slurrings

crash, a best picture winner in the 2005 academy awards, is one hollywood gem that touched my insecurities. the movie tackled racism in the vast landscape of los angeles. gripped with strain inside the cinema as i was watching the reel, it showed the various facets of my multi-racial existence, a dimension full of disdain for certain cultures. when i was growing up in bacolod, i frequently observed filipino films stereotyping actors from the visayas as maids and the butts of the jokes. that was status quo and i didn't find it derogatory. there's this hint of swagger in all of us. one of my friends, who's not even from manila but from a popular tourist destination somewhere in luzon, blurted out this line about one of our superiors, "baw si inday, mukha siyang katulong." my friend may wear her goody-goody shoes from the outside, but in the cores of her emotions, she could be haughty and stucked-up.

although i haven't seen sakal, sakali, saklolo yet. i'm quite familiar on the impact and impression of the controversial dialogues. i can only watch the movie through dvd, because i'm bounded by the limited media of my location to help out in its box office receipts. besides there's not a chance in my swamped sked i'm going to miss this film even sans all these vociferations. in all likelihood the voices against the so-called slurs in the flick had a specific agenda that easily gathered media mileage and got pushed into the pages of entertainment blogs and torn into pieces by adherents of rival festival outputs. the impressionable teens (is it really PG-13?) who would bear witness to the negative remarks in the dramedy, whether they're from luzon, or visayas and mindanao, will find out for themselves how the world revolves, that in our native land, denizens from the capital look down on individuals from all the provinces and not just from areas beyond region four.

lola (gloria diaz) to yaya : bakit ninyo pinapalaki na bisaya ang apo ko? ~~ angie (judy ann) to yaya : speak to the kid in tagalog. parang pinoy.

i have an idea how those lines were actually presented. they were not meant to offend. accord our gray matter a work out, it's always a charm to see beyond the literal pitch.

in a bigger context, wherever parts of our beloved archipelago you were born and bred even if you're from the lovely capital, the progressive spheres still see all of us collectively as a nation of upheavals. we are required a visa to enter the boundaries of most countries in europe, north america and the powers that be in the G8. plus in the eyes of most caucasians, richer asians, the lads who follow football, or the faces i see everyday, by virtue of our phyletic heritage, we were already bequeathed the smaller portion of the tasty pie and therefore beneath them.