The Dynamics of Globalization in the Regional Film The Chanters

Abstract

Globalization affects specific regions in the Philippines both in positive and adverse ways. While it brings in capital from migrant laborers and more advanced communication technology to connect remote regions to highly urbanized areas, globalization also causes the disenfranchisement of natives and their cultures. Its effect on ethnic cultures is clearly seen in James Robin Mayo’s The Chanters (Cena, Nazareno, Lapuz, & Mayo, 2017), a regional film about a young girl named Sarah Mae, a member of an ancient Panay-Bukidnon tribe too engrossed in globalized influences that she almost forgets the importance of her ethnic culture, as seen in her treatment of her grandfather Ramon, one of the few living chanters of their tribe. Using the aforementioned film, this paper attempts to explain the development of globalization in rural areas using Appadurai’s theory of global cultural flows. In addition, this paper will discuss how the effect of globalization in rural communities is analogous to the development of regional films, using Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of a rhizomatic growth found in A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1987). Ultimately, this type of development of regional films, with the aid of globalization, leads to a greater appreciation of the cultures in the regions and proves that the regions are an integral part of the nation.