been doing reviews of the Virgin Labfest 9 plays for GMA News Online. it’s the first time in three years that i’ve made the effort to see all three sets of new one-act plays within the first week, and the full-length play early in the second week. (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…)
once again social media Pilipinas and government officials are on the defensive, offended by references to Manila in Dan Brown’s novel Inferno. as i sit and read the novel — because there’s no other way to assess it really, but to read it — here’s something i wrote in 2010 for the now defunct metakritiko, about Filipinos and our inability to handle it when we are told some truth or other about us, and how we miss the point entirely half the time.
also this is what Cabinet official and MMDA Chair Francis Tolentino has said in response to Inferno:
More than your portrayal of it, Metro Manila is the central of Filipino spirit, faith and hope. Our faith in God binds us as a nation and we believe that Manila citizens are more than capable of exemplifying good character and compassion towards each other, something that your novel has failed to acknowledge. Truly, our place is an entry to heaven.
HAHAHAHAHA!
*****
(more…)
If there’s one play that had everything going against it, it just might be this one. After all, much ado about Cherie Gil playing Mrs. Robinson happened at the launch of Repertory Philippines’ current theater season. And that is to say: Cherie Gil. (more…)
It was difficult to celebrate Women’s Month at a time when the Pinay remains under attack, even when she’d like to think otherwise. To me it happens on the level of a beauty industry that has standardized what it is we mean by beautiful, as it does happen on the level of a Catholic Church that continues to take a stand against the Reproductive Health Law, after we have fought for it for 14 years. Scientific and common sense would tell this Pinoy Catholic Church that RH is nothing to fear, but we know how sometimes what we refuse to understand is the scariest thing.
We also know that at some point, the most absurd things | images | words can be so normalized by the media and the celebrity culture, that these cease to be absurd.
In that sense, it seems that a couple of days late, it is precisely the right time to celebrate the Pinays who are the dissenting voices and images in a sea of women who have been standardized by the beauty industry and celebrity culture. At a time when whitened skin and fake bodies have become the standard, at a time when we are telling our young girls that they need to look—and be—a certain way to achieve their dreams, here are the Pinays who seem to navigate their celebrity with an amount of independence.
So no, this isn’t about the thoughtless and careless celebration of self, as it is acknowledging those women on TV, online, in advertisements, who are able to navigate the shallowness of this current beauty and showbiz industries. Here, the Pinay celebrities who refuse to be boxed, sealed, delivered as mere puppets of impossible perfection. Because yes, nobody’s perfect. And someone who sells perfect?
It’s close to irresponsible.