Introduction Several years before I was even a teenager, I was already aware of the stare that boys and

even men give me sometimes and believe me when I say that I was never flattered by these, not even a single bit. From the solid stare that lasts up until I had already turned a corner and out of their sight to the stares that are accompanied by a whistle or an irritating Hi, Ate. Sure we are all friendly, but I could not muster a smile to these random persons when they say a greeting. Its different when youre inside of your own subdivision and your neighbor says hi to you, these persons that I am talking about are some random people walking down the street, not someone I know and in my opinion just wants some ego booster to start their day. I was offended by these stares because it was as if I was an object and not a person, parading down the street for everyone to look at. I do not want to feel this every time I walk down the street. It was not until my college years, specifically during my BC 181 classes that I got a clear picture of why I was feeling this way. Ever since I read Laura Mulveys essay entitled Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema, I understood why men have a tendency to stare at women as if theyre objects and not persons. Her essay introduced me to the male gaze and its capability to oppress the female gender. In this same essay I found out that the woman projected on screen in cinemas is just an accessory to the male character in the movie. The woman character in the story cannot stand by herself, the man defines her character in the movie which lead me to believe that there is no woman when it comes to movies. I applied Laura Mulvey in my final paper for this same class and it was a great awakening for me. I chose to critique the movie No Other Woman since it was the most popular movie that time. I was deeply offended by what I found out while I was making the paper. There was really no woman present in the movie. Both characters whether it was the mistress or the wife were all projections of the male desire unto the screen. They were not really authentic representations of a woman and the cinema wants us to believe that the character projected on screen is something that we all should relate to. When I finished the paper and was about to put the title on it, I immediately thought of the title There is No Woman in No Other Woman which sums up everything that I said in the paper. After I finished my BC 181 class I became a skeptic for representations of women projected on screen and flashed on television. Mulvey really had a great influence on me and I truly believe her especially after I applied her to my paper. Which is why while I was watching the then new television series of ABS-CBN entitled Nasaan Ka Elisa? and hearing my mother make a comment saying Ang landi talaga nitong si Elisa. I was deeply offended for the character. One, my mother was saying something wrong to someone who belongs to the same gender as us, yes she may be a fictional character but the character on screen still is a representation of our gender. Second, since I am a skeptic when it comes to women characters on screen, I definitely knew that something was wrong with her representation, she may also be

like the women in No Other Woman who are all projections of the male desire therefore making them non-existent as women. Lastly, for all we know her character was made up by someone from the male gender since majority of the crew for that series are males and the director of the series who calls the shots is a man. All of these plus the fact that I belong to the same gender that is easily and continually being oppressed by the media are the reasons why I chose to focus my study on the issue of womens representation on television. Not only do I want answers to my own questions but I also want to influence those who belong to the female gender to not easily believe what is being broadcast on television. As the 70s rallying cry goes, the personal is political. Thesis Sentence This study seeks to critique ABS-CBNs evening primetime television series, Nasaan Ka Elisa? focusing on the representation of the women characters to show that their appearance on screen, their visibility, actually causes their invisibility. Nasaan Ka Elisa? (Synopsis) ABS-CBN launched another adaptation of an internationally hit television series in September 2011 entitled Nasaan Ka Elisa? which according to the official website of the series is from the Chilean crime drama Dnde est Elisa? (http://www.abscbn.com/Feature/Article/10224/-Nasaan-ka-Elisa-premieres-on-Primetime-Bida-tonight.aspx, 2011). The plot of the series revolves around the search for Elisa Altamira, a young teenager who was considered as the perfect daughter by her parents, Dana Alatamira and Mariano Altamira. The Altamiras is a rich and happy family, they are financially stable and everyone in their family gets along well with each other. Here is a synopsis of the whole series. After attending a party for her father, she asked her parents if she can go out with her cousins and her sister and continue the party at a local bar. Although hesitant, both Elisas parents gave her permission to do so since, according to them, she can be trusted and that she deserves to go out for being such a loving daughter. Things got out of hand at the party with everyone getting drunk, Elisa dancing wildly up on stage and kissing her cousin. The night ended with the

disappearance of Elisa. A full-blown investigation is initiated by the police headed by Cristobal Rivas alongside his partner, Giselle Santillian. The once perfect family suddenly undergoes chaos as secrets were revealed about the true personality of Elisa. Although she is considered as a young, proper and respectable teenager by her parents, other people outside of their family thinks otherwise. An example would be her teacher in school who told Elisas parents that she has been skipping class in the past few days. Another would be Elisas own cousin who is deeply in love with her that he disregarded the fact that they were related by blood. As the search for Elisa progresses, the series also showed the different stories of each of the prominent female characters aside from Elisa. They showed how Dana Altamira, as a mother, coped with the loss of her daughter and the things she did in order to help with the investigation. She even had an affair with the head investigator after the police arrested her husband suspicions that he was the one who kidnapped Elisa. Cecilia "Cecile" Altamira-Caceres, one of the sisters of Mariano Altamira was also given the spotlight in some of the episodes. The series showed her strong ambition of replacing her brother as the president of their company. Aside from this, the series also featured her life story, how she was treated during her first marriage, her inevitable divorce with her abusive first husband and her relationship with her new found love, Bruno De Silva. Viviana "Vivian" Altamira-Rincon is the other sister of Mariano Altamira. She is different from her younger sister Cecille because she is not good and driven in their business. She could not handle her money and even got in trouble with her gambling debt. The series also showed how she was struggling with her dwindling marriage and even got worse when she found out that her husband was gay and was having an affair with another guy. Last is Giselle Santillian who happened to have deep feelings for her colleague and partner Cristobal Rivas. The more the story develops, the more the audience gets to know about its characters. The series ended with the police searching for De Silva after finding out that he was the kidnapper of Elisa. However more was revealed about Elisa when they found out that she was having an affair with De Silva and actually went away with him with her full consent. De Silva wanted to get revenge on Mariano Altamira and Elisa was his key. Elisa was oblivious of De Silvas plan for revenge and was immediately got caught in the trap. The series ended with a jealousy-driven and hysterical Cecille Caceres killing her lover Bruno De Silva after finding out his affair with Elisa

and then shooting Elisa as well. Elisa died after suffering from health complications in the hospital for her gunshot wound. As for Cecille Caceres, she was admitted to a psychiatric ward. Objectives of the Study This study mainly aims to investigate whether there is no woman present in the television series, as Jacques Lacan said, the Woman does not exist (Lacan in Homer, 1998 [1975]). This idea by Lacan is usually considered as the most offensive out of all his ideas on feminine sexuality (Homer, 2005) but what Lacan is trying to say is that the woman does not exist in the symbolic order. According to Lacan if the woman is to exist in a symbolic order this would result to two implications. One, the symbolic is phallic by definition and this would just contribute to the subordination of the female gender as what femininity is perceived by Freud, the lack of a penis. Second, it would reduce femininity to just a discursive construct which Lacan does not want. Lacan wants to leave open the possibility of there being something a feminine jouissance that is unlocatable in experience, that cannot, then be said to exist in the symbolic order (Copjec in Homer, 1994). Although there may be a lot of female characters in the series, these does not automatically mean that these characters are representative of the female gender. What we see is not always what we get. The study seeks to answer the question, How did the women in the series become invisible despite their visibility on screen? In order to do this, the study has five specific objectives. First is to identify the subordinated portrayal of the five prominent characters in the series. Second is to prove that these representations further strengthen the subordinated imaging and imagining of women on television. Third is to identify the presence of patriarchy in the series based on the representation of the female characters. Fourth is to prove that their visibility is in their invisibility. Lastly, to connect the portrayal of the female characters in the series to the current situation of the Filipina woman in society, their real visibility. Review of Related Literature There is no doubt on the power of broadcast media in influencing the people and gender has

been proven to be the most susceptible victim of this power with several articles published on gender representation in media. To be specific, one of the most violated, in terms of representation in media, is the female gender. Often, the female voice is provided little access to the situation or worse, it is completely ignored as in the case of advertising where women suffer the most oppression. Yes, there may be several telenovelas where women are the lead characters (e.g. My Binondo Girl, Daldalita, Rubi etc.) but do not overlook the fact that these characters may be played by women but are they really the accurate representations of the female gender? As Laura Mulvey (2003 [1975]) puts it in her essay entitled Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, the female character is only a projection of the male desire. This is the discourse that is dominating the current shows in the media. The media in the Philippines is led by the hegemonic discourse of patriarchy. Patriarchal Discourse Arminda Santiago (2004) quoted Foucault in her essay entitled The Liberative Role of Discourse in Articulating Womens Issues and Concerns in Filipino Melodramatic Films from 1990 to 2000 saying that discourse is a distinct world-view or conceptual structure that determines the nature of knowledge in a given period (Foucault in Santiago, 1972). She further adds by quoting Butler that, a discourse is considered to be an institutionalized way of thinking, a social boundary defining what can be said about a specific topic or possible truth (Butler, 1993). These said, it is obvious that discourse is very much a part of peoples lives and it dictates how they should think, feel and behave. Discourse is the one responsible for creating realities, spreading it and maintaining its influence across a society (Santiago, 2004). In the case of the Philippines, the dominating discourse is patriarchy. An evidence of the fact that patriarchy is the dominating discourse in the Philippines is the many published works challenging this discourse which obviously can only happen if patriarchy is the ruling discourse, and it surely is. Nigel Cornel attributed to Ehrenreich his definition of patriarchy saying that patriarchy is the total control and power of men over women. He further adds that it [patriarchy] extends to the public sphere where men are considered stronger and better than women (Cornel, 2011). Another is the dynamics of the Filipino home, when one looks closely, no one questions

why the women do the dishes, wash the clothes or cook supper and most of the time while they are busy getting things together in the house, the men just sit in front of the TV or read the newspaper. This type of behavior is an effect of the discursive characteristic of patriarchy. The separation of roles is normalized because that is what is being taught to the Filipinos since they were children, they were raised under the discourse of patriarchy. Another evidence can be found in the Philippine media. Why is it that in most TV shows, women are only used as an accessory or treated as an object? A perfect example are the dancers in noontime shows such as GMA 7s Eat Bulaga and ABS-CBNs Happy Yipee Yehey where the women dancers are all dressed in skimpy, super short and sheer outfits. When one really thinks about it, do they really need to be dressed in that way? The answer is a simple no but because the Philippines is a patriarchal society, these girls are made to wear these outfits because they are sold to what Mulvey calls the male gaze. The woman is the image being looked at while the man is the bearer of the look (p.47). Lastly if one observes all the advertisements being broadcast in Philippine television, majority of it caters to the female audience. From shampoos to facial wash and slimming creams, the female gender is the target of the bulk of these commercials. One might ask what its relation to patriarchy is. The vast number of products and commercials being sold to the female gender is evidence that they are pressured to always look good by no other than the male gender. In most of these advertisements, the selling point is that after using whatever product is being advertised, the woman becomes more appealing to the men. She becomes more suitable to the taste of the male gender and has a higher chance of impressing him. All of these evidences clearly point to only one fact, that the Philippine society is a patriarchal one and that the women are the most affected by this discourse. Discourse plays an important role in this paper since this paper deals with mass media which can easily form the discourse of its audience. Add to that the intrusive nature of television and the result is an audience that has trouble differentiating what helps lift up the status of women in society and what oppresses them more. This paper will use discourse to battle discourse, feminism up against patriarchy.

Feminism Feminism is a key term in this study since it plans on liberating women, it concerns women. It is important to first define the concept of feminism. Teresa de Lauretis (1986) defined feminism in her essay Feminist Studies/Critical Studies: Issues, Terms and Contexts A political instance, not merely a sexual politics but a politics of experience of everyday life, which later then in turn enters the public sphere of expression and creative practice, displacing aesthetic hierarchies and generic categories, and which thus establishes the semiotic ground for a different production of reference and meaning (p.10). Therefore, the main objective of feminism is to break all descriptions/categories where males in particular are considered to be the standard. Feminism aims to make the voice of the oppressed women heard and to make their presence seen and felt because up until now, womens voices are still pushed aside. All women want is an equal footing with the male gender. However it must be taken into consideration that a monolithic, homogeneous image of Feminism is something that must be resisted (de Lauretis, 1984). What is important here is to consider all the voices of the women and pay attention to their little stories. One must also be careful in using the feminist frame of reference. De Lauretis pointed out that a feminist frame of reference cannot be either man or woman because both of these are constructs of a male-centered discourse (p.13). This is one challenge to anyone using a feminist frame of reference who grew up in a society where the dominant discourse is patriarchy. It is deeply embedded into their consciousness that they may not even be aware that what they are saying already sways away from feminism and goes back to the lens of patriarchy. This is the most important point of de Lauretis essay, because the researcher grew up in such a strong patriarchal society and may commit the mistake of returning back to the lens of patriarchy that she got used to. Representation

It is important to define the notion of representation in this study since all the data that will be analyzed will be on representation. Also, the five characters that will be analyzed are all considered as representations of the female gender which adds to the importance of this concept. The author also believes that representation should be a major concern especially if it is broadcast on television, a platform that has a naturalizing effect. This means that what people watch on television may be considered as natural by them, that it is the right representation and worst is for them to feel that this is how it should be, this is what is natural, that they cannot do anything about it. Pennie S. Azarcon- dela Cruz mentioned something interesting in her book entitled ... from Virgin to Vamp: Images of Women in Philippine Media, Media has often been compared to air pollution, because of its invisible yet cumulative effects, and the often insidious way it has insinuated certain values into our lives (1988). This said, it is important that representations broadcast on television must be accurate and serves justice to whoever it is representing. In a patriarchal society just like the Philippines, representation of the woman in media is one that is problematic. The woman is always portrayed in an oppressed state as Rowena Festin writes in her article Ang Babae sa Pelikula, sa mga pelikulang sila ang bida,ang papel nila ay mataray, tamad o tanga kaya iniiwanan ng asawa o boyfriend, ambisyosang nagpapabaya sa pamilya, o puta hanggang kamatayan (p. 29). She also said that women are only accessories and are there to attract more audience especially in action and bomba movies. In this same essay, she quoted Adul de Leon, a famous theater and film actress saying, Hindi mahalaga ang babae, kaya puwede siyang alisin sa bandang huli. This just goes to show that the reason why there is not much attention given in providing an authentic representation of women is because they are not considered important and can easily be removed from the show. One way of challenging the dominant patriarchal discourse is through the authentic representation of the woman. Lana Rakow and Laura Wackwitz (2004) have an interesting point in finding the real woman on TV. According to them, When all is said and done, a real woman can only represent (as in symbolize) a real woman rather than be one, when the context is commercial media system of paid actors presenting fiction and news for entertainment purposes (p. 175). Having said this, they proposed a solution in the authentic representation

of humans in media texts: In order for authentic humans to appear in media texts as authentic subjects, we need a media system by which citizens could appear representing themselves as citizens rather than as paid actors or news sources or victims selected by reporters and editors. In such a case, the human subjects would still be representations but they would be representations of and for themselves, rather than of other characters or symbols and for the benefit of those who have hired or selected them (p.175). De Lauretis (1986) also made an important point regarding representation in her essay. She said that the body is continually and inevitably caught up in representation (p. 12) Therefore, the body can be used as a tool in liberating the female gender by coming up with more authentic representations of women using their own body. In this study, the author will defer from imposing which representation of women is more accurate because this is the patriarchal upbringing that is talking. As much as possible the author will only point out why these representations found in the series contribute to the continued oppression of the female gender. The author still sticks to her skepticism of the television as the medium for looking for the accurate and authentic representation of women.

Synthesis of Review of Related Literature This section is divided according to the topic of the literature discussed. The first part discussed the concept of patriarchal discourse which is important in this study since the author believes that the presence of patriarchy causes the invisibility of the women in the series. Among the works used were the article of Arminda Santiago, the undergraduate thesis of Nigel Cornel and a little of Laura Mulveys essay. This section is important to the study since it established the presence of patriarchy as the dominating discourse in Philippine society and its effect on the

status of the Filipina women in society as well. The second part of this section discussed the article of French feminist, Teresa de Lauretis entitled Feminist Studies/Critical Studies: Issues, Terms and Contexts. This article basically established what feminism is and what its objectives are as a political stance. de Lauretis was used to provide the definition of feminism because of her relation of the concept to the public sphere and to the creation of meaning. These are important concepts in this paper because the study deals with a series that is broadcast publicly in a wide audience and the focus of the study is on the creation of meaning, that is the representation of women. The third and last part of this section discussed representation, another key element in this study. The work discussed is the book of Pennie S. Azarcon-dela Cruz and the essay of Lana F. Rakow and Laura Wackwitz. The book of Azarcon-dela Cruz was a good source of the different portrayals of women on television during the 80s and somehow still applies to the representation of women present in Philippine television today. However, this study will be different from her book since her book relied on empirical data to come up with the results. This study will be different because it is a critical analysis of the representation of women using a theoretical framework and no empirical data will be gathered. As for Rackow and Wackwitzs essay, it was chosen since it provided the concept of authentic representation of humans in media. The author agrees that an authentic representation in media is badly needed especially on the representation of women, however, this study will defer from imposing what an authentic representation exactly looks like. The author also maintains her skeptic stance on the media as venue for providing an authentic representation of women. As long as the media specifically television, has not yet satisfied the need for an authentic representation of women then this medium is not a good place for looking for one. The author is fully aware of the fact that women representation in media has been the subject of numerous studies already but this study will be different since it will use psychoanalysis to prove that the very visibility of the women characters in the series actually causes their invisibility.

Framework Laura Mulveys Male Gaze An important aspect of this study is the act of looking. Mulvey quoted Freud on his association of scopophilia or pleasure in looking with the objectification of people and subjecting them to a controlling and curious gaze (Mulvey, 2003 [1975]). One of the main concepts that will be used in analyzing each episode of the series is Laura Mulveys concept of the male gaze. In her well-known essay entitled Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema published in 1975, Mulvey talked about the concept of the male gaze. According to her, the woman is the object while the man is the bearer of the look. The female character projected on screen is the projection of the male desires of the male gaze. The female character is styled according to these desires of the male gaze and they are looked at and displayed at the same time. It does not matter who the female actress is or if she is performing what the script wants from her, because in the end she is under the manipulation of the male who is the bearer of the look. This is an important point that must be taken into consideration by the study because although the character may seem to be liberated at first, the researcher must be more critical because the gaze is that of the male gender. The character although it may seem to favor the female gender at first might go back to pleasing the male gender in the end in order to restore the status quo. She also mentioned that since women have a traditionally exhibitionist role, their appearance on screen results to a strong visual and erotic impact, therefore they have this characteristic called to-be-looked-at-ness. The male can never be the object because the male spectator according to Mulvey is, ... reluctant to gaze at his exhibitionist like (2003 [1975]). This will explain why only the women are objectified on screen. This will also help find out if the representations of the women in the series are based on stereotypes that were made by under the patriarchal discourse and clearly shows the projected male desires to the women the is seen on television. The female character shown on television experiences a double hit from objectification, one comes from the male characters inside the narrative itself while the other comes from the male

gaze coming from the audience. In this sense, the female shown on screen is controlled by the male character on-screen as well through the identification of the spectator with the male protagonist. This identification with the male protagonist on screen and the eventual control the female character gives a sense of omnipotence to the spectator because the power of the male character on screen unfolds simultaneously with the ...active power of the erotic look (Mulvey, (2003 [1975]). This was proven in the introduction when the authors mother directly accused Elisa, the lead female character as being malandi. The character of Elisa was objectified by the male characters inside the series itself and was also objectified by the male gaze of the mother of the author, a part of the audience. Cinema as well as television tries to minimize the intrusive characteristic of the camera. They both make the audiences feel as if they are part of the story. In this sense, the audience/spectator becomes fully submerged in the story that they cannot step back and analyze what is really going on on-screen. The audience cannot criticize whatever is shown on-screen because they are so attached to the pleasure given to them. In this sense, according to Mulvey, because the material existence of the recording process and the critical reading of the spectator are both absent then, ... fictional drama cannot achieve reality, obviousness and truth (2003 [1975]). Lastly, in cinema there are three different looks according to Mulvey: that of the camera as it records the pro-filmic event, that of the audience as it watches the final product and that of the characters at each other within the screen illusion (p. 52). These three looks may also be applied to television as it almost always undergoes the same process of production as film. All these are important in looking at female images because there may be different interpretations of the female image in different sequences of the broadcast text. Lacanian Psychoanalysis Jacques Lacan is the most influential psychoanalyst since Sigmund Freud (Homer, 2005). He was chosen for this study because his version of psychoanalysis is not confined to applications in psychology. His theory can also be applied to culture. His theory will be used in this study but not as in-depth.

Psychoanalysis is most famous for its concept of the phallus, but it is important to note that in Lacanian psychoanalysis the phallus is not automatically equated to the male genitalia. The phallus in Lacanian psychoanalysis is a signifier, it is not simply the idea of the penis but it is both the penis and the recognition of absence or lack (Homer, 2005). Sean Homer provides a clear idea of such a confusing concept in his book Jacques Lacan; ... the phallus stands for the moment of rupture when the child is forced to recognize the desire of the other; of the mother. The mother is refused to the child in so far as a prohibition falls on the childs desire to be what the mother desires (Rose 1996a:61). The phallus, therefore, always belongs somewhere else; it breaks the mother/child dyad and initiates the order of symbolic exchange. In this sense the phallus is both imaginary and symbolic. It is imaginary in that it represents the object presumed to satisfy the mothers desire; at the same time, it is symbolic in that is stands in for the recognition that desire cannot be satisfied. By breaking the imaginary couple the phallus represents a moment of division [that of lack-in-being] which re-enacts the fundamental splitting of the subject itself (Rose 1996a: 63). As a presence in absence, a seeming value, the phallus is a fraud. (Homer, 2005) The concept of the phallus is important in this study because the lead character, Elisa can be considered as the signifier of the lack. She signifies the lack of the relationship between Cecille Caceres and Bruno De Silva which is why she disappeared in the series. She is what Lacan calls as the Other Woman, a fantasy figure filling out the void of the relation with a woman (Zizek, 1991). Elisa can also be considered as the phallus of her father Mariano, which is why Bruno De Silva captured her and took her away from Mariano in order to get his revenge on him.

Lacan (1998 [1975]) also made a very controversial statement, the woman does not exist. But according to Homer this reading is based on a fundamental misreading of Lacan (2005). What Lacan meant in this statement is that like the phallus which is a signifier of lack, the sign woman also has no empirical signified. Again, Homer provides a clear explanation of this controversial statement; There is no universal category of women to which the sign woman refers. To appeal to the notion of woman therefore as a homogeneous group is to appeal to an imaginary, amd therefore, illusory, identity. Furthermore when Lacan talks about existence, he is referring to something at the level of the symbolic. If the woman was to exist she would have to exist at the level of the symbolic and this has a number of implications. First, as the symbolic is phallic by definition, it would subordinate femininity to the phallus in the same way as Freud saw femininity as defined by not having the penis. Second, it would mean that femininity is a wholly discursive construct and that sexual identity is completely socially symbolically constructed. Lacan, however, leaves open the possibility of there being something a feminine jouissance that is unlocatable in experience, that cannot, then be said to exist in the symbolic order (Copjec 1994a: 224). Homer (2005) further explains what Lacan means as the woman being not-whole; To say that the woman is not-whole is not to say that she is in some way incomplete and lacking something that the man has but rather that she is defined as not wholly hemmed in. A woman is not split in the same way as man; though alienated, she is not altogether subject to the symbolic order (Fink 1995: 107). It is precisely because the woman does not exist that she is not-whole that she has access to something more than men.

Both these theory will help explain why the women in the series are all invisible despite the fact that the audience can see them on screen. They are invisible because according to Mulvey, they are just mere projections of the male desire. They are not their own and they clearly do not represent the gender that they belong to. As for Lacan, what he meant by the woman that does not exist is the perfect woman because she is just a fantasy figure. He also does not want to subject the female gender to more oppression by giving symbolical meaning to the word woman which is why for him, the woman does not exist. Lastly, according to Slavoj Zizeks application of Lacan in popular culture, The happy ending is never pure, it always implies a kind of renunciation an acceptance of the fact that the woman with whom we live is never Woman, that there is a permanent threat disharmony, that at any moment another woman might appear who will embody what seems to be lacking in the marital relation (Zizek, 1991). This will explain why the series ended with Elisa dead, because she is not even suppose to exist in the first place, she is the perfect woman who embodies the lack of the characters in the series. If the fantasy figure of the woman (Elisa) exist and occupies the same space as the empirical woman (Cecille) then there will ultimately be chaos because the two can never exist at the same time. Using these two frameworks, the author will prove that there is no woman present in the series. Mulveys male gaze will be used to identify how the female characters were constructed according to the desires of the male gender. It will also prove that patriarchal discourse is very much evident from the mere characterizations of the female leads in the series. Mulveys concept alone can already prove that the women characters are subordinated in the series but, since this study deals with invisibility, visibility and disappearances, Lacanian psychoanalysis will provide a stronger argument for these concerns. With Lacans controversial statement, the woman does

not exist, this study will prove that what the audience sees on television when watching this series, actually causes the invisibility of the women characters they are watching. Methodology In order to achieve all the objectives of this study, 10 out of the 90 episodes of the whole series will be deeply critiqued using textual analysis in order to get as much data as possible. In choosing the episodes to be included in the 10 which will be focused on, only those episodes where Elisa was shown was picked out. Also, every time Elisa was shown there was a new twist to the plot that is presented. As a help in analyzing each episode, a matrix was made by the author to plot all the information observed in each episode. Below is a sample of the matrices that will be used. Matrix 1 Episode Number Elisa Altamira Physical Appearance (clothes, whole look, stance, etc.) Dana Altamira Cecile Caceres Vivian AltamiraRincon Giselle Santillian

Matrix 2 Episode Number Elisa Altamira Mens Treatment of the Characters and their Response Dana Altamira Cecile Caceres Vivian AltamiraRincon Giselle Santillian

The copy of the series is a personal property of the author, this will give the author an easy access to information when analyzing the episodes of the series. The author will also look into the relationship of the women characters with the men in the series, their relationship with the other women in the series and their relationship with the narrative as well.

Scope and Limitation This study analyzes 10 of the 90 episodes of the whole season of Nasaan Ka Elisa? which aired from September 12 2011 until January 13, 2012 to get a rich pool of data to analyze. It focuses on the representation of the five prominent female characters in the series namely, Elisa Altamira, Dana Altamira, Cecille Caceres, Vivian Altamira-Rincon and Giselle Santillian. These women were picked because each one of them embodies a completely different type of woman from the other women characters in the series. The series is a great topic of inquiry because even before the show started airing on television, there was already a big hype on it. ABS-CBN was showing trailers and sneak peeks of the series which made the viewers curious about the program. A review from pep.ph by Bong Godinez even said that the series offered something new to the local TV landscape based on its crime-thriller plot (2011). Also, the show fared well in the ratings game. It even went ahead its main competitor show on the same timeslot, Munting Heredera, with a 26.7% rating in favor of Nasaan Ka Elisa versus18.2% ratings of Munting Heredera on its airing date. On its second day, the series had 30.3% ratings proving that a lot of Filipinos have tuned in and witnessed its discourse. This study will not examine the effect of the series to its audience and if the representations of the female characters in the series were absorbed by them. It will not also consider the explanation of the writers and producers of the show on the representation of the characters because the researcher believes that the author is dead (Barthes, 1967). Asking for an explanation from the makers of the series may influence the authors interpretation of the representation of the characters in the series. Also the study is limited only to the Philippine adaptation of the series and will not make any comparison to the original Chilean version as the author puts emphasis to the series effect in the representation of the Filipina on television. Lastly, the author acknowledges that Laura Mulvey has already published an essay in answer to the criticisms for her first essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema which is used in this

study. However, the author still deeply believes in Mulveys first essay and will only be using the male gaze heterosexually. Significance of the Study Representation of women on television has been the subject of numerous papers, but despite this there is still a need for critical studies on this topic as long as the woman on television remains invisible. Aside from the fact that this paper makes the power of feminist study stronger by contributing to the large number of works already dedicated to it, this paper is also significant to the continuing discussion on the representation of women by providing additional information from the data gathered. This paper is also significant to broadcast media because it challenges the oppressive representation of women that the industry is used to. This study challenges media practitioners especially those from the same gender as the characters in the series, to think of other liberating ways of presenting their own gender and eventually empowering it. Now is the time to take off the invisibility cloak from the bodies of the women on screen. The Philippine society also benefits from this paper because as Azarcon - dela Cruz says in her book, they (the audience) would be able to tell the difference between the unrealistic images used in media for business promotions, and their perception of themselves based on their capabilities aspirations (1988). The people will have a more conscious attitude when watching television that they will be critical on the representations being presented to them by the media. Overview of the Chapters This paper will have five chapters excluding the chapters for the introduction and the review of related literature. The first chapter will answer the first objective of the study which is to identify the portrayal of the five prominent characters in the series. In this chapter each of the five female characters representation in the series will be scrutinized. It will discuss how the women were presented in the series, from as specific as the way they were dressed, the way they

were asked to move and speak, the role they play on screen, to how the male characters treat them and how they respond to the male characters, among others. The second chapter provides the answer to the second objective which is to prove that these representations further strengthen the subordinated imaging and imagining of women on television. From the observations noted and discussed in the previous chapter, the researcher will now look for those which demean and oppress the women in the series. The observations from the first chapter are just mere observations on what is immediately seen on screen but this chapter will now dig deeper to these portrayals and apply the framework of the study. The observations will now be analyzed. The third chapter will answer the third objective which is to identify the presence of patriarchy in the series based on the representation of the female characters. The author believes that the presence of patriarchy causes the absence/invisibility of the women in the series. This chapter will discuss the hegemonic influence of patriarchy in the series. This chapter will focus on the roles played by the male characters in the series and on how they embody patriarchy. However, patriarchy may also be present in the female characters in the series which is why they will still be analyzed. This papers fourth chapter will answer the fourth objective which is to prove that their visibility is in their invisibility. In this chapter John Bergers (1972) concept of the absent signifier will be used as a guide to prove that the visible female characters in the series are actually invisible. No woman exists in Nasaan Ka Elisa?. In this chapter it will also be discussed that the representation of the women in the series are made through what Laura Mulvey (1975, 2003) calls as the male gaze. The female characters were just the projection of the male desire. The audience may be composed mainly of women since this series caters to them, but that does not necessarily mean that they are not looking through the male gaze. Finally, the last chapter of this paper will connect the portrayal of the female characters in the series to the current situation of the Filipina woman in society. These representations have

implications on what the Philippine society is. The researcher believes that the representations seen in the series are deeply rooted in the patriarchal society of the country.