The year was 2016, and it was a very strange time.
Contrary to a certain ongoing internet trend, 2016 was not all puppy-ear filters and Hamilton sing-a-longs (although there was a lot of that, too). Politically, former president Rodrigo Duterte’s first six months in office saw more than 7,000 killed in his war on drugs, which the humanitarian watchdog group Human Rights Watch deemed a “human rights calamity for the Philippines.” His rise to power preceded that of U.S. President Donald Trump, who spent his first presidency in 2016 fanning the flames of far-right extremism and making big claims about a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico (that the latter would pay for, of course). Why we’re trying to romanticize life a decade ago is beyond me: I am not privy to the whims of our internet overlords.
But, political doom and gloom aside, 2016 was the year when culture was experiencing a number of important highs and lows. There is no one way to completely summarize everything that made up life ten years ago, but today, we’re going to try. Here, for your stroll down nostalgia lane, are the good, the bad, and the wild of 2016.
Good: Jaclyn Jose scored a historic Cannes win
Thanks to her heart-wrending performance as sari-sari owner turned meth dealer Rosa in Brillante Mendoza’s Ma’Rosa, Jaclyn Jose became the first Filipino (and Southeast Asian) to win Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016. “I would like to… share this recognition [with] all Filipinos,” Jose said during her acceptance speech, “[with] my daughter, [with] Brillante, [with] my countrymen, [and with] the Philippines.”
Bad: A dark time for the DC Extended Universe
2016 brought two DC blockbusters that didn’t do well with audiences: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad, which have Tomatometer scores of 28 and 26 percent, respectively. Fans and critics alike were not pleased with both movies’ messy plotlines, with many pointing fingers at Zack Snyder, then the main filmmaker Warner Bros. entrusted with shaping the DC Extended Universe.
Wild: The Pokémon GO takeover
Remember the first time Pokémon GO infiltrated our phones and had us running around trying to “catch ‘em all”? There was a time in 2016 when everyone wouldn’t shut up about it. In its first month alone, Pokémon GO brought in more than $200 million in earnings, with over 130 million downloads worldwide. As of this writing, Pokémon GO now has more than 27 million active players
Good: The Metro Manila Film Festival tried something new
A for effort, MMFF. In response to a growing number of controversies surrounding the way festival committee members selected their winners, especially with the disqualification of Erik Matti’s Honor Thy Father for Best Picture in 2015, the Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) launched a significant overhaul of its judging criteria and festival structure. The changes resulted in a less commercial-centric lineup that prioritized engaging storytelling, which included films such as Sunday Beauty Queen, Oro, Die Beautiful, and more.
However, in 2017, the festival walked back some of its changes, bringing commercial viability back as one of its criteria. Could this have been caused by 2016 MMFF’s total gross of P400 million being significantly less than 2015’s P1.3 billion?
Bad: The rise of Mocha Uson
Prior to Duterte’s election as president, Mocha Uson was a well-known entertainer and blogger. Things took a controversial turn when Uson began using her online platform to support Rodrigo Duterte’s presidential campaign in 2016. “We need a TOUGH and STRONG president,” Uson wrote in a Facebook post, “WE NEED AN IRON HAND IN DEALING WITH CRIMINALS IN THIS COUNTRY.”
In 2017, President Duterte appointed Uson as assistant secretary of the Presidential Communications Operations Office, although she stepped down a year later after being repeatedly criticized for social media posts that were inconsistent with her role as a public official (e.g. a video of her encouraging a pro-Duterte blogger to mock sign language, a raunchy federalism jingle and dance, etc.). She was often labeled as the “queen of fake news,” although Uson denied ever knowingly spreading misinformation.
Wild: The $81M Bangladeshi bank heist that implicated RCBC
As if straight out of a Mission: Impossible movie, a group of hackers stole $81 million from Bangladesh’s central bank account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and the money was then traced to the Philippines. The stolen money was transferred to an RCBC branch in Manila. The money was deposited into bank accounts later found to be under fictitious identities.
Good: Not one, but two Lav Diaz movies
The slow cinema god blessed cinephiles around the world with two major full-length features in the same year. Hele Sa Hiwagang Hapis, clocking in at roughly eight hours, saw the internationally acclaimed director weaving loose threads that all tied back to the mythos of Andres Bonifacio. The film, which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival, also earned the praise of Meryl Streep, who chaired the festival jury. “This film, this guy,” said Streep of Hele and Diaz. “He changed the molecule system in my body.” Their jury gave Hele the Silver Bear Award of the festival.
Ang Babaeng Humayo was released in Philippine cinemas six months later, with a more accessible runtime of three hours and 36 minutes and the return of Charo Santos-Concio as an actress, playing the role of a framed schoolteacher.
Bad: RIP, Harambe
On May 28, 2016, a three-year-old child fell into the gorilla exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo, startling a silverback Western lowland gorilla named a silverback Western lowland gorilla named Harambe and prompting it to pick up the child and drag him around the enclosure. A zookeeper shot and killed Harambe, starting both a global debate about the use of lethal force in zoo safety protocol and a flood of posts immortalizing the ape online, including comedian Brandon Wardell’s viral “Dicks Out For Harambe” meme.
Wild: ‘Hamilton’ was everywhere
Let’s face it: most of us went through a Hamilton phase. The soundtrack to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s award-winning Broadway musical was played on repeat for the better part of 2016, and now we all know how America’s 10-dollar founding father wrote his way all the way to the top of the US treasury.
Good: It was a very good year for TV
Some of the best television of the 21st century came out in 2016. The first seasons of Stranger Things, Atlanta, The Good Place, and Fleabag all debuted ten years ago, while already established shows like Game of Thrones gave us even more memorable episodes (2016 was the year of the “Battle of the Bastards,” after all).
Bad: The beef between Taylor Swift, Ye, and Kim Kardashian
Although the bad blood between Taylor and Ye (formerly Kanye West) started way back in 2009 (with that VMAs speech), the feud made it back to headlines in 2016 when the rapper name-dropped his pop nemesis in “Famous” (ahem: “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that bitch famous.”) Taylor then proceeded to throw shade at him while receiving her Album of the Year award at the 2016 Grammys. Kim joined the chat when, in a GQ profile, she claimed that Ye had requested Taylor’s approval of the line in a call captured on video.
Wild: Clown sightings were a thing
Although the clown sightings seemed to be confined mainly to the US and parts of the UK, videos of individuals wearing clown costumes to freak people out went viral. Some “clowns” were pretty much just public nuisances, chasing people around and standing creepily in the dark. Others sported knives or machetes, adding to the already negative public perception of clowns. Clown copycats were reportedly spotted in locations across the Philippines, including Davao, Bohol, and Cagayan de Oro.
Wild: “Closer” by The Chainsmokers ft. Halsey was inescapable
“Closer” was one of the most unavoidable earworms of 2016, with radio stations blasting the single on an almost continuous loop for the better part of the year. You could have been at the club, in a grocery aisle, in an elevator, anywhere, and you still would have heard “So baby pull me closer in the back seat of your Rover…”
