Bebot videos: feminist critiques (2 of 5)

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In September 2006, a month after the release of the videos, an open letter (written by academics, independent scholars, and writers) regarding what some felt were shortcomings and criticisms of the videos was put into circulation for people to read over the internet and e-mail. The open letter signers included: Lucy Burns (Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies / World Arts and Cultures, UCLA), Fritzie De Mata (Independent scholar), Diana Halog (Undergraduate, UC Berkeley), Veronica Montes (Writer), Gladys Nubla (Doctoral student, English, UC Berkeley), Barbara Jane Reyes, (Poet and author), Joanne L. Rondilla (Doctoral candidate, Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley), Rolando B. Tolentino (Visiting Fellow, National University of Singapore (Associate Professor, University of the Philippines Film Institute), Benito Vergara (Asian American Studies / Anthropology, San Francisco State University). Later, other academics requested to add their signature to the open letter. The open letter is directed to Apl (Jeepney Records), director Patricio Ginelsa (KidHeroes), and Xylophone Films.

One of the major claims the letter focused on was a scene of the “Generation Two” video, which “utilized restricting stereotypes of Pilipina women” like “the whore” and “the shrill mother.” An excerpt from the open letter read, “The mother character was also particularly troublesome, but for very different reasons. She seems to play a dehumanized figure, the perpetual foreigner with her exaggerated accent, but on top of that, she is robbed of her femininity in her embarrassingly indelicate treatment of her son and his friends. She is not like a tough or strong mother, but almost like a coarse asexual mother, and it is telling that she is the only female character in the video with a full figure.” Vietnamese American dancer in the videos, James “Slim” Dang thinks differently. “The open letter discusses the exaggerated Filipino accent of the mother. What if they replace it with a perfect English accent? I know some people are proud of their accents. By getting rid of your accent, you might be destroying part of your cultural identity.” According to Ginelsa, he did not direct the mother (a comedian) to use accent. The accent was improvised. Ginelsa said, “It’s not just my vision you see on the screen. It’s also the musicians as well as actors and actresses they’re not just robots. You gotta understand that a lot of people read in this too much. It’s a music video you know?”

Hypersexualized images of Pilipinas
An excerpt from the open letter are views expressing that they were “utterly dismayed by the portrayal of hypersexualized Filipina “hoochie-mama” dancers, specifically in the Generation 2 version, the type of representation of women so unfortunately prevalent in today’s hip-hop and rap music videos. According to the letter, “the depiction of the 1930s “dime dancers” was also cast in an unproblematized light, as these women seem to exist solely for the sexual pleasure of the manongs.”UC Berkeley student and dancer in the videos, Elisa Estrera thought that Pilipina women had more agency in the video, “…some people fail to see that this is just how people (more specifically the girls) were acting and depicting themselves. There wasn’t some higher authority telling us to think and be sexy for the video or else we wouldn’t be in it…There was no wardrobe person, all the girls came dressed on their own. The girls weren’t told to do anything perverse like strip or freak a guy, the director just told everyone to have fun and act as if they were really at a party.” The open letter also expressed problems with representing Pilipina women on a global scale. “While this may sound quite harsh, we believe it is necessary to point out that such depictions make it seem as if you are selling out Filipina women for the sake of gaining mainstream popularity within the United States. Given the already horrific representations of Filipinas all over the world as willing prostitutes, exotic dancers, or domestic servants who are available for sex with their employers, the representation of Pinays in these particular videos can only feed into such stereotypes. We also find it puzzling, given your apparent commitment to preserving the history and dignity of Filipina/os in the United States, because we assume that you also consider such stereotypes offensive to Filipino men as well as women.” To this, Dang responded by saying, “…you can’t expect a short music video to represent a whole culture—just a subset of it.” In response to other critics for the need to have accurate representations of Pilipinos on a global scale, Ginelsa said, “That’s throwing a lot of responsibility for a music video. You gotta understand that this is just one example...It’s five minutes.

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