Staying up late tonight to watch the UFC so decided to download a new batch of Pinoy movies to keep Mrs R entertained for the next week. Saw a new release called Gluta, and the plot sounded like something Mrs R would enjoy: From prolific director Darryl Yap, Ella Cruz is Angel, an Aeta who dreams of winning the Miss University pageant but faces discrimination from people - including her own uncle who does not believe that people like them are beautiful. The download finished and I flicked through it quickly to ensure it was legit before whacking it on the USB stick. Goodness. I scrolled through to this scene and thought this looked a little bit off, even for Filipino cinema! The young female actress on the left, Ella Cruz, normally looks like this: I realise we are not dealing with European/American sensibilities, but I'm still surprised at how blatantly this is done and they don't really care! I know it's common for actors to exaggerate their skin darkness when playing the poor, provincial ugly duckling but ripping on the Aeta community like this is almost laughable. I wonder if we will one day have a long line of famous Filipinos queuing up to apologise for their previous insensitivity like we see in the West?
I was on a ferry going from cebu-Dumaguete in the very early 1990's,there was a song on the tannoy about some Pinoys girlfriend had caught AID's from an American, people were laughing as it was supposedly a comedian singing it, no PC in the PI
In a lot of ways the Philippines is, I feel, some 40 to 50 years behind the West. In some ways this isn't a bad thing. I believe that successive regressive Governments and the influence of religions has created this. If I was to set up a business over there I would look at what sort of things did well in the West in the 1960's such as launderettes and TV rental type companies as there is little affluence amongst the population - unless families are supported by OFW's or people that married 'porriners'. When I got married over there one of the court officials asked me if I employ any 'bumbay', a term regularly used to describe people of Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi etc. origins. This would be unacceptable and deemed to be racist in the UK. I also note how rare black people are in the Philippines and Filipinas do not seem to want to marry a black man. Perhaps by 2070 they will discover 'woke'.
Political correctness in their TV news shows also, I heard yesterday of an assassination of two people, I was sent the TV link, you see both shot dead in unedited footage, you wouldn't get that on ITV news or Sky.
