Tag Archives: Vicky Belo

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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…)

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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…)

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what needs to be said about Manny Pacquiao

No, my household didn’t spend that Sunday morning and the rest of the day excited about Manny Pacquiao’s fight. Papa was fast asleep and woke up only to leave for work. Mama woke up and asked: “May live ba tayo?” To which my answer was no, as always. Not one of the channels on our cable subscription could deliver a real live telecast of the Pacquiao-Margarito fight. Like the past eight other fights, we depend on over-acting super biased radio announcers on AM and FM radio to get a sense of what’s going on.
This time though my Twitter contacts kept me updated; Mama was looking at a live blow-by-blow on Yahoo; one of Mama’s FB contacts posted a link to some free live streaming of the fight – it was a dead link. The radio announcers were ecstatic and announced that the fight was Manny’s. Our TV was still on delayed telecast, showing an earlier non-Pacquiao fight: we were shaking our heads in disappointment. Manny’s advertisements came on one after the other; we shook our heads at the absurdity.

Even more so when it was tweeted that Mommy Dionisia had fainted, and the source of information was nobody else but Vicki Belo; even more so when the image of Jinkee, Manny’s wife, appeared on TV, in a slinky red dress and sleek straight hair, looking whiter than usual. Maybe just different.

All these inform this different perspective I take in viewing Manny, as I look at his particular celebrity and find that while it’s borne of his being the greatest boxer of our time, it is also extraneous to it at this point given its largeness, its breadth. Athletes like Manny are few and far between for this nation, maybe that’s why we don’t know how to reckon with what his fame has become, all-pervasive in the way that only a pop star’s celebrity is. Yes, even when we can’t watch the darn fight like the rest of the pay-per-view world.

the rest of “Pacquiao in Perspective” is here!

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check out charice’s cheeks, or it’s a vicky belo world, good lord, save us!

and no, this isn’t about hayden kho, at this point staying in bad relationships and publicizing them seems more stupid than it is unacceptable. but really, the way this woman has crossed that line between selling beauty and making it an ideology, even a religion, as if beauty is the end all and be all of our lives, and no do not tell me about artistas.

because there are plenty of artistas who don’t have, and will choose not, to go through medical and dermatological procedures to be “perfect”, plenty artistas who in fact refuse perfect and say, well, i’m talented, and what are  you?  we grew up seeing Judy Ann Santos’ big cheeks, and what did she do? when it was time she lost weight and lost it, too. Iza Calzado was a big girl on television, and yes with fuller cheeks, and the next this we knew she had lost weight and was being healthy about her diet.

there was no Belo to do an injection here, a tuck there, no Belo to tell them, well, this is what you need to be pretty. because what is this pretty that Belo sells? plumper lips? less of a chin? pointed noses? deep-set eyes?

botox on those cheeks para “mawala ang bulge”? thermage on the face para “lumiit ang mukha”? good lord, Vicky Belo, when does it stop? and at what age,  praytell?

because to have even allowed Charice Pempengco to go through that botox procedure, one that’s suppose to bring back how the international singer looked three years ago! is just sick. three years ago she was 15! tell me, show me, how important it is that an 18 year old girl look like she’s 15. tell me how this is all important, the enterprise of the cheeks, let’s all get smaller faces people, this is what’s deemed important by the best-looking woman on the face of this third world planet.

and please, read up on the order of events, and realize that this whole TMJ ailment that they now say Charice had, ergo the botox and thermage? it happens after the fact. and really, if there was an ailment, why not go to a real doctor? Belo meanwhile had what seemed to her a perfectly rationale, albeit shallow, explanation for why she herself recommended these procedures to this young girl. Charice herself would go on to say that she wanted to look “fresh” for her Glee role.

well honey, that show has a guy in a wheelchair, an overweight girl, a chinky-eyed pale teenager, and big-mouthed wide-eyed lead star. the whole point of Glee is that these highschool nobodys, these stereotypical outcasts, find their voices and selves in the glee club through sheer acceptance of their flaws, as it is the realization of their talents. and i say to your supporters, google it and read up.

looking “fresh” is farthest from Glee’s repertoire. and so are smaller cheeks. elsewhere in the world, it is not a Vicky Belo aesthetic or ideology that rules. now Charice appears in websites like famousplastic.com and awfulplasticsurgery.com. how can that be a good thing?

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oh boy!!!

You know I was honestly pleasantly surprised at Vicky Belo for once, that Sunday when she dared say the unsaid, joke or otherwise, about competition and advertising. Because in recent years, since the whole beauty industry became all-powerful and all-encompassing, we have been bombarded with images that want to make us believe that everyone is equal where a cosmetic surgery and a beauty clinic are concerned. And while this all seems like the best thing to say, it is absolutely false. The inequality is even more clear when you put the billboards side by side: (more…)