I agree with some of what Lourd de Vera says (or asks) Vic Sotto in his open letter. I agree that Bossing Vic should aim to do better than a movie filled with product placements. I agree that he should do better than a film where he’s not stuck with a non-kiddie-actor Yap and his mother Kris Aquino.
I disagree that this was all Bossing’s doing. (more…)
I have nothing but love for Charice. No, I am no fan really, but I find it infinitely interesting when popular culture icons give their mass audience the unexpected or taboo, or something difficult to talk about, something against what we know to be proper or consider as important. (more…)
there is no doubt in my mind that joking about the rape of a woman is a no-no, which is like joking that you will kill a faggot. these are black and white, they are premised on gender discrimination, these are violent thoughts we do not think, and do not think to articulate when we actually do think about them out of anger or spite.
and yet i get it, too, that really fantastic comedy, the kind that’s intelligent enough to be irreverent, can talk about rape without it being an attack on women, as it does become an attack on the men who think it correct. Vice Ganda was far from intelligent about this joke, and as such there is no saying that members of the audience “didn’t understand it.” (more…)
Over on Twitter, Teddy Boy Locsin claims credit for suggesting that actor Robin Padilla be brought to Sabah to help resolve the conflict. Locsin’s take on Robin of course is somewhat limited: he is charismatic, he is handsome, he can make people stop doing what they’re doing, Locsin says.
But in fact Robin’s iconography, his history as icon, reveals how while he might be all these adjectives, what is far larger than his charisma and looks is what he’s done, how he’s involved himself in issues political and religious, how these tie together to reveal a whole image that is in fact quite credible. He is after all one of the more sought after product endorsers of, wait for it, health products.
It’s easy to think that we’ve forgotten Robin’s younger more rebellious self. Of course in the landscape of popular culture in this country, it is highly probable that the Bad Boy title is what makes Robin even more credible. After all, how many of our icons can turn their lives around? (more…)
It’s difficult to imagine childhood without Dolphy, even when all he was to me was the image of a father on television, even as who I identified with was Maricel Soriano or Claudine Barretto playing his daughters in two different sitcoms, across two different generations. At some point this father image became interwoven with that of Enteng Kabisote, father to Aiza.
The images are real to me, the characterization of fatherhood that was protective but had difficulty providing, that was faced with the rich mother-in-law who disapproved, that struggled financially but had a posse who depended on him, underground as the economy was that they all created and fueled. (more…)