Where's the variety in noontime variety shows? Whether you're a kapatid a la Magandang Tanghali, Bayan or a kapuso a la Eat Bulaga, your lunchtime television fare is manufactured from a single template. These variety shows are based on a common philosophy: it pays to make a fool out of oneself.

The typical noontime show spares no one. It makes fools out of the hosts by making them perform in idiotic production numbers, usually awkward versions of the latest hit movie (think papier-mache Yoda masks and Ai-Ai de los Santos valiantly trying to come across as Hermione). It tears to shreds the collective dignity of the studio contestants who hope to strike it rich by dizzily running through obstacle courses (MTB's Ano Ka, Hilo?); eating worms in contests inspired by foreign shows Fear Factor and Who Dares, Wins; or by begging a rat named Madeleine to scurry into the hole they bet on (MTB's Datsa Ratsa Money). As if that weren't enough, there's always that gaggle of girls in the background, gyrating to dance music that sounds as if it had been composed, arranged and mixed by nine-year-olds.

The girls are forgettable at best; they're so ubiquitous that they almost seem to be part of the set. Noontime shows always make a point to give them little clothing and even less personality. Remember the chains of paper dolls kids like to cut out of folded construction paper? Splice the DNA of a lap dancer unto that and you've got the Gee Girls and the Sex Bomb Dancers. Make them switch shows and you'd hardly notice the difference.

Then again, it's hard to ignore their presence. It's nothing short of disturbing to see scantily-clad girls, each thrusting her pelvis at you with the mechanical enthusiasm of the Energizer bunny in broad daylight. They don't come off as sexy, desirable vixens; they're just plain annoying. I give the Gee Girls credit, though, for keeping their mouths shut most of the time. The Sex Bomb girls' shrieking is shrill enough to wake the dead. How on earth they ever landed a recording contract is beyond me. Individually, they can sing (and some even sing quite well), but as a group... let's just say it's the ethical alternative to listening to a cat in heat being skinned alive.

What's even more disturbing than their dancing or their singing, however, is how these girls are becoming part of young, impressionable kids' lives. A recent party sponsored by our Sunday school took praise to an entirely different level when all the children who volunteered to perform (boys included) chose to dance to songs off the Sex Bomb album. None of the kids sang I Love You, Lord or Praise our Father; they preferred I Like and Bakit, Papa? To top it off, some girls are even considering the Sex Bomb life as a viable career path: last month, Miriam Quiambao interviewed a pair of grade school Sex Bomb wannabes for Extra, Extra. You know they don't make role models like they used to when young girls make it their lifelong dream to parade around on national television in stilettos and tube tops, get jiggy with hosts who wouldn't know what decorum meant even if it were written on their cue cards, and subject themselves to the male gaze in general. It's a feminist's nightmare come true.

Or is it? Some people argue that these gyrating girls represent a new generation of women making it on their own. Self-possessed and sure of what they want in life, they rise beyond their poverty to make something out of themselves. These girls make their own money through their own means, without depending on men.

But they are dependent on men. They depend on the mindset that half-naked, writhing girls will appeal to men and pull up the show's ratings. Empowerment also implies having self-respect. When the hype is over and the money is gone, what will these girls have learned? That being ornaments on a noontime show was the only thing they were good for? They may well wind up the biggest fools of all.