Based on the Filipino komiks of the same name, Trese is a Netflix animated series that follows Alexandra Trese as she solves supernatural crimes and uncovers mysteries that threaten war between Metro Manila and the supernatural world.
The series, clocking in at a total of six 20- to 30-minute episodes, is ultimately undermined by its incredibly short runtime. It unfortunately feels more like a proof-of-concept, rather than an actual series, with its rushed plotting, barely developed characters, and generic caricatures of Filipino mythology.
While it is wonderful that Metro Manila and the Philippines’ folklore is getting major representation in genre television on a global scale, the representation feels lacking and even downright mishandled at times. While the adaptations of beings such as the duwende, the santelmo, and the aswang aren’t incorrect, the series does have the tendency of depicting them through the lens of certain archetypes, which doesn’t truly capture their uniqueness or interesting lore as much as it should.
In most cases, the Filipino mythology depicted in the series seems to have been dumbed down to just generic creatures with different sets of supernatural powers. While watching the series, I never felt that audiences outside of the Philippines would walk away knowing what lamang lupa is, or what makes the different aswang interesting, or who the White Lady of Balete Drive is. As the series progressed, it just felt like a checklist: there’s the ghost character, there’s the monster goon henchman, there’s the earth golem, there’s the one with lightning powers, wind spirits, etc.
The series doesn’t have to be a lecture on Filipino culture and mythology, but it can at least act like it’s passionate about sharing what has kept Filipino culture and mythology interesting, layered, and enduring through the many colonial periods and occupations. It feels more like an attempt to make our stories more palatable to a broad audience, which ultimately serves no one in developing a deeper understanding of our culture.
I never felt that audiences outside of the Philippines would walk away knowing what makes the different aswang interesting, or who the White Lady of Balete Drive is
A lot of criticisms and issues with the series seem to stem from this. Its broad use of folklore imagery and refusal to probe deeper into an understanding of its relationship with contemporary society could confuse people about what the show’s trying to say.
Take, for instance, the depiction of the corrupt politicians in the series (of which there is only one). Initially, the series makes some generic observations of how politicians are corrupt and extra dubious during election time. The series then surprisingly makes the politician’s arrest very easy, which indicates that it’s less of a systemic issue and more of a “bad apple” case (as no other politicians are seen in the series). Nevertheless, the series doubles down by later reintroducing the politician as a form of aswang who strangely now, for some reason, wants to burn down Malacañang (lending more credence to the “bad apple” reading). But then the series shifts gears again and reveals the politician as a mere unwitting pawn to a war deity. You can see where a lot gets lost in translation.
There’s that underlying issue of bad coding that plagues this series, and it’s fueled by blank slate characters with poorly developed motivations and very middle-ground politics.
There have been online debates on whether the series is anti- or pro-police, while the series itself doesn’t seem to want to give a clear answer. It seems to want to play both sides, with the shallow conclusion— “the system is good, it just has bad people in it sometimes.” The series has characters mouthing easily “screencap-able” pieces of dialogue that serve as “commentary” because they’re easy to share online.
Truly hard-hitting, challenging commentary would have the “good” cop perform vile deeds during the runtime of the series itself (and not just as a backstory told through dialogue), and have Trese reconcile herself with that. She’d have to accept that the person she’s known for a significant portion of her life as an ally/force of protection is actually a figure of cruelty and injustice to the less fortunate.
That’s more challenging commentary, as millions of people around the world currently struggle with the same issue, having to wrap their heads around the fact that the institute they know to stand for people’s protection and service is actually deeply broken. The alternative is what the show depicts—a system that the characters merely say is broken, but is ultimately redeemable and worth preserving, thanks to those who put in the “good work” (such as Trese’s police chief ally, who makes the heroic sacrifice in the series).
The truly abhorrent subject matter to be discussed is its depiction of abortion
It’s a bit surprising that the conversation surrounding this series is about its stance on the police, when the truly abhorrent subject matter to be discussed is its depiction of abortion. In episode 3 (the tiyanak episode), the series goes out of its way to portray the woman who had an abortion as a two-faced, insane woman. She wears a white dress for most of the episode until it’s revealed that she had an abortion, after which she’s tainted with blood and depicted as impure. Trese herself even calls the woman a monster after it’s revealed she did it for her career.
While the main character’s dialogue is definitely not to be taken at face value, it’s unimaginable that the series doesn’t even depict the grey area, the natural emotional and psychological pain that could come from abortion. It just shows the woman as a raging, career-centric, superficial liar, in the lore of the tiyanak.
The series doesn’t even attempt to adapt Filipino mythology to contemporary times, with a level of understanding that goes deeper than “wouldn’t it be cool if these myths were real in the modern day?” It could have delved into the original belief system behind the tiyanak, and how the mythology was manipulated by Spanish colonizers to mean abortion and unbaptized babies. It’s a shame that Trese is a Netflix series putting Filipino mythology on the world’s stage, and it’s not allowing the audience that level of insight.
Trese is a series about the merging of real-world institutions and Filipino beliefs, but the series itself doesn’t seem to understand what that relationship exactly is. There are scenes dedicated to powerful beings of Filipino folklore having council meetings about the fate of the spirit and human world (i.e., the fate of millions of unaware people), and yet the series still doesn’t raise any interesting investigation into the relationship between belief and society.
The series does know how it wants to depict its Manila noir: impoverished communities, citizens joined together only by the struggle of the daily commute, the synth score taking over with the rush of Manila nightlife. However, the series never takes the steps needed to understand the factors that contribute to society’s suffering. And for a crime noir show steeped in mythology, it’s pretty baffling that it fails in that.
Credit: Netflix Philippines/YouTube
