social media – Page 20 – Katrina Stuart Santiago

Between the wrong use of the word CHAROT by the Presidential spokesperson Erwin Lacierda, and Liberal Party’s Mar Roxas and wife Korina appearing at a gay power concert; between UNA’s Jejomar Binay having one too many spokespersons (Tiangco, Remulla, Salceda, Ilagan — talbog ang three-headed monster that is PNoy’s communications offices), and the consistent inability to handle criticism and media spin better; things are getting more and more confused and confusing, two candidates into the 2016 Presidential elections. (more…)

Ever since this open letter from 2011 I have not found the energy to make patol Jim Paredes at length. Maybe because I just stopped following him on Twitter, and ignored his Facebook all this time. Maybe because the world is a more intelligent place if I do not have to listen to the Jim Paredeses of this world.

And yes, I was able to keep it this way even throughout this PNoy Presidency, when Paredes revealed himself to be nothing but loyal to this President, for reasons that are beyond me. No wait, it is not beyond me. It is actually quite easy to explain: when it comes to PNoy, Paredes has become irrational and unthinking, an enamoured fan, who thinks the world of this President, who cannot do any wrong. PNoy is also the best President EVER. And yes, that’s a direct quote.

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It is always with a heavy heart — yes medyo OA — that I read / listen to discourse about the Marcos’s wealth of art and clothes and shoes, the ones that history tells us we have paid for, but which is handled with nary care or creativity by the powers-that-be as we get these back from the Marcoses. (more…)

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…)

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…)

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