On Rosalie Hale

I know this is a really old issue by now that I shouldn't even be talking about it anymore. But since it occurred to me, I couldn't get it out of my head.



As much as I hate Twilight, I wouldn't say that I hate absolutely everything associated with it. Unlike less knowledgeable "anti's" who dislike even the actors that make up the cast of the Twilight adaptations, I don't. I haven't heard of Kristen Stewart until I've heard about her getting the lead role in Twilight as Bella Swan. When I learned of her impressive performance in Panic Room (opposite Jodie Foster), I was no longer surprised that she got the supposedly big role in the adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's bestselling novel series. I loved Robert Pattinson portrayal of Hufflepuff heartthrob Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Although I still think they could have accepted a better-looking actor, Pattinson's faithfulness to the brave and humble character made appearance seem less important. Nikki Reed is a different matter; despite her fine portrayal as Edward Cullen's bitchy sister Rosalie Hale, I don't think she should be in the role. Evan Rachel Wood seems more fitting for it.

Don't get me wrong: I like Nikki Reed. I was impressed with her in Catherine Hardwicke's independent film Thirteen, where she plays Evie, who becomes a bad influence to straight-A, seventh-grade student Tracy, who is coincidentally played by Wood. I also loved her touching performance in the music video "Just Feel Better." Nikki Reed is also one of the most beautiful actresses I've ever seen. But this doesn't fit with Rosalie Hale, who is supposedly "inhumanly beautiful" because Rosalie Hale is a blonde.

This wouldn't have been a problem if Nikki Reed isn't a brunette with a rich tan and at least 15% Native American blood. The makeup that they had to put on her didn't make her look like the hottest vampire ever; it just makes her appearance look fake and icky. The vampire look would have been better for Evan Rachel Wood, who seems to always wear it.

Evan Rachel Wood, on the other hand, is a natural blonde with porcelain skin. She's awfully pale but she's incredibly beautiful with it. If Wood had played Rosalie Hale, her presence would have exuded awe instead of disgust at how unnatural and obvious the makeup is.

Dream Disney Adaptations

I’ve always been a Disney kid. The first Disney films I’ve ever watched were Cinderella, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland. The Lion King was the first movie I’ve seen on theater; I was six years old. By the time Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame came out, I learned that Disney has been exploring its horizons; Disney has been exploring stories adapted or inspired by slightly heavier material than fairy tales. At that time, I didn’t care much that Disney was toning down the dark elements of those stories.

Even today, I still don’t mind that the little mermaid’s desire to have an immortal soul was edited out, or that Quasimodo didn’t die, or that Mulan’s comrades found out that she is a woman during the war and not after. However, I do mind that they changed the plot of Hercules altogether and messed up several details. (i.e. Philoctetes was human and a pupil of Hercules, not the other way around.) In any case, what I am glad about is that around that time, Disney has been expanding its horizons … adapting stories from beyond mainland America and Europe.

But after Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Disney seemed to have paused producing big “classic” films and limited itself with Disney Channel productions aimed at girls aged 12 to 15 years old. I blame this on The Princess Diaries, which started the trend. After that, the only good movies that came out were produced alongside Pixar. This isn’t a bad thing, but Disney/Pixar films did not provide the elevation and sublimity that Disney’s “classic” films exuded.

Lately, Disney has been trying again. They produced Enchanted, which is a tribute and a parody of the Disney Princesses, most notably Snow White and Cinderella. Two more new movies are coming out: The Princess and the Frog, which features the first black Disney Princess, and Rapunzel. This is great, except for one problem: this is only a safe move, a comfort zone, on Disney’s part. To this day, the classic fairy tale tradition is the most effective production of Disney, so they keep it that way. If you ask me, I hope they pick up where they left off: that is to explore stories from far-off places again.

I came up with a short list of great stories that would be fabulous if Disney adapts them:

Disney has drawn stories from Shakespeare plays before. The Lion King and its sequel were inspired by Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet respectively. I thought it would be cool of they adapted Othello, King Lear or The Merchant of Venice. Of the three, I think Othello would be most interesting: I’ve always had a weakness for interracial romances. Iago, who sabotages Othello’s relationship with Desdemona, would make an outstanding villain. His wicked ways would rank among those of the Wicked Queen, Lady Tremaine, Scar, Ursula and Jafar … to name a few.

The Princess and the Frog seems to be quite a disappointment among the African American community; like many individuals, I was not very pleased that the setting is not Africa and that it is adapted from a European fairy tale rather than an African one, which would have been great. If Disney’s going to make another black Disney Princess, I would suggest that they make an adaptation of "The Rain Came" by Kenyan writer Grace Ogot.

It tells the story of Oganda, the daughter of Labong’o, the chief of a clan of Luo people. She is the only girl among Labong’o’s twenty children and thus, his favorite. Meanwhile, their clan is suffering from a drought; Nditi, the medicine man, had a dream that Podho, the ancestor of the Luo, told him that “a young woman who has not known a man must die so that the country may have rain.” Nditi then had a vision of a maiden with “a glittering brass chain around her waist,” who must be sacrificed to the “lake monster.” Oganda happens to be this virgin maid; the chain was given to her by her lover Osinda. See? This would make a great movie.

Moving on toward Asia, I estimated that if Disney had kept on expanding, they might have picked up a story or two from the Philippines.

My sister thought that an adaptation of Noli Me Tangere would be splendid. I thought that the material for Jose Rizal’s controversial novel would be too heavy for children to comprehend; I couldn’t imagine Disney toning it down without ruining it. However, I could see why Disney would be interested in it: a tragic romance in a devastating colonial setting and a young man determined to avenge his father and liberate his country is quite tempting.

Another good story would be the origin of the Mayon Volcano. One myth tells of the tragic tale of Daragang Magayon and Pangaronon. Daragang Magayon, the lovely daughter of Rajah Makusog, fell in love with Pangaronon when he saved her from drowning. But another suitor, Pagtuga, a tribal chief from Iriga, wanted Daragang Magayon for himself. He kidnapped Rajah Makusog and demanded Daragang Magayon’s hand in marriage in exchange for her father’s freedom. Pangaronon learns of this and gathers an army to fight Pagtuga. War ensues, and Pangaronon successfully slays Pagtuga. According to an online source, Daragang Magayon rushes to meet her lover when a stray arrow pierces her back; Pangaronon is struck by a spear shortly after. According to a poem that I’ve heard as a child, the lovers were already hugging when they were struck dead by a single spear. Anyway, Rajah Makusog buries the couple in a single grave, which rose higher and higher into the magnificent volcano that is Mayon, short for Magayon.

Another cool story would be the Ilocano epic Ang Biag ni Lam-Ang.

But an even better epic would come from India: the Ramayana. If Disney adapts that one, it would so cool. A banished prince who rescues his wife from a demon king—C-L-A-S-S-I-C! I wouldn’t mind if Disney cuts out the part in the end where Rama questions Sita’s fidelity after rescuing her from Ravana; a hot kiss after the climactic battle would be just fine.

Here’s info on the stories I suggested.
http://www.philippinesinsider.com/philippines/myths-folklore-superstition/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Lear
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othello
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramayana
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1924130785265585243
http://www.viloria.com/secondthoughts/archives/00000416.html
http://tagaloglang.com/Philippine-Literature/Filipino-Epics/biag-ni-lam-ang-buod.html

Exploding iPods: A Public Service Announcement

I've read just now from a news article (link below) of an account of somebody's iPhone exploding in his face. It has been reported that similar occurrences have happened to iPods. This scared me, because I've been an iPod owner for almost a year. But the news article explained that the explosions are probably caused by overheated lithium batteries, which probably means that the iPods that exploded were probably overcharged.

Therefore, I advise fellow iPod users (iPhone users included) to check your devices when charging them. Be sure to unplug or disconnect them once they are fully charged to avoid overheating them.

http://ph.news.yahoo.com/afp/20090814/ttc-us-france-it-internet-telecom-apple-0de2eff.html

A Feminist Analysis of Ratatouille

Just for the record, I am not a feminist. Although I believe in the equality of the sexes, I do not believe in the adage, “A woman can do anything that a man can do.” Neither am I the kind of woman that would complain about Dolores Umbridge and Bellatrix Lestrange being the main villains of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and being second-in-command only to more powerful male villains. I don’t have a problem with having the desire to be taken care of. However, I have great respect for women—fictional or not—who know what they want and know how to get it, without letting any man to get in the way.

This brings my attention to the only female main character of the Pixar film Ratatouille, Colette Tatou. A chef in the kitchen of the gourmet restaurant Gusteau’s, Mademoiselle Colette is introduced as the mentor and partner of Alfredo Linguini, after he is mistakenly recognized as the creator of a fabulous new soup, which was really created by Remy the rat. “I am the only woman in this kitchen!” she says to Linguini on his first day of work. “I have been working too hard for too long to get here, and I am not going to jeopardize it for some garbage boy who got lucky!” (It is no surprise why she is an uptight nagger throughout the film. Tired women do that.)

It is clear that Colette has a strong personality. She can make Linguini shudder and recoil just by her mere presence. She initially sees Linguini as competition; it is her greatest misfortune to even be involved with him. “Haute cuisine is an antiquated hierarchy built upon rules written by stupid old men—rules designed to make it impossible for women to enter this world. But I’m still here,” she explains to him. To her, it shouldn’t matter that she is a woman; she can cook—and well, at that—and she is set to move beyond what the masculinist society dictates upon members of her gender.

Come to think of it, her motives are similar to Remy’s, who also wants to become more than what he really is. So now it bothers me that by the middle of the story, Linguini, under Remy’s control, has become the talk of the town just days after “his” soup’s popularity grew, and Colette lets it happen, putting her in the same position as she had been before. It bothers me even more that shortly after Gusteau’s reclaims its fame, she is shown to have given in to Linguini’s affections. It is implied that all she’s been looking for all along was love. She lowers her shield and lets an arrow pierce her, and that was it. All of a sudden, she is contented with being second place just when she’s halfway to her goal.

I understand that the theme of Ratatouille is “Anyone Can Cook.” Remy is a rat, and he has talent greater even than Colette’s. (His improvisation of the Sweet Bread a la Gusteau recipe became known as the “special order”; quite superior to the original, which was what Colette meant to serve; she was only following the rules.) Linguini, who cannot cook at all, is given a high position in the kitchen because people believe he can do it excellently. I understand that the audience loves the underdog. But doesn’t that make Colette, the only woman in the kitchen, sort of an underdog, too? I couldn’t accept that she’s been “working too hard for too long,” and suddenly it doesn’t matter because she fell in love. Who would have known that it would be a man that would soften her up?

And that’s another thing: Although I don’t have a real problem about women dreaming of someday having a stable family life with a man at their side to support them, I would agree that it is a masculinist notion that it is ideal that women would want exactly that. Walt Disney Pictures has been known to demonstrate through their films virtues that humanity holds dear—in the case of Ratatouille, perseverance against the odds. That being given, it could be deduced that even Colette’s behavior in the film was placed there that way on purpose. (Yeah, to make us go, “AWW…!” because she has a soft spot for Linguini—of all people.) That really seems disturbingly masculinist to me.

Björk vs. Lady Gaga

When I first heard Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face,” I thought it was an outrageous and ridiculous excuse for a song. I still do, and from then on, I refuse to ever like Lady Gaga or her songs.

Meanwhile, I hadn’t become a Björk fan until very recently, when I found myself quite fascinated with the eccentric imagery in her music videos and also the honest sensuality in her lyrics. I didn’t like her before because what she’s doing doesn’t sound like proper singing. The first videos of her that I’ve seen were “Big Time Sensuality,” “Pagan Poetry,” “Cocoon,” “Hunter” and another video that features what looked like two sea mollusks mating to form a human embryo in the end. What made me like her was when I was driven by curiosity and watched almost her music videos on YouTube and was just struck.

Björk’s eccentricity is somewhat comparable to Lady Gaga’s. Like Björk, Lady Gaga stands out with her rather outlandish style of hair, makeup and clothes. Also like Björk, Lady Gaga frequently wears her costumes in public as a fashion statement.

But the contrasts about them are more obvious. Lady Gaga seems to be just a little more upfront about her eccentricity; Björk doesn’t always come out wearing a ridiculous costume. Although both singers are honest about their sexuality, their manner of expressing it in their music videos is slightly different.

Lady Gaga is sexy, and she shows it unabashedly. She displays her body and moves like a snake, not unlike Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera at the height of their career.

Björk, on the other hand, have been known to appear nude in a music video but is not trying to be sexy. In the music video of “Cocoon,” she is shown totally nude with red threads coming out of her nipples; in relation to the song, which is about sex and love, her bare body shows the persona welcoming the sensuality, and the red threads symbolizes the emotion bursting out of her and then engulfing her.

Meanwhile, “Pagan Poetry” shows heavily distorted images of—according to Wikipedia—sexual intercourse, fellatio and pearls being sewn into skin (perhaps a euphemism for semen and penetration?), and Björk wearing a dress covering only her lower half. She has pearls on her skin. Her breasts are bare. “Pagan Poetry” bears the same themes as “Cocoon,” and the persona is preparing herself for marriage and sex. I'm guessing the symbolism is similar. The nudity is a statement—a sexually explicit one, but not with the purpose of sexually exciting an audience.

Both Björk and Lady Gaga appeal to the lowest instincts of humanity. Their sexual honesty opens the audience's minds to the intimate points in their being that society tries to conceal in an effort to make us less like the "lower" species of this planet. They just showed people that they don't have to deny their animal instincts to be human.

However, I would like to stress that Lady Gaga's sexual appeal seems to be a little too distracting to get her message across—Björk's nudism, although also distracting, is more mind-provoking due to the fact that you don't see her going all over a group of sexy men. Her sexuality is not overblown that she would resemble a showgirl. Perhaps that's also what Lady Gaga is trying to put off: making people see the substance beneath the seeming lack of it.

A Lamentation

I love my country. I love it for what I have seen that is good about it. No matter how willing I am to leave it, I know deep in my heart that it would be just as willing to go back when I would have left it. It is my home, after all. When I do leave the Philippines, I want to show other peoples that I, who was born and raised in a country wrought with political and economic instability, could still be somebody who can bring something to the world.

I'm a little sad that I might sound hypocritical right now for saying that after all the stuff that I’ve said about my own country in previous blog entries. But to be honest, although I'm quite disillusioned to the point that I would be quite ashamed to be from a country run with sheer mediocrity, I am satisfied that beyond the ugliness of it all, I have been lucky enough to see parts of it that is still worth fighting for.

When I write my novel, I think about the Philippines that I have learned to love and treasure—the smiling faces of my people, the idealism of my peers and of those in the military (including members of my family) … the land that somehow still boasts of friendly, hospitable, prayerful and industrious people—that I feel is still there somewhere—or at least, I hope so.

I shudder to think that from the nation that our foreign neighbors once looked up to for holding a “peaceful, bloodless revolution,” we have become the subject of ridicule. I have immersed myself in the company of visitors of different nations, and I have heard them complain that they, too, have been disillusioned about what the Philippines could offer. Instead of respect and tolerance, they have been met with racial stereotyping and apathy brought on by ignorance. Sometimes, I tell myself that perhaps they had been expecting too much from a country they don’t even know; different nations have different values. But that would be unfair of me to think, because the Philippines is advertised to be … as I have said above. The Filipino word for “foreigner” is dayuhan, from the root word dayo, literally “visit”; dayuhan means “visitor” or “guest,” and they must be treated as such. It breaks my heart, knowing that the values that this nation hold dear are being twisted or ignored.

This brings me to Encyclopedia Dramatica, which is a website parodying Wikipedia. Although ED typically defames nearly everything under the sun with explicit language and sometimes untrue statements for the sake of humor, it is often believable and accurate to reality. I recently bumped into one article about the Philippines. Nearly everything in it is true, about as true as nearly everything is in the article about Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight. I am not proud and arrogant enough to find it completely offensive (it’s not offensive if it’s true; at least, to me). It just scares me, to be an individual from a country falling behind her neighbors. It frightens me to imagine about what other peoples really think about us.

I try my best to be a good representative of my country. Already, I look forward to publishing my novel and showing other people the Philippines as I know it. I just fear that by now, it seems that people of other nations wouldn’t take me seriously anymore because I am Filipino, unless they really know who I am.

I know my identity. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But if that identity meant being associated with hypocritical behavior and mediocre standards, I guess I'm gonna have to work hard to be the best I can be, despite my dystopic origins.

About Cory Aquino

I was born in 1988, two years after the historical People Power Revolution that ended the reign of Dictator Ferdinand Marcos after 20 years. By the time that I was old enough to care about what was going on in the world, Fidel V. Ramos was president. That is to say that I never truly appreciated Corazon C. Aquino as the first woman president of the Philippines except from what I would learn later on in school.

I only know that it was on her time of office that democracy was brought back to the Philippines. As I was taught in school, democracy had to be the best form of government because the common man has a part in the way things are run in the country. Thus, people seem to claim that President Aquino was a sort of a hero for standing up for the rights of her people to freedom of speech and press … and all the benefits of a democratic rule.

Considering the condition of the Philippines now, after almost 25 years of democracy, I was gravely disillusioned—more so when a college professor of mine once ranted how President Aquino was not even the best ruler she could possibly be. He told us about how she was not even properly qualified to become president because she was a housewife who was educated in France—with a degree for French cuisine. I also heard that she appointed into office not those who would be good in the job but her friends—including her stylist, manicurist, et cetera.

All those combined, I am sorry to say that I feel rather indifferent about the death of the Lady in Yellow. I admit that I feel quite guilty that, even in her death, I still blame her for the gradual decline of this country. As I have seen in the memorial service dedicated to her, she was a nice person who was possibly just defamed by opposition during her time in office. But I am sad to say that the damage was done; what I’ve heard cannot be unheard. I know I’m supposed to feel sad about her passing, but I just don’t feel anything. I’m not even grateful toward her for bringing democracy back into this country. I feel bad, not because she is gone, but because I don’t feel bad about her being gone. It’s frustrating.

I could only say that I do hope that the former president Ma. Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino would rest in peace, along with her husband Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino in the afterlife. With that, I also hope that the legacy they supposedly left for the Philippines did not die with them.