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Bebot videos: feminist critiques (2 of 5)
Others feel that when the videos are meant to unify the PilAm community, this issue tears the PilAm community apart internally. But Rondilla did not expect this large of a response to the open letter. “I know for me, I didn’t think this would be the entity that it became. I thought people would read it, put in their two cents worth and leave it. I didn’t think of it as hindering any kind of campaign or anything like that. In an e-mail I sent to Patricio, I told him ‘Far more people are going to watch your video, far more people take interest in this. Not a lot of people are going to pay attention to this letter’ …I still don’t see how it may have hindered the campaign.”
Others point to other PilAm or hip hop artists as worse misogynists claiming it is easy to use Apl as a scapegoat for flawed representations of PilAms, because he is a prominent figure in the mainstream eye.
Rondilla expressed that she respects Apl, who is clear about his identity and unashamed to be Pilipino compared to other artists would “be in denial until they find it marketable.” She also explained the reason why she did not call out other PilAm artists who perform songs with sexually explicit lyrics like Cassie or Nicole from the Pussycat dolls. “They’re not running on the platform of ‘I am Pilipino’, running on platform of Pilipino pride. But then again it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep an eye on them or it doesn’t mean that we should accuse them. Anyone should pay attention to the letter, anyone who is kind of involved in that kind of media should pay attention to the critique.” Ginelsa claimed that the reason why Apl became a scapegoat is because “it’s so rare of representations of us in the mainstream so anything that comes out that represents our culture, they’re very protective of it. As I am.” He said this influenced his drive to create the video. “The reason why I worked so hard, I was obsessed in getting this project because I wanted to get the burden of representing this video as I saw fit. In my eyes, I’m glad the video came out. I’m proud of it. I’m not going to sit here and say ‘oh I only like Generation One [only]’ because both videos were done by me and it has my name on it.”
More types of representation needed
The open letter signers were puzzled
with the Bebot videos given their good track record with Xylophone Films,
who edited “the Apl song” video,
which showcased the WWII Filipino Veterans’ struggle for full benefits.
Xylophone Films is a community organization that creates videos for other
independent PilAm artists. What are needed in the mainstream media are
more types of representation for PilAms let alone any type of representation
of PilAms in the U.S. mainstream media in general.
