Four Values in Filipino Drama and Film

Nicanor G. Tiongson

(1) THERE IS NO doubt that cinema has risen as one of the most popular means of mass communication
in contemporary Philippines. Movie theaters dot cities, towns and other important commercial centers
from Aparri to Jolo. Through these theaters, Nora Aunor has truly become a national figure and tagalog
has risen to the status of a real national language. Indeed, movie theaters have become as important to
us today as churches were in the last century. (2) Because movies have become one of the most important
means of communication, it is high time that the Filipinos examined the values encountered in and
propagated by, the movies. These values at the general worldview arising from them inevitably mold the
Filipino’s consciousness for better or for worse, in an effective, if insidious, manner through stories that
entertain. (3) Sad to say, the principal values encountered in most Filipino movies today are the same
negative values they have inherited from the traditional dramas which migrated, so to speak, from stage
to screen, and provided the latter, for the longest time, with both form, content and most of all, world-
view. Four of these values which we must single out for their prevalence, perseverance and perniciousness
may ne encapsulated in the following statements: 1) Maganda ang Maputi (White is beautiful), 2) Masaya
ang may Palabas (Shows are the best), 3) Mabuti ang Inaapi (Hurrah for the Underdog!), and 4) Maganda
pa ang Daigdig (All is Right with the world). Maganda ang Maputi (4) Our colonial aesthetics today may be
partly rooted to various dramatic forms, (during both the Spanish and American colonial regimes), which
populated and perpetuated the value of “white is beautiful.” During Spanish times, the komedya dramas
from awits and koridos revolving around the love of princes and princesses in the fight between Christians
and Moros during the middle ages in Europe) not only made the “indio” cheer and champion the cause of
the white Europeans who, favored by God and miracles, invariably defeated the Moros but also demanded
a standard of beauty that legitimized and made ideal the bastard or the mestizo. To be a prince or princess
one had to “look the part.” One had to have “matangos na ilong, malaking mata, maliit na bibig,” and
most of all, “maputing balat.” He or she also had to have “magandang tindig” which is simple language
boiled down to “tall like a white man.” (5) Likewise, in the passion play called sinakulo, natives playing
Christ and most especially the Virgin, were chosen on the basis of their resemblance to both istampitas
and images of Christ and the virgin in the Churches, both of whom were always unmistakably and
invariably Caucasian. It is not surprising that the term “parang Birhen” became a stock metaphor among
native poets in describing the idealized beauty of any woman. (6) During the American regime,
bodabil/stage show (which showcased American songs and dances) not only singled out Filipinos who
could do imitations of Elvis Presley and Tom Jones, but necessarily also favored the Caucasian-looking
either as the closer imitation of these “originals” (note Eddie Mesa and Victor Wood) or as “leading man
types,” above the “ethnic-looking” who in spite of their often superior talent, were relegated to slapstick
comedies and roles of maids or minor friends. Similarly, there was a time in the Ateneo when directors of
Shakespearean plays picked out the not-too-ethnic-looking boys whose skin pigmentations would not
contrast too sharply and ridiculously with Ophelia’s or Roxanne’s blonde wig. A recent production of My
Fair Lady borrowed Caucasians from the international School to lend “authenticity” to its ball and Ascot
scenes. And if the virgin was the ideal of physical beauty in Spanish times, the small town modista’s blonde
or redhead white-skinned tinny lipped mannequin, as well as tall, willowy mestiza Karilagan models, have
become the impossible dreams of the contemporary Filipina. (7) American movies have likewise provided
Filipinos with new gods and goddesses. Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, Rudolf Valentino, and Elvis
Presley are only some of Hollywood’s stars from whom our local planets derived their glow (Amalia
Fuentes, Barbara Perez, Leonard Salcedo, and Eddie Mesa, respectively). (8) Clearly then, the colonial
aesthetics of contemporary Philippine movies are both a derivation, an outgrowth and a magnification of
colonial aesthetics in our Spanish past and American present, Today, all stars in the firmament of Filipino
cinema with the sole and singular exception of Nora Aunor (who ascended to her throne as a singer) are
either mestizos, mestizas or mestisuhin, “Tipong Artista”. Therefore can be app 50 pout to contract their
full, sensuous lips into a proper smallness. Because white is beautiful, brown has become criminally ugly.
(10) The adulation for the white has imposed on the Filipino national inferiority complex, a deep-seated
unconscious “conviction” that we are an ugly people, not worthy of being seen on screen, too homely to
be photographed beside the beautiful Caucasian race, “exotic” at best (a term borrowed from
Caucasians), anthropoid at worst, whose physical handicap can only be remedied by frantically importing
and imposing on ourselves all the Caucasian’s beauty techniques that will truly “make-up” for our
deficiencies. (11) Such view of ourselves betrays, to say the least, an idiotically superficial mind that does
not have enough depth and interiority to see that what makes a person beautiful, be he white, black,
brown, red or yellow is not the pigmentation of his skin or the size of his nose or the smallness or bigness
of his eyes and mouth but his goodness and dignity as a person which derives in turn from his refusal to
be subjugated by anyone and his desire to fulfil himself as a person whose concerns transcend his own
interests into service of the greater many. It is the failure to understand how a leper and a paralytic and
the most abject slumdweller can be ten times more beautiful than a Miss Universe, a carefully manicured
Makati matron and the most beautiful face and/or body on the movie screen. (12) Secondly, and more
important, such a view is antithetical to a constructive national pride that assumes that a people is
talented enough to stand on its own two feet, eating from the sweat of its brows, depending on no one
for its life its pride and its dignity, and least of all for the concept of itself as a physical and psychological
personality. (13) Thirdly, and corollary to the second, this value is based on an artificial need that
perpetuates, among other things, the dependence of our economy on foreign, specifically American
business interest that constitute the principal obstacle to the growth of a truly Filipino economy. Like the
“Dao mentality” and taste for American canned goods, fruits, cars, clothes, music and literature which
demand the continuing importation of cosmetics, goods and equipment from the United States. The dollar
output of the country for these cosmetic imports may not amount to very much, but when coupled with
our dollar output for all the other goods (practically everything we use) which are inextricably linked to
this colonial “white is beautiful” mentality, one readily sees that this value is one of the most pernicious
that has wreaked havoc on our national economy, by draining the country of dollars needed for our own
industries. In a very real sense, Ms. Vicky Secretary’s demand for the Mac Factor’s latest “blush on” is the
reason why Juan de la Cruz and his family cannot afford to buy rice.