If there’s anything that’s true about Marian Rivera, it’s that she doesn’t care what we all think: she presents to us what she is, which is probably the closest to a private self we’ve been treated to within the public space that is local popular TV and movie culture.
And when I speak of Marian’s private self, I mean the one that we don’t usually see of our celebrities, I mean that which is usually deemed unworthy of being made public. But Marian doesn’t seem to care that she doesn’t sound as classy or doesn’t move with as much finesse as the usual female star.
But maybe this is telling as well: Marian ain’t the usual run-of-the-mill female star that we see on local TV, and while she isn’t what we expect, I daresay that she’s exactly what we’ve needed all this time. And no, this is not the case of a diamond in the rough – that would mean having to smoothen it out and make it more acceptable. Marian, in fact, for all the negative publicity about her, need not change anything because she’s already the image that’s important for our times, and especially for women who consume popular culture.
The display window of Heima Store in LRI Design Plaza is all about Arlene Sy’s first exhibit of hand-drawn illustrations. Entitled Inflated Dreams, this collection couldn’t be ignored despite its small size of five pieces. It might have been the delicate colours and lines of the works, or maybe it was the fact that it played around with the image of balloons, and women. Maybe it’s all of the above.
Light Headed
Inflated wear
Two works seem cliché in their use of balloons as clothing, but what makes them unique is Sy’s ability to interweave such an obviously avant-garde idea with women’s faces that speak of so much more. In “Airier Than Thou” balloons in pink hues are worn around the body, a seeming random creation of a dress that’s bulky as it is formless. Here, the woman seems to be in action, hands on her waist, looking away from the camera and in the direction that her body’s angled towards. A cape seems to fly from her shoulder and disappears into the canvas’ edge, a strong black and white line that’s lightning-like and which contrasts with the bright round happiness of the balloons. There is a sense of flight here, of being carried by the balloons to elsewhere.
In “Light Headed” a bunch of balloons in various colours and designs make up a hat, the form of which is reminiscent of those that the members of the Royal family wear. That hat is about as big as the woman’s face drawn close-up, looking questioningly into the camera as if she need not be captured in this way. One hand rests against her neck; it holds a lollipop, that could be a balloon, that could be a lollipop. The lightness of this illustration is in this truth: if balloons were on your head, would you feel them at all?
Balloons held
Tread Lightly
An exhibit such as Sy’s wouldn’t be complete without the standard bunch of balloons held in one’s hand, reminding us of how high the sky is. In Sy’s hands though, this is rendered differently with the image of a girl with stringy hair, blush and lipstick, in a black and white striped tube top, holding in one hand a bunch of balloons that seem to fill the ceiling of the canvas. The contrast in color highlights what is about joy versus what is about stability, the sky versus the ground. And with the title “Bearable Lightness” Sy is able to make this less about cliché, and more about this: some lightness can be unbearable, where this one isn’t.
“Tread Lightly” meanwhile is farthest from being conventional or usual. Here, the balloons still seem to be in flight, but are drawn on the bottom of the canvas. A pair of feet wearing striped stockings is tiptoeing on the surface of the balloons, highlighting a struggle between the one above and below, with the feet being pulled down and the balloon being pulled up. Yet there is lightness here, as the feet refuses to break through the balloons, making the existence of both elements in the picture stable and powerful, a struggle that’s found balance. Maybe because of the pale hues of the balloons, maybe because all these works are on a white canvas, this just seems possible given the rest of Sy’s works in this exhibit. Or maybe this is all in the dreaming.
Inflated space, as space
Happy Birthday
Because this is ultimately an exhibit that dreams, given the way it handles the notion of balloons and air and lightness. This dreaming is taken to another level in Sy’s “Happy Birthday” which surprises in its use of the inflated balloon. Five different balloons surround and encompass a woman drawn from the shoulders above. Her angular face, tense lips, an almost frown on her forehead, a tense neck, and a gaze that’s strong and unwavering, distinctly contrasts with the delicateness of the balloons that surround this woman. It takes a while to realize that the woman is inside one of the inflated balloons, and her face doesn’t look at all like it is suffering for it. Instead this woman’s strong face becomes about resistance and endurance, in the face of what is impossible to survive. Or do in real life.
But we are reminded: this is about inflated dreams, and in Sy’s hands this isn’t just about balloons and its usual representations. Here, balloons are shown to be about the air within and without it, about being lighter than air and larger than life, about changing us by default because it necessarily invokes a certain kind of happiness that’s reminiscent of childhood. But most importantly, here Sy proves that you don’t need huge canvasses and heavy dollops of colour to make art, all you need is an imagination that can take flight and hands that will bring it to life, in all its delicateness, in all its airiness, in all its light.
But here being the most important point: the recent Juana Change video Mga Anak ng Diyos is just disappointing. For the most part, it barely gets a discussion going on the truths about the RH Bill versus the lies that are spread about it, nor does it bring the discussion to a level that’s more intelligent as it seems to just be screaming in our faces the whole time. Here, there isn’t a sense of how the RH Bill is NOT about being anti-Church or anti-God, how it isn’t at all about abortion, how it isn’t just about enjoying sex. And yet throughout the video words like cunnilingus, blow job, hand job are thrown around for no good reason and without a clear sense of what these mean vis a vis the RH Bill. This might get extra points for the daring to say these words, but it’s also ultimately dangerous to be throwing them around without a sense of what for.
There is also no good reason to include the issue of priests impregnating members of their flock in this – or any – discussion of the RH Bill. In Mga Anak ng Diyos, Juana herself plays the role of the woman whose first child is the offspring of a priest, now monsignor, the role which Lou Veloso plays, whom she faces in the present as the more critical follower who asks questions abou birth control and has had a ligation. This might be to concretize the hypocrisy of the Pinoy Church, or to point out that even Church leaders commit sins that are bigger than we can imagine, but to point it out here brings the discussion elsewhere other than the RH Bill. It also seems to be pointing a finger at the Church for being sinners too, when the discussion on RH shouldn’t to begin with be about sins, or immorality, or burning in hell.
First a confession: the only Survivor Philippines season I watched religiously was the first one, where JC Tiuseco won, where I was rooting for Nanay Zita and Kiko Rustia (he who kept a diary throughout his time on the island, aaaaw). Another confession: I stopped watching Survivor Philippines because I treat TV shows as one of those things you put in a box to return to your ex. Since I can’t actually do that, I’ve just learned to periodically let go of many shows on my TV list.
But I’m suddenly back on Survivor Philippines, a surprise even to me. And I think it’s because the show has changed, enough to make me forget about the things I equate it with, enough to make me think that it’s a different show altogether. Something that might be easily explained away by the fact that it’s the Celebrity Showdown. But things are never as simple as that.
No stereotypes here
One thing that’s most interesting about this edition of Survivor is that while it does have a set of celebrities, there is no major superstar, no box office king or queen that would’ve surely made ratings soar. Instead, many of the castaways are familiar in this I’ve-seen-her-somewhere-I-just-don’t-know-where kind of way, making the near stranger a real person to us, even when we barely know them from Adam or Eve.
Even more interesting? The fact that there aren’t any clear-cut and solid stereotypes here, i.e., the celebrity castaways weren’t introduced with labels that would tie them down and box them up for viewers. This is what the Pinoy reality show usually does for its contestants from the get-go, which also explains why there’s always a girl and boy next door, a mahinhin virgin, a mayabang hunk, a single parent, a working student, a loyal daughter or son, a geek, someone who’s poor and someone who’s rich, on local TV half the time. These stereotypical labels create characters that are presumed to be more interesting than just regular normal people.
And it is regular normal people that this season of Survivor is able to sell us. Instead of giving each celebrity castaway a producer-imposed stereotype, the castaways themselves talked about the roles they thought they’d play in the game, and were given labels based on these. These defining labels are farthest from the limitations of stereotypes, because definitions can change, are not cut-and-dried, not at all limiting. Instead it allows for a set of possibilities and impossibilities, the latter being the things that will necessarily be tested in the face of group dynamics and isolation on an island elsewhere. Instead it gives us a set of people who speak for themselves, versus characters that are limited by stereotypes, the ones that will surely capture our hearts.
I had high hopes for Banaag at Sikat, The Rock Opera, a promise of good music and singing, a contemporary retelling of Lope K. Santos’ original novel on the winds of change that would bring the country to revolt against the overwhelming conditions that capitalism and feudalism wrought on the nation. But as it began with fake guitar playing between friends Delfin (Al Gatmaitan) and Felipe (Roeder Camañag), attached to what then becomes a fake amplifier, and with dancing from a chorus many of whom seemed uncomfortable doing the robot and dancing hiphop, I had to wonder if this musicale meant to be funny.
Love and revolution, not necessarily together
Because it didn’t stop, not the fake guitar-playing, not the requisite head bang. The beautiful love song between Delfin and Meni (Ayen Munji-Laurel) could only lose its tenderness with Delfin fake-playing the song. In this First Act, the beginnings of love are introduced to us at the same time as the characters, all of whom are perfect stereotypes that exist in an oppressive feudal society. Cigar factory El Progreso is owned by Meni’s father Don Ramon Miranda and Don Filemon, both unforgiving and unapologetic capitalists, who refuse to raise the wages of their workers who are ready to revolt. Nyora Loleng is wife of Don Filemon but is mistress to Don Miranda, a seeming pawn to macho control more than a powerful woman.
