kultura

on the “fiction” of the “fil-am”

now truly on pregnant pause, but elsewhere, more relevant discussions/blog entries are happening. this is sir edel garcellano on eugene gloria’s use of a real-life gelacio guillermo as subject of his poetry. and when taken to task about what it is he does create of guillermo, gloria invokes the “fictionality” of poetry. kumusta naman, e buhay na taong may malinaw na pulitika at kasaysayan ang pinaguusapan. another man’s fiction as a real man’s life? gamitan kung gamitan?

Gloria must be running around with a writerly hood given to pursuit of radical chic & grants that would spark their prodigious explosion in the American market.

 

Gloria had probably in mind his fellow workshoppers who would spike their texts with ethnic Filipino exoticism & filiation that would allow minority discourse researchers to put them under their radar, so to speak.

 

Is this the imperative of Fil-Am writing? Making use of tribal ethos & valorizing the drift toward the counterrevolutionary? Identification & skin color are not enough for one to speak on behalf of a country that simply serves as reference point.

such a great assessment of the whole enterprise of fil-am writing, given how it is celebrated as the best thing that’s happening in/to philippine lit.

kultura

The Reality of the Disappeared

The premise of the disappeared is their silence. In Desaparesidos, Lualhati Baustista’s latest novel, what one is treated to is an articulation of these silences that the disappeared bear, over and above the lives that they live as names on a list of people who have been captured and jailed, raped and tortured, and killed. And while you might say Bautista has done this before, or that this story about the Marcos dictatorship is old hat, Desaparesidos is anything but a mere repetition. It is not a sequel of any sort to Dekada ’70, but is a re-telling of that time in history and how we are clearly and inextricably linked to it, even when we’d rather imagine otherwise. And it’s precisely because of this that it’s an important read for the times. (more…)

kultura

A Dose of Self-Conscious Pinoy Machismo

If there’s anything that made me pick up Isang Napakalaking Kaastigan by Vlad Bautista Gonzales, it was its size and title – the same things that allow me to pick up books by Milflores Publishing more often than I would any other publishing house. There’s something easy and light about the way their books are packaged, something that calls out to you as you browse through the Filipiniana section of any bookstore. And with prices that are almost always only equivalent to the price of a large cup of coffee in your neighborhood Starbucks, it’s easy to shell out for their seemingly endless set of new releases. (more…)

kultura

on the Filipinized Korean-novela

It is such a strange time for Philippine TV – and I’m not talking about reality television taking over our lives and creating many talentless stars in the process; nor about the fantaserye reminding us of how much we need to escape from the realities of rising oil prices and NFA rice lines. Both of these aren’t so much strange as they are sad.

What is strange is the rise of the Filipinized Korean-novela – a unique entity in a country where the Mexican telenovela Marimar was only Filipinized a decade after the original became a TV hit. This remake was something we actually had coming, given the too familiar plot of a poor simpleton turned rich powerful woman, ready to seek revenge, but is softened by her true love. It’s the stuff every other Pinoy soap opera is made of. (more…)

komentaryo

questioning the usual

an essay by Ninotchka Rosca, aptly titled The Usual Can Be Criminal, on the ways in which our notions of womanhood and the roles we play, allow for us all to be victims.

such an enlightening read, even when we can only truly imagine what our domestic helpers are going through as they sacrifice their own families for a life of discrimination elsewhere. my favorite quotes:

“Household work has been historically women’s slave shackles, rendering her a service unit in the family power structure, stunting her growth and development, erasing her sense of self.”

“<…> having a household servant impacts even the employer who slides into this semi-feudal role of patriarch and patron. I hope others will seriously develop a political economy of housework. A serious one.”