Mangaoang Áine
Institute of Popular Music, School of Music, University of Liverpool, UK; Institute of Philippine Culture, Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines. Correspondence to:
Torture. 2013;23(2):44-54.
This essay examines the conditions behind the 'Philippine Prison Thriller' video, a YouTube spectacle featuring the 1,500 inmates of Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Centre (CPDRC) dancing to Michael Jackson's hit song 'Thriller'. The video achieved viral status after it was uploaded onto the video-sharing platform in 2007, and sparked online debates as to whether this video, containing recorded moving images of allegedly forced dancing, was a form of cruel and inhumane punishment or a novel approach to rehabilitation. The immense popularity of the video inspired creative responses from viewers, and this international popularity caused the CPDRC to host a monthly live dance show held in the prison yard, now in its seventh year. The essay explores how seemingly innocuous products of user-generated-content are imbued with ideologies that obscure or reduce relations of race, agency, power and control. By contextualising the video's origins, I highlight current Philippine prison conditions and introduce how video-maker/programme inventor/prison warden Byron Garcia sought to distance his facility from the Philippine prison majority. I then investigate the 'mediation' of 'Thriller' through three main issues. One, I examine the commodification and transformation from viral video to a thana-tourist destination; two, the global appeal of 'Thriller' is founded on public penal intrigue and essentialist Filipino tropes, mixed with a certain novelty factor widely suffused in YouTube formats; three, how dance performance and its mediation here are conducive to creating Foucault's docile bodies, which operate as a tool of distraction for the masses and ultimately serve the interests of the state far more than it rehabilitates(unconvicted and therefore innocent) inmates.
本文审视了“菲律宾监狱惊悚片”视频背后的情况。该视频是YouTube上的一个热门内容，展示了宿务省拘留和改造中心（CPDRC）的1500名囚犯随着迈克尔·杰克逊的热门歌曲《颤栗》起舞。该视频于2007年上传到视频分享平台后迅速走红，并引发了网上关于这个包含所谓强迫跳舞录像的视频是一种残忍和不人道的惩罚形式还是一种新颖的改造方法的辩论。该视频的巨大人气激发了观众的创造性回应，其在国际上的受欢迎程度促使CPDRC在监狱院子里举办每月一次的现场舞蹈表演，如今已是第七个年头。本文探讨了用户生成内容中看似无害的产物是如何被灌输了掩盖或削弱种族、能动性、权力和控制关系的意识形态的。通过将该视频的起源置于具体情境中，我突出了当前菲律宾的监狱状况，并介绍了视频制作者/节目发明者/监狱长拜伦·加西亚是如何试图让他的设施与菲律宾大多数监狱区分开来的。然后，我通过三个主要问题来研究《颤栗》的“调解”情况。其一，我考察了从热门视频到死亡旅游目的地的商品化和转变；其二，《颤栗》的全球吸引力建立在公众对刑罚的好奇和本质主义的菲律宾形象之上，再加上YouTube格式中广泛存在的某种新奇因素；其三，舞蹈表演及其在此处的调解如何有助于创造福柯所说的驯顺的身体，这些身体作为一种分散大众注意力的工具，最终服务于国家利益，而远非改造（未被定罪因而无辜的）囚犯。
