Category Archive for: media

komentaryo

#YesAllWomen

i had watched the hashtag #YesAllWomen take a life of its own on Twitter, and was fascinated that while it didn’t trend in the Philippines, the tweets from elsewhere in the world (mostly the US it seems) resonated with this Pinay so removed from that context.

i’m the last to imagine universality to be a valid enterprise, imagining as i do that we are always more complex than just being / standing for / standing against one thing. yet it is feminism still — no matter how it is not named such, no matter that it denies this label — that i realize i fall back on, if not go back to. (more…)

kultura

Fight the fakery (The beauty deception Part 3)

The first two installments on Beauty Deception spoke of how far we go, how complicit celebrity culture is with, and how media enterprises fall into the trap of, the beauty industry. And when we speak of the latter we do mean the bigger ideology of perfection, one that’s achieved via treatments and plastic surgery and every nip and tuck imaginable; one that’s achieved by selling images of real women perfected via photoshop.

Image is all, and yes our female celebrities are about the creation of this image. But it need not be a shameless display of skin whitening products and new cheekbones, of perfected skin and long sleek hair. It need not be tied to one kind of woman, with one particular look that is intertwined with success and freedom, happiness and woman power.

That no one seems to care, that there is no real intervention in media, is a dangerous thing. Imagine the generations of young girls who will think white(ned) armpits and vaginas, long black hair, a thin frame, are all important. Imagine the kinds of Pinays we raise when we intertwine gender equality with a shampoo advertisement selling long shiny black hair.

A public that cares

Elsewhere in the world a vigilant public is critical of plastic surgery in celebrities. The media question drastic weight loss (especially in young actresses). Photoshopped images are the enemy. This outlook is borne of a belief that these images are imbued with a particular set of standards for beauty, one that is intrinsic to any celebrity culture. These images are dangerous because these make people believe in an ideal which—given photoshop and cosmetic surgery—is also impossibly perfect and unattainable.

No one escapes these images, but publics elsewhere expect celebrities to care about how their (fake) images affect their audiences. (more…)

kultura

rising to the occasion: on “Cock” and the text as king

My refusal to compare foreign texts with local ones is based on the notion of independence. That is, I’d rather grant a local work with as much individuality as possible, and save it from what — to me — would be a false because unfair comparison with foreign work that I (on most counts) would not have seen anyway.

I imagine I can be criticized for having such tunnel vision, or allowing local theater such leeway when critiquing its adaptations. And yet this is really more about my limitation as a writer: I will not pretend to know what the foreign stagings look like when all I’ve seen are clips of these on YouTube. I’d also like to think that much might be gained from acknowledging these limitations and working with nothing but the play in front of me and my intertextuality.

Cock poster via Red Turnip Theater.

The years  (limited as it is) have provided me with a sense of these limitations. With nary the budget for the grandness of musicales, and sometimes the lack of imagination for sets that actually work, what we do always have and consistently is the talent.

And then of course, there is Cock.

(more…)

kultura

The Rappler-Pantene partnership (The beauty deception Part 2)

PROBABLY the worst kind of deception is the one cloaked in what should be the more respected labels of media and journalism. In the Philippines, a media organization commits the worst beauty deception. Because while it wants to discuss gender equality and women’s issues —which certainly it should—it does so with the help of . . . tadah! a beauty product.

It would be hilarious if it weren’t so irresponsible.

From product commercial to media project

This decision of Rappler to partner with the multinational shampoo brand Pantene in a #WhipIt series is highly problematic especially because it fails to discuss the more complex issues related to beauty and advertising, and being Pinay at this point.

This is not to say that a media enterprise and a beauty product cannot come together to cooperate on a project. But a purportedly critical and objective media enterprise cannot and should not do it, because it’s a finger pointed at its own biases for a particular product, its own perception of what is important given its partnership with a given shampoo brand.

Which is to say that were Pantene, in fact, a shampoo brand that celebrated diverse hair types and styles, that spoke not just of long straight shiny hair as the ideal, then Rappler giving it mileage by working with it wouldn’t be so bad. That would make it a media enterprise that intervenes in the dominant discourse of beauty, instead of reinforcing the unkind because un-natural look and feel of hair for a majority of Pinays.

Of course, Rappler might have been confused for a moment about Pantene. After all, they were kicking off from a commercial advertisement that got such mileage online and globally because it dared talk about how men and women continue to be treated differently, as proven by the condescending or judgmental labels against women when they do what men do: bossy versus boss, pushy versus persuasive, vain versus neat. In the end, the commercial asserts: Don’t Let Labels Hold You Back, Be Strong and Shine #ShineStrong #WhipIt.

That’s some ad copy. And that is all that it is. But Pantene will have us believe otherwise, and Rappler is just complicit in this product’s reconfiguration of woman power, all of which remain premised on its task of selling shampoo and the long shiny straight black hair that rarely exists naturally for the Filipina. (more…)

kultura

The beauty deception (Part 1)

I tell this story to any Pinay younger than me: there was a time when there were no billboards on EDSA, no advertisements for skin whitening or beauty clinics, no celebrities shamelessly selling everything from flawless skin to flat bellies, big boobs to silky straight hair.

This story is one that’s about difference, one that I hope will remind them of the superficiality of this current landscape of being Pinay, one that’s being enforced by mass media. It’s also always a reminder of how many steps back being woman in this country has taken, how many more steps back because of celebrity culture, and how many more steps into the dark ages because we are clueless about how to handle it.

Elsewhere in the world, the stand on fakery and Photoshopped photos, on whitening and plastic surgery is critiqued by celebrities, politicians, members of the media themselves. In this country, everyone’s in on deceiving generations of Pinays about beauty. (more…)