. So, they simply resorted to medical intervention to get rid of the physical disconnect, so that their psychological equilibrium could finally be established.
Of course, this is a minority and still controversial view, so for objectivity?s sake, the production should also have given time and space to the more negative aspects of the transsexual equation. What about the legal and societal realities? The effects on children growing up in a transsexual home? Longer-term medical and psychological consequences of altering genders?
?The Soup?
Also attracting viewers, but in a very different way, is the spoof magazine show, ?The Soup,? hosted by the irrascible Joel McHale. ?The Soup? is sui generis, because it?s one of the first TV shows to poke fun at?TV itself!
It does this by excerpting many shows? excesses and holding them up for viewers to howl at.
Interestingly, they could be the same viewers who took those excesses quite in stride when they watched them taking place on the original shows. After they?re held up to ridicule on ?The Soup,? however, viewers belatedly realize that they?ve been patronizing shlock, and thank McHale?s program for the impudent illumination.
As for Joel McHale, we used to describe him as ?the poor man?s Ryan Seacrest? (they look alike) but this left-handed compliment is no longer apt because, thanks to the ?sleeper? success of ?The Soup,? jeering Joel has become popular in his own right!
