Black Eyed Peas video: "Bebot"
"Bebot" ["hot chick"] is another Apl.de.Ap song that they made into a video -- two videos, actually, a 1936 version and a 2006 version. And there are lots of Filipino bodies in them. Having watched both versions, I prefer the "Generation 1" or 1936 version -- better costumes, better choreography, and less stereotypical hoochie-mama dancing. Funny thing, I recognized several of the Filipino extras (a.k.a. "Background Talent") whom I knew years ago when I was an undergrad at UCLA. I knew them mainly through PCN. I guess that's not surprising when you consider that one of the producers/editors is also a UCLA alum who did PCN. I think the same company did the documentary on making-the-video for "The Apl Song." Click here to go to the videos.
"Bebot" is all in Tagalog, by the way, and the lyrics are fun. I like it when Taboo chants "Filipino! Filipino! etc." and when Apl does the "sige" calls, like "Kung maganda ka, sigaw na. Sige." ["If you're beautiful, shout now. Go on."]
Here's the press release, which quotes one of our Beauty and Power panelists and favorite pageant winner, Professor Dawn Mabalon:
Little Manila FoundationThanks to Prof. L for the tip.
BEBOT Press Release
The Little Manila Foundation
www.littlemanila.net
For Immediate Release: Pop Stars the Black Eyed Peas premiere video for "Bebot," set in Stockton's Little Manila neighborhood circa 1938, online on August 4.
STOCKTON, CA - On Thursday, international pop stars the Black Eyed Peas will premiere their new video for "Bebot," set in Stockton's Little Manila Historic Site, circa 1938. The video premieres in Los Angeles and in the Philippines on Thursday August 3, and online worldwide at http://www.kidheroes.net/bebot/ on Friday, August 4.
The Little Manila Foundation, which works to preserve the Little Manila Historic Site, hopes the video will be an entertaining history lesson for a young generation of Filipino Americans and young fans of the Black Eyed Peas, and that it will bring attention to need to restore the buildings. Last year, the Foundation purchased the historic Mariposa Hotel, a three story residential hotel next to the Rizal Social Club, which had been home to hundreds of Filipino immigrants through the decades.
They are kicking off a campaign to raise 1.5 Million to restore and revitalize the building, which will be the site of the Filipino American Cultural Center and Phase One of the Filipino American National Museum, a project of the Filipino American National Historical Society. The Foundation produced a mini companion documentary for "Bebot" at www.littlemanila.net that describes the history of the Little Manila area and offers a behind-the-scenes look at the production.
In the video, Apl.de.Ap (Allan Pineda), plays a young Filipino immigrant who visits a dance hall, the Rizal Social Club, in Stockton's Little Manila, in 1938. There, he rocks a crowd backed up by a jazz band. In its time, the Rizal Social Club, at 138 E. Lafayette Street, was a dance hall owned by a Filipino American entrepreneur, was one of the hottest spots in downtown Stockton's vibrant Little Manila neighborhood, which was the largest Filipino neighborhood in the nation from the 1920s to the 1970s.
"It's not just about doing a video," Apl told MTV News. "Filipino culture is like a community movement, and it feels good to represent my culture and to be embraced by my people."
"Actually, it's based on true history," director Patricio Ginelsa told MTV News. "I took Apl's farmer roots and placed him in the role of a Filipino farmer," Ginelsa told MTV news. "Back then, Filipino farmers had their day jobs, but all we looked forward to, though, was getting in our best suits and going to the best clubs - looking nice, and meeting all the bebots (hot chicks)!"
Ginelsa said he first learned about the significance of the Little Manila Historic Site and early Filipino American history on an extended trip to Stockton in the summer of 2000 to promote the Filipino American independent film The Debut.
"The Little Manila Foundation struggles to kind of keep all these historic landmarks alive and (they were) making sure they weren't torn down," said Ginelsa. "As a filmmaker, this was a story that needed to be told in some way. It was really their campaign to raise awareness about Little Manila that really inspired me, and I was able to make a music video with a worldwide band."
"I think it's important to learn something about Filipino American history that you can't read in your U.S. history books," Ginelsa said. "I learned about it while living in Stockton with the community leaders and the youth. It really inspired me."
"Bebot" which is loosely translated as "hot chick," recreates the world of 1930s Stockton. Few Filipino women immigrate to the United States before World War II, and Filipinos lived in a mostly-male world. To have contact with women, Filipinos flocked to downtown Stockton and Little Manila's dance halls.
In 1938, Stockton was rigidly segregated. In the video, Apl and the Peas pass a hotel emblazoned with "Positively No Filipinos Allowed." Such signs were common in Stockton and in many California cities before the Civil Rights movement.
Last year, Little Manila Foundation helped to save the original Rizal Social Club, now shuttered, from a wrecking ball. A developer had planned to raze the entire neighborhood, but community pressure from the Foundation, and a new administration at City Hall, prevented the destruction. The Foundation argued that the building, and the block, had historic significance for all Filipinos nationwide and in the Philippines. The fact that the multi-platinum Black Eyed Peas chose Stockton as the setting for the video for "Bebot" bears this out, says Dillon Delvo, executive director of the Little Manila Foundation.
"We are so honored that one of the biggest music groups right now chose to set their newest video in Stockton's Little Manila Historic Site," said Delvo, who was a consultant to the video. Delvo and members of the Little Manila Foundation traveled to L.A., where they assisted in the production. "We taught the band and extras how to cut asparagus, and talked with them about what life was like in the 1930s for Filipinos in Stockton."
Delvo said that filming the entire video in Stockton was too cost prohibitive with a large cast and crew, so they filmed interiors in another significant site - Historic Filipinotown in Los Angeles. The crew filmed exteriors in the Little Manila Historic Site. The video features cameos from Filipino American celebrities such as American Idol finalist Jasmine Trias and local Stocktonians.
The video project, produced and directed by Filipino American independent filmmaker Patricio Ginelsa and singlehandedly funded by the Peas' Filipino American member, Apl.de.Ap, was a labor of love for all involved. The Peas' record company had little interest in promoting the all-Tagalog single, but the group and the production company felt that it was important to bring an aspect of Filipino American history to the group's fans and to the larger community in general. It is unknown whether the video will receive airplay on MTV and VH-1. Online distribution, community viewings, and film festivals will bring the video to wide audiences.
The song's lyrics, all in Tagalog, describe Pineda's childhood in the Philippines, and his experiences as an immigrant in the United States. In the song, he expresses thanks to his Filipino American fans for their support. In the video, Apl plays a young Filipino immigrant who works in the fields cutting asparagus in the San Joaquin Delta all day, then dresses up to dance and perform at a jazz and dance club at night.
"Apl's real-life experiences as a Filipino immigrant in the United States who leaves a life of poverty in the rural Philippines, misses home, and struggles against racism to make a life in America, mirrors the experiences of early Filipino immigrants who came to Stockton in the 1920s and 1930s, so the song is actually very fitting to depict how these early Pinoy pioneers saw themselves," said Dawn B. Mabalon, a co-founder of the Little Manila Foundation, and a professor of history at San Francisco State University. Along with Delvo, she provided background research and historic photographs for the production.
Mabalon says the video is a good historical interpretation of life in Stockton's Little Manila in 1938. The video shows the Peas working in asparagus, and then getting dressed up at night to go out to the dance halls in downtown. "Filipinos came to the Central Valley and performed backbreaking work in the agricultural fields, particularly in asparagus, but at night, they had a reputation for being the sharpest dressers in Macintosh and zoot suits, the slickest dancers, the best jazz musicians," she said. "The video depicts all of that hardship and all of the fun that must have been life for Filipinos Depression-era Stockton. Because of the sex ratio imbalance of very few Filipino women and a lot of young, single Filipino men, the multiracial dance halls were like magnets to Filipinos."
Stockton was the party central for Filipinos in the United States, she said, an aspect of history depicted in the "Bebot" video. "Stockton in the 1930s was a wide-open town - gambling, dance halls, pool halls, saloons. To turn a blind eye, police were paid off handsomely - and so these young bachelors flocked from all over the nation to Stockton for fun," she said. Stockton in the 1930s, according to oldtimers, was even more fun than downtown Los Angeles or San Francisco, Mabalon said.
Historic photographs of Ernie Hernandez's 1930s jazz band from the 1930s, San Joaquin County asparagus crews, and photographs of young Filipinos dressed in snazzy suits taken on El Dorado Street in the 1930s were used as inspiration for the production design, down to some painstaking detail. The crew, for example, tracked down a similar guitar to the one used in the Hernandez jazz band photograph.
The Little Manila Foundation works to preserve and revitalize the last remaining buildings of the Little Manila neighborhood, which was ravaged by urban redevelopment in recent decades. Since 1999, the Little Manila Foundation has fought developers and demolition-happy politicians to save the remaining buildings, among them, the original Rizal Social Club. In 2002, the city designated four blocks of downtown Stockton as the Little Manila Historic Site. In 2003, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named the Little Manila Historic Site to their annual list of the 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in the nation.
Since then, the Foundation has successfully saved the neighborhood from imminent destruction, and works to educate the public about the need for Filipino American cultural and historic preservation in Stockton. They hope to restore and open the Mariposa Hotel in 2007.
"Our struggle continues as we begin the process of remodeling and refurbishing the Mariposa Hotel to help remind us of our past struggles but also to celebrate the contributions and our participation in building this country," said Rico Reyes, co-chair of the Little Manila Foundation. "The community's financial commitment is crucial to preserving and revitalizing the neighborhood known as Little Manila." Tax-deductible gifts can be sent to the Little Manila Foundation, PO Box 1356, Stockton, CA 95201.
Starting August 4, the Black Eyed Peas video "Bebot" can be viewed at http://www.kidheroes.net/bebot/index.html. The Little Manila Foundation has produced a short companion documentary to the video, which can be viewed at http://www.littlemanila.net.
21 comments:
hey girl, thanks for sharing this. i'm bummed my computer at work has no speakers. how interesting that jasmine trias and brandon vera are in these videos. interesting also, as you mention the hoochie-ish dancers of the 2006-version - i checked out some of the images on the website, and the hoochie-ish girls make remind me of how we can't seem to get ethnicity and gender right at the same time.
I'm with Barbara Jane on that. While I appreciate what they're doing for Little Manila and am happy that Apl isn't afriad to be publicly Filipino, there's still some gender issues that need to be addressed.
I just hate that when it comes to Filipinas/os and representation, it's always about giving the men a voice and image while reducing women to "hoochies who shake their asses for the camera."
Of course, as a Filipina (and a fat one at that), I'm obviously bothered by the limited representation. It's like what I mentioned in my conference paper. While Filipinas/os in the public eye are scarce, the ones that are have to be of a particular body type, look, etc. It's one thing that non-Filipinos exoticize us in particular ways, but it's even worse when it's us doing this to ourselves.
Furthermore, there's something about the mom in the 2006 version that irritates me. Why is it that the only Pinay with meat on her bones is reduced to an accented character? Is this how we typically see our own mothers?!
UGH! I'll stop.
hear hear to both of your comments.
yah, the 2006 version reminded me of rap and hip-hop music videos, but also of the car-show mentality so popular in asian america. one of the profs on blackprof.com had this to say about media portrayals of black women: "The BET story reminds us that Black folk can disrespect Black women with the best of 'em." seems like we're seeing the same thing in our filipina/o community. the thing is, i figure ginelso, b.e.p., et al. are just trying to increase the chances of the video getting shown on mtv and vh1 because the song has the language going against it. sad comment, though, on our society.
also, did either of you notice how light-skinned the filipinas are in the 2006 version? i think that's why i was reminded of a car show, full of east asian americans. and joanne, i totally feel you on the irritating mom. i just shook my head at the awful overacting. my own mother, who also has an accent, is much more charming when meeting her kids' friends.
anyway, i still like the song, although i don't understand why it's called "bebot" when the rest of the lyrics seem to be about filipino pride rather than babes.
of course i noticed that all the pinays were light-skinned. again, it goes along the same lines of who gets to be shown and who has to stay out of sight. for some reason, the female casting was off. aside from the skin issues, back in the day, the women who danced in the taxi-halls were mostly white and mexican. i guess they didn't (care to) do enough research...
i wonder if this oversight is reflective of the filipino male director's fixation with white women. (okay, i know this is harsh considering i don't know the guy. however, look closely at the videos and documentaries [bebot and the apl song]. in the group, fergie always manages to have the last word. intentional or not, i do think it speaks volumes. besides, i highly doubt the casting director can use this excuse: we just couldn't find any mexicans for our video!) hmph.
still sorting my feelings about the video and i hate feeling this way. happy to have a video. pissed because it didn't go the distance.
damn i just lost my comment.
let me try this again.
i see what you mean, joanne, about sorting out yr feelings abt this video. i too appreciate apl's willingness to be so openly and richly filipino. some of these lyrics really do make me smile: "kung buhay mo ay mahalaga ... sige!" so then, there's this - the mother character really bugs me. she's this perpetual foreigner with that super-exaggerated accent, but on top of that, it's like she's so robbed of her femininity as she acts so rabid. not like a tough or strong mom, but almost like a coarse manly mom.
note also the double standard: for all of the midriff-baring skinny, peroxided pinays, some practically falling outta their halter tops, there's little sister jasmine, for whom big bro apl is constantly fending off pinoys who are kickin it to her. must be some virgin-whore dichotomy stuff going on here. can't we as a community do better and ask for better than this?
still, again, this song and video are a milestone for filipinos in mainstream media/american pop culture.
*sigh*
i'm so with you both on feeling ambivalent about the "campaign" that apl and ginelso have embarked on to get this video into mainstream channels. the male gaze is so overwhelming in these made-for-mainstream filipino american media productions.
specifically re: the fergie focus -- i'm not saying i know-know the producers, but i do remember conversations i used to have with people at ucla who were in the same circles as one of the editors and co-producers (aj calomay) about how people of color could "break into" the mainstream (believe it or not, i used to be in a girl singing group in college, and we were "produced" by a relatively popular filipino/indonesian/black singing group called ja'a who started a production company called unity produksyons, so we were always trying to figure out how to gain mainstream attention). given the sexualization of the pinay body in the 2006 version, i don't think there was undue focus on fergie; i mean, fergie is supposed to be part of the group and therefore has to get some of the spotlight, not least because she's generally fetishized in their other music videos as 1) the only woman and 2) the only white person in the group. so i'm saying that perhaps the focus on fergie in the documentary is that, as a sexualized white woman, she seems a sure way to get some publicity, rather than the reason being a personal fetish on the director's part.
ultimately, i agree that some of the choices the director and casting peeps made, like not explicitly including mexican and african american women to also play the "dime dancers" in the 1936 version, are particularly disappointing. bj, i think you're right on about the virgin-whore dichotomy going on in the 2006 version re: jasmine trias's character. it's a way of making apl's character seem more sympathetic, as the protective older brother. same ol' stuff we've seen in other filipino american-made films, no? and that, along with the mother (asexualized both because her body type is so pointedly differentiated from the other pinays as j said, and because of her rabidity as bj said), immediately turned me off from the 2nd version. but i bet that it's the 2nd version that gets airplay on mtv, if the song gets any airplay at all.
I never liked this song to begin with. I never did get why the song is also titled bebot. The song seems to be about immigrant experience and then randomly all of a sudden you have the chorus talking about "ikaw ang aking bebot" (you are my hot chick). Maybe I'm dumb, but I never got the relationship between hot chicks and Apl's immigrant experience.
I also never liked the song because the word "bebot" is used to objectify filipinas. Growing up I always heard this word used by men in perceiving women as sexual obejcts but there's also a tone of ownership that comes with this word, the very same manner this word is used in the song. I'm having a hard time to explain and find the right words today, but it's about men circumscribing/ascribing terms to women that degrades women into mere sexual objects that can be owned. There's definitely unequal power and gender relations thing going on with this word.
As you all said, I also feel ambivalent towards the song and the video and yes I also disliked the newer generation video because of the points of treatment of filipino women, body, etc. on it. I also find making the mom overtly annoying because of her accent and the way she asks quite offensive. Yet, at the same time, I'm sort of glad that we have something like this out in the mainstream.
damn, fritzie, now i'm leaning towards not supporting this song at all. like i mentioned earlier, i also don't understand why apl titled the song "bebot," but your argument against the word itself is making me think twice. is it like a man of color titling a song "my bitch" or "slut" and then talking about ethnic/racial pride? that's fucking disturbing. tell me it's not that bad....
but it all sort of makes sense now, why the 1936 version would be showcasing the dime dancers and the 2006 version would be showcasing the young hoochie-mamas in our community. it sort of reminds me of jean's social-box story, where the filipinas have replaced the white/mexican/black women as the objectified, sexualized objects for the filipino male gaze.
you know, sometimes i don't understand this ambivalence we pinays feel about this whole situation. i remember, when i was writing my master's thesis, being critical of the way early to mid-20th-century Filipino newspapers in Stockton and Chicago totally objectified women, where white women's bodies were shown in large-size photos of them wearing bathing suits, for example, and where filipina beauty contestants were always posed in a particular way in photographs, showing their solid middle-class values and desire to be good wives. then of course i started to feel guilty about being critical, the devil on my shoulder saying my feminist principles were irrelevant to these communities' existence and why shouldn't i feel sorry for these bachelor men and let them have their fun? but i knew of course that such a male gaze gets perpetuated down the generations in such communities, and some of it is renewed by the patriarchal values of newer filipino immigrants to the u.s.
here's the rub, though: for the manongs at least, this fetish on their enforced bachelorhood is a political asset because of the heteronormative sympathy they can secure from observers. as well, like i've suggested in my earlier commentary, the male gaze in these made-for-mainstream cultural productions is precisely what mainstream media outlets encourage, sustain, and reproduce. what happens to those cultural productions that try to subvert such patriarchal, heteronormative mainstream values? one can only hope that they become a surprise hit and start a revolution in the media industry. but i wouldn't hold my breath.
to me, there's some awful connection between Filipino (and even national) pride and the sexualized female body. while this many not be the intent, i do think the more subliminal tone to this song does this.
you're all correct. what does filipino pride have to do with bebots? sadly, as this song shows, it has to do with how "hot" the women are. national identity is always embodied through the sexualized female body (why do you think Miss Universe pageants are so big?)
(UGH! my blood is boiling as i type this, so my thinking just isn't straight right now.)
this is why i have such a love hate HATE relationship with the BEP. again, i really appreciate the work that Apl does, along with the folks at xylophone productions. i really liked their previous video of "the apl song." i even like the 1936 version of bebot. however, any shread of faith i have in decent filipino representation is totally demolished with the 2006 version.
it pisses me off that filipino men (in particular) are so quick to sell out filipino women in the name of having some public recognition. they'll both hyper-sexualize us and at the same time dehumanize us (as in the example of the mom). what makes this video different from the mail order housewives program? do we excuse the 2006 video and sacrifice filipinas because we're really hurting for some air play? when does the bullshit stop?!
but then again, if a pinay did this video, how would this differ and how would it stay the same? I'm not sure (and I'm trying to be fair here).
while i don't know the history of the term bebot, i have heard it along the context that fritzie explains, along with the military context. this, i find odd (and irresponsible) considering who Apl is (but that's just me).
yes bj, despite its problems, i am glad that little manila gets to benefit from this. and yes, it is a opening for filipinos (and sadly, a simultaneous closing). oh well... media business isn't perfect.
you're right gladys, the second version will get the mtv airplay.
hi again all, fritzie thank you for contextualizing the term 'bebot.'
i've written some over at my blog about this, and particularly operating within the hiphop world, in which hiphop rules apply, such as the flaunting of the hoochie video girl in order to market the product. i wholeheartedly believe that fil ams' overreliance upon hiphop in order to have a voice is flawed, unproblematized, and reinforcing of the community's misogyny, and am really quite exhausted by arguments which would place "the community" (meaning, the men) at the center while the rest of us bear the brunt of the men's stabs at empowerment. this is why i ask why we as a community should ask for better and produce better. and this is why i also wholeheartedly believe that we ought to consider seriously forms other than hiphop in order to be "heard," for in this hiphop model, there is little room for women to share this voice, and we are expected to stand aside and shake our asses while men go about making their nationalist statements.
gladys you are totally right on about the heteronormative standards by which the manongs in the 1930s had to abide as a survival strategy, and again find problematic the way this survival strategy translates into subsequent generations of machismo.
i am rambling now. lots going on in my head. thank you all for having this conversation.
oops. what i mean is "why we as a community should *not* be asking for better..."
I don't think the term "bebot" is as bad as "my bitch" or "my slut." But it is a specific word that only Filipino men has ownership and they use it within their circle to talk about women. It's sort of like "locker room talk" but it's used in the streets in the Philippines. I personally, I never heard Filipino women themselves refer to other women as "bebot." I just personally never liked the word "bebot" or "hot chick" because it's a term mainly used by men to objectify women and usually to perceive women mainly with sexual interest.
I now completely dislike this video. It's just that the hypersexualization of Filipino women like many of you pointed out is completely bothersome because I feel like these representations once promulgated in the mainstream will only feed on the "exoticization" of Filipino women and perpetuate other stereotypes.
And BJ has a great point, how come men get to be the one in the center but then women are used as marketing tools, which are degrading to women themselves and all these for the sake of getting some mass media attention?!?! And we definitely do need a different form of hip hop or a completely different form of medium to have our voices heard in the mainstream. It's just that the culture of mainstream hip hop can really be disrespectful to their treatment of women. We really do need a new form of medium that does not include sacrificing or demeaning some parts of our community in order to give attention to another part of the community.
One does not need the hypersexualization of women to bolster Filipino pride. Though sadly the way media works is that sex sells and they exploit women's sexuality for profitability. But why is there a need to exploit women's sexuality, does the expolitation of women's sexuality somehow bolster men's bravado or their position in society? Yet exploitation of one's sexuality is not unique only to women, it happens to men too.
When we have videos like the second one, what do we really end up promoting here?
Ok I know I’m joining in on the conversation late. But I’m going to add my two cents. Listening to the song (without the distracting video) it seems like the song is about Apl’s ascendance into the American dream ideology (i.e. I came from a poor place, Philippines, and “made it” in LA). And he accomplishes this through the relationship he has with this girl, this “bebot”. I may be going out on a limb here, but in a sense I think the song is a kind of hip-hop love song to this Filipina that he likes. And he wouldn’t be where he is without her. Or you could say that he’s talking to the Philippines “the motherland” and he might be celebrating the beauty of Philippine women. But I’ll just stick to the former for now.
This idea of a love relationship makes sense when considering the lyrics “ikaw ay aking bebot” (you are my girl) and “salamat sa ‘yong supporta” (grateful for your support). I’m not an expert on masculinity or power relations but I’m going to have to say that yes masculinity, race, and power are closely intertwined.
(Point 1)But let’s say minority males have been traditionally marginalized and oppressed in society. Most media representations of APIs are asexual model minority nerds or violent gang members.
(Point 2) Hip-hop is a traditionally masculine field- and it seems to be used as a response to the oppression of black men. Masculinity and power are closely intertwined so power is shown through representations of masculinity.
(Point 3) In any case people of color or not- the ownership of women is the ultimate representation of manhood. Maybe not ownership, but claiming a woman’s sexuality makes any male an alpha male.
So you have not only marginalized API males, but also the idea of success tied in with ownership of a women’s sexuality. In any heteronormative context the ultimate goal is male and female relationships and family and children, etc (because that is the idea of success in this society). Yes women are being hypersexualized (again) but in this case it is because it is seen as substantiating men’s sexuality. Nationalism is also tied in with women’s sexuality. Protecting Jasmine Trias is protecting the “vulnerable” parts of the Philippines because in the past when one nation attacks another women are usually raped. That’s male power. The ultimate expression of phallocentricism- I am more powerful than you because I control your women. Also, remember Marcos and Imelda? That was the definitely the idea of heteronormative relations used to express national success. I’m not saying it’s right, but it is not (unfortunately) unique to this video. Most movies are centered around this idea (man’s success through obtaining a women). And it's not bringing down just Filipinas- its bringing down all women.
As for Fergie. I don’t know much about the Black Eyed Peas history, but I have heard that the Black Eyed Peas sounded quite different- they were more akin to “underground hip-hop” with more positive statements. Then, the BEP “sold out” and got a girl. I don’t know the BEP personally, but I ask you had they not had Fergie would they have become as popular? So I think the BEP are not above selling a certain image to boost sales (thus the hypersexualization of females ascribing to traditional hip hop video imagery).
Interesting things I noticed:
One of the members of BEP was wearing a “I heart Latinas” shirt. Not just sexualization of Filipinos, eh?
Secondly, the other male BEP member was dancing off to the side with a yellow background with that girl that got famous because she was on myspace or something. But she was all blonde so it was almost like a black male/white female dynamic.
And lastly, African Americans have the NAACP, LGBT have ACLU, what do Filipinos have? I think there is an Asian American watchdog group for media representation, but I don’t think there are any for Filipinos. I remember speaking with a classmate who was an Ethnic Studies major and we were talking about why it is important to have one. Just an idea.
correction: I believe the ACLU is for everyone, but I'll stick by my statement that there are groups for watching the media representations of certain groups...except Filipinos. In this case it might not be as easily handleable (asking this video to change is like asking hip hop to change) but maybe for movies like the Mail-Order one it would be good.
And in a sense I do support this video even though I am largely conflicted. Filipinos are rarely represented and good or bad I'm glad it's out there (and for a good cause).
nice, diana, i appreciate your breaking down the heterosexual masculine perspective like that. it's critical work that also needs to be done -- not to justify the "selling out" as joanne called it, but to figure out how power works and why people do what they do.
all the comments here have been amazing -- the critique of the song at the level of the word (fritzie); the call for filipina/o artists to produce something better than hip-hop as it is (barb); and the important points about the now-classic symbolism of women standing in for the nation (joanne) and about the basis of male power being the traffic in women (diana). i'll second barb in saying thank you for having this multi-layered conversation, as we grapple with the conditions and terms under which filipino communities become more visible and legible in the mainstream. and it's a good reminder that we are, of course, dealing with a mainstream that in most cases has probably at most 9th-grade-level reading ability and a super-short-attention span. haha. just my little joke.
I think I'm missing half the experience here -
Are the lyrics with translation posted somewhere?
just found this pretty good translation over at bughaw.
Damn, you guys sure know how to ruin a fun video.
Hahahhahaahahaha!
Okay, levity aside, can we take action here? I'm going to assume that Xylophone Films will continue to produce work that includes visual images of Filipinos. I mean, look at all this!.
Why don't we write them a letter that acknowledges the positive aspects of the video (I feel there are many) and asks for their honest attempt to offer more full-spectrum representations in the future? I say 'honest attempt' because they are, after all, a production company that needs to cater to the desires of their clients if they want to stay in business.
Or am I being naive? You all have made such excellent points; it would be a shame not to share it in a constructive way with those who are creating the product.
Gladys wrote:
"for the manongs at least, this fetish on their enforced bachelorhood is a political asset because of the heteronormative sympathy they can secure from observers."
I assume you're writing about present-day observers here, because there was clearly none to be received back then every time manongs dared cross racial lines, which was often the case.
The scholarly / popular interest in chronicling the lives of the manongs surely isn't a solely gender-neutral recuperative project (though as I write this I realize that some of the major works on the manong generation have all been written by women); it's not difficult to see a homosocial admiration, on the part of some male Pinoy scholars and community activists of the '60s (perhaps feeling embattled by the growing presence of women of color in the feminist movement), for the dashing young peacocks that were the manongs. Carlos Bulosan may have led a hard life, but one (i.e., me) can read between the lines of AIITH and go, man, this guy was something of a stud. One can watch something fairly historically innocuous like "A Dollar a Day, Ten Cents a Dance" and marvel at the masculinist lubriciousness on display. (We get the same thing in Curtis Choy's "The Fall of the I-Hotel," when one of the manongs opens his album and shows the camera photo after photo of himself kickin' it with the ladies.) Dude, these guys were playas! That judge called them "hot little rabbits!" They got into trouble not just because they were seen as taking jobs [and Mae Ngai argues that the Filipino farmworkers were actually hardly in competition with white workers], they were scammin' on white women as well! Daaaamn!
So yes -- focusing on the manongs is not just a political tactic to elicit some sort of sympathy, but it can also be read as eliciting that specifically masculinist, heteronormative thrill. Which was the point of the Generation 2 video, no? Indeed, the videos make that link plain -- not, alas, that great moment in the Generation 1 video when the Rizal Social Hall morphs into its shuttered 2006 version, but the "fact" that the Pinoy men are surrounded by hot chicks both then and now.
(My critical faculties have been completely dulled over the summer: I actually rather enjoyed "The Devil Wears Prada!" Though I did hate the Pirates of the Caribbean sequel -- but not for the reasons both Gladys and Barb have already mentioned. And don't get me started about "Clerks 2.")
sunny, you make me laugh, man.
yes, indeed, i was talking about present-day observers.
thank you for actually enunciating that link of the "masculinist, heteronormative thrill" between the two versions. it's the kind of thrill i've noticed when reading, say, peter bacho's dark blue suit as well as when watching the pinoy boxing era and as you mentioned a dollar a day, ten cents a dance -- a thrill made especially apparent when watching with a group of male and female students. i see it as the fanonian revenge thrill of the black man getting the white woman, right, which is based on the gendered configuration of the imagined racial/ethnic community in which male ownership of women of the same race/ethnicity is what binds the community together, which makes it so that any heterosexual miscegenation is considered a transgression of the woman's community.
so all that is to say that women (i.e., me) are as susceptible to this masculinist thrill as men, precisely because the paradigm described above is how we've been taught to imagine the racialized division of communities. i was very struck by your observation that a lot of the interest in the manongs has been on the part of women. i actually wrote some years ago about what this female interest might mean in an essay on virginia cerenio's 1989 poetry collection trespassing innocence, whose figurative and literal center are the manongs she knows and loves. i suggest that this focus might be a way for the female poet to harness the political power to be garnered from heteronormative sympathy for the manongs and then by extension/lateral movement to inherit a largely male tradition of filipino american writing established by manong-generation writers bulosan, gonzalez, santos, and villa as well as the flip generation of robles, tagatac, syquia, penaranda, and others. of course, this argument probably doesn't apply in whole to all the female scholarly and literary interest in the manong generation, but in fact i think there might be strains of it in various places.
it's what i was saying about the probable motivations of ginelso and the xylophone producers in making the videos this way -- the masculinist thrill, the heteronormative sympathy for forced bachelors (as opposed to, say, the derogation of spinsters) are nodes of power in our society. but anyway, i feel like i'm going over the same ground here.
p.s. i can understand summer-dulled critical faculties, but why haven't you been blogging at least briefly about your film adventures?
v, i think we have enough for a 10-page letter, don't you think? let's see what the others say, but i'm willing to compile these thoughts, with permission of course, and send it off to ginelso and friends.
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