On Heneral Luna

This isn’t going to be a review but merely a reaction.  It is true what people have been saying online about the movie, in the last few weeks.  Filipinos deserve more movies like that--not necessarily socially relevant historical films but rather films that take extra care with aesthetics, context, semiotics, and substance to make us think as much as we feel.

Heneral Luna is a unique historical narrative in that examines the ills of Philippine society and how we’re as awful at handling power and politics as the Philippines under Aguinaldo had been.  It is a retrospective sort of commentary on the fact that, despite everything that our national heroes have done for us, they are a fraction of a greater whole--and the majority, just as they are now, are selfish, undiscerning people with no integrity. It is a lamentation of the fact that people like Antonio Luna is in short supply.  Despite the impact he had made in the Philippine-American War, we weren’t unable to stay independent, largely because we were either incapable of it, or that the powers that be thought we were.

A lot of people in social media seem to get caught in the delusion that we all feel like Antonio Luna.  “Akala mo ba, ikaw lang ang nagmamahal sa Pilipinas?  Mahal ko rin ang Pilipinas!” Buencamino says to him at one point.  The fact that a lot of us are hypocrites like Buencamino; indecisive like Mabini; or, stubborn like Aguinaldo--is a big pill to swallow.  Even for me, the love for country is but an abstract thought.  We can’t all be shooting at the enemy on horseback.  We can’t all be yelling at the President and his council about integrity.  This was exactly the point of the movie.

Lapu-Lapu fought in Mactan; Spain still conquered the Philippines.  They stayed for 300 years despite several rebellions through all that time.  Antonio Luna strove to maintain the independence that Aguinaldo declared in June 12, 1898; the Americans still came to the islands and stayed for the next 40 years.  We needed help from America to drive the Japanese away.

We aren’t like Leonidas and the 300, who held off the Persians and inspired Greece to fight.  We aren’t like Vlad Dracula, who literally scared off the Ottomans by impaling both enemy soldiers and common criminals with tall spikes.  The difference is that both Lapu-Lapu and Luna had their own leaders to answer to, and their bosses didn’t share their sentiments.  Whereas Leonidas and Dracula were kings of their lands and therefore had the power to preserve the sovereignty of their dominion.

I felt the chill of helplessness as the credits rolled and I walked out of the theater.  Everyone including me was inspired by the story we just witnessed.  But I looked around me in the inside of the mall.  Everything I saw was the sign of defeat.  Text and signs in English; pale models in advertisements; foreign brands; local brands modeled after them.  While I personally acknowledge the good parts of foreign influence on Philippine culture, I can’t help but wonder what could have been.  What would the Philippines be like if our ancient kings weren’t diplomatic to a fault?  What if more people shared the fierceness or integrity of Lapu-Lapu, Bonifacio, Luna, or Silang?  What if more people were authentic?  What if Filipinos lived up to their ideals?

Well, if Filipinos value integrity as much as much as we think we do, I would be living in a peaceful and self-sufficient Philippines instead of writing a story around my daydreams of one.

A Woman's Action Movie (Mad Max: Fury Road Review)

I had never watched the original Mad Max movies starring Mel Gibson because I was either not born yet or too young to have watched action movies when the genre was at its heyday in the 80s. It was not until I’ve watched Live Free or Die Hard and The Expendables that my fascination for the genre was awakened. Those movies brought to me the nostalgia of watching my father watch his classic action movies as I momentarily glimpsed the cool action sequences that my father and grandfather and uncles have loved so much.

After seeing positive feedback for Mad Max: Fury Road in BuzzFeed, College Humor, Cracked, and 9GAG, I was compelled to check it out myself. Besides, the impressive cast, including Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron, and younger thespians Nicholas Hoult and Zoe Kravitz, has won me over. But that wasn’t all. Mad Max: Fury Road turned out to be exactly as good as those popular humor websites have claimed.

The action-packed, post-apocalyptic dystopian epic is fun to watch. It has a stunning atmosphere reminiscent of Waterworld, except that the setting is a desert rather than an ocean. The influential but menacing villain and his noisy mooks distinctively reminded me of the Smokers who were constantly after the Mariner and the tattooed little girl in Waterworld. In addition, the costumes and makeup, and the props are impressive. Coupled with the atmospheric camerawork, thrilling score, and breathtaking performances, Mad Max: Fury Road is an awe-inspiring saga of survival and political intrigue.

According to my best friend, Waterworld was actually inspired from the original Mad Max series. This makes me look forward to watching the original series starring Mel Gibson in the title role. I would like to see how much of the original series inspired Waterworld and Mad Max: Fury Road visually and atmospherically.

Furthermore, what’s really refreshing about Mad Max: Fury Road is the refreshingly high number of women who are well-rounded characters in their own right. For the first time, I was watching an action movie made just for me. It’s not at all like other action movies where the female lead is designed to titillate the male target audience, like the Underworld series, the Tomb Raider movies; or worse, Sucker Punch and Lucy. Here, even if Max (Tom Hardy) is clearly the main character, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) establishes her own story and sustains it throughout the movie. Immediately after the introductory sequences, we are introduced to five beautiful maidens, played by Zoe Kravitz (X-Men: First Class, Divergent), Riley Keough (the villainous romantic lead in Justin Timberlake’s “TKO” music video), Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (the romantic lead in Transformers: Dark of the Moon), and models Abbey Lee and Courtney Eaton. While the five are not as prominent as Furiosa, they are clearly distinguishable characters even though, collectively, they are all the main villain’s brides/sex slaves. Although Furiosa takes it upon herself to protect them, the five brides put up a good fight against anyone who threatens them.

While the brides are literally sex objects in the movie, they are, more importantly, people who want to be anything other than dolls to play with; whereas with action heroines like Selene or Baby Doll, it’s the other way around. Selene, especially, is an fighter whose status as Michael Corvin’s lover doesn’t necessarily define her, but dressing her in a corset and a form-fitting catsuit and then giving her slow-motion shots to emphasize her curves lets you know that, ironically, she is still designed to be a sex object for the audience. The same is true for Baby Doll and her scantily clad posse. Furiosa and her young wards might be nice to look at, but the narrative presents them as much, much more than that by avoiding putting emphasis on their bodies. We get a good look at them when they are first introduced, but any chance of objectification is quickly dashed by using their thin physiques and grimy white dresses to show that they have suffered for it and want to escape, especially the pregnant one with ritual scars on her face.

Like the male characters Max, Nux, and even the villains, they are people letting their claws out to fight for survival in the harsh wasteland. Having Imperator Furiosa, a gang leader who works for the villain, ultimately betray her boss to rescue his young brides from him sets off the familiar feminist narrative. However, it does not play upon the usual gender conflict dynamic as blatantly as Sucker Punch does; instead, our heroines enforce their rights not just as women but as people seeking freedom from oppression, just like our hero Max. When he proves his worth to Furiosa and her wards, they accept his aid and he becomes their protector alongside Furiosa for the rest of the film. They become partners seeking common goals: dignity and freedom from oppression.

Feminism and Fiction

Betwixt my body image issues and the pervasive debates about feminism online, I realize how and why it's so difficult to portray women in fiction. Game of Thrones and Frozen are two of the works most highly praised for portraying women as complex characters in their own right as opposed to being a love interest (or worse, a one-dimensional villain) for a hero. Frozen and Game of Thrones also came out only a few years ago. This shows that, despite the successes of feminism in making the world a better place for women, the mass media still perpetuate stereotypes about women, even if they try to make a “strong and independent heroine.”

What Frozen and Game of Thrones got right about female characters is that, regardless of alignment, they have multifaceted personalities. They have more to offer than to be something pretty for a male hero to gain as a prize in the end. Being a complex female character doesn’t always require her to forgo traditional feminine traits either. This is somehow revolutionary in the realm of fiction, especially in mainstream pop culture. It’s just sad that this also shows what feminism tends to get wrong about femininity.

 In the past year, feminism has garnered significant backlash from a considerable faction of women in the Internet. The hashtag #womenagainstfeminism gained popularity in social media with quite a bit of help from BuzzFeed. This was in retaliation against misandristic attitudes from women who identify as feminists. Most active in Thought Catalog, BuzzFeed and Tumblr pages, these misandrists promote negative stereotypes about men, such as their penchant for abuse, rape, and violence in general. To them, men are incapable of affection and gentleness; and any woman who enters a relationship with one is either a traitor to feminism or doomed to an unhappy life of betrayal and domestic abuse.

Misandry means “hatred against men,” and there are many feminists who perpetuate this destructive attitude as an aid to promote women’s rights. But many women, especially those who are happy to be in conventional family life, vehemently disagree, with good reasons. They declare, “If advocating my right for respect for my life choices and equal treatment in business and politics means that I have to make jokes about violence against men; make hateful comments about their sex; and assume superiority over men, I don’t want to be a feminist.”

The same problems crop up in various degrees of subtlety in fiction. Emilie Autumn’s Fight Like aGirl album, based on her book The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls, has turned a tragic tale of abuse in the mental health institution into an allegory of radical feminism, to the disgust of female fans that are happy with their men. In a twist of irony, the Underworld series, Sucker Punch and, at a lesser extent, Taylor Swift’s music video for “Bad Blood” adopt the “girls with guns” trope as women empowerment despite the fact when it began as, essentially, action porn for men. If feminism demands respect for women, adopting girls with guns as women empowerment undermines this goal, as objectification of women is a major element in the genre.

There is also the faction of fictionists who take a different route. Apparently inspired by Xena: Warrior Princess, there are action heroines like Selene from Underworld and Katniss from The Hunger Games, who challenge the damsels-in-distress stereotype by wielding weapons and holding their own against powerful villains. Both heroines are not only fierce fighters; they are stoic and sarcastic. Besides their physical strength, their behaviors also defy the notion of the emotional woman.

I have a serious problem with that. While I understand that it’s clearly a reaction to the stereotype of a woman character manipulating others with her tears and acting upon her feelings, depicting an emotionless woman seems extreme. Not every woman wears her heart in her sleeve, but it doesn’t mean that a reserved action heroine ought to be perpetually stern or even borderline sociopathic. At least Selene gradually grows out of it when she experiences the joy of love and the fear and grief of losing Michael in the sequels.

Clearly written as a response to Bella Swan of the Twilight books, Katniss Everdeen is her exact opposite. Whereas Bella is gorgeous but doesn’t see herself that way, Katniss is severely malnourished and reasonably unattractive. Making her look acceptable for TV takes considerable effort from her stylists. Whereas Bella Swan is transparent with her feelings, Katniss is largely emotionless. Her first person narrative sounds like she is more of an (albeit spiteful) observer than a terrified teenager (unless she actually cries or becomes scared, which happens only a few times in the whole series). I commend Jennifer Lawrence for adding a layer of emotion to the character in the adaptation  (even though she doesn’t look the part at all). But I digress. Being excessively showy of emotion is merely a symptom of a usually bigger problem with a female character. But taking away emotion to enforce physical as well as mental strength for an action heroine seems rather shallow for me. It’s shallow because it doesn’t necessarily add to her character; it only reduces her femininity.

However, few people realize that about heroines like Katniss. Katniss has become the epitome of the “strong and independent female character” while female characters that still practice traditional gender roles are supposedly anti-feminist. Radical feminists criticize Molly Weasley for being a housewife to a man who works for the Ministry of Magic. They criticize Bella Swan for being “passive”; dependent to her men; and adopting traditional gender roles like keeping house and cooking for her father (more on this in an upcoming blog).

The problem with feminism is that it focuses more on combatting patriarchal oppression than celebrating femininity. It reinforces the idea that “women can be as good as men in everything,” so we must abandon traditional female roles and strive to gain success alongside men in business and politics, science and medicine, architecture and engineering, art and music and literature, and also in aviation and the armed forces.  there is nothing wrong with being a doting mother or a housewife as long as the stay-at-home mom is happy with it. Like all stay-at-home moms, Molly Weasley is constantly busy keeping house and raising children, including rambunctious twins Fred and George. In other words, it’s very hard work that must be appreciated and honored, especially by feminists.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with action heroines. Wonder Woman is a powerful super-heroine whose definitive trait is her compassion. But that doesn’t negate the fact that she will rightfully punish evildoers.

Beatrice “Tris” Prior from the Divergent series is a great action heroine not just because she can kick ass but also because she’s worked extremely hard to be able to do so. She’s special but she’s not the only one. The interesting thing about Tris is that, like Katniss, she is not particularly beautiful but that’s not relevant to the character. (This is one of the good things about Katniss as well.)

A heroine doesn’t need to be eye candy to be taken seriously, after all. Inversely, a heroine can still be beautiful but, like Wonder Woman, that’s not her most important trait.

Tris has fierceness about her, but also gentleness. Unlike with Selene or Katniss, the two traits do not negate each other. Tris never had to “discover the hidden softness under her hard core” like Selene or Katniss had to do because even though compassion doesn’t come naturally for Tris, she is considerate, friendly, and polite. The two traits are within her all along, as it is for all women.

Therefore, I would like everyone to learn that women are complex and ought to be written that way in fiction. We are indeed strong, but that can mean more than physical strength and combat skill. Wearing dresses and makeup, taking upon domestic tasks, or settling down does not make a woman less “strong and independent.” An ideal heroine is someone who can be any woman. She may or may not be beautiful; she may or may not care for her appearance. She may or may not be a combatant. She may or may not be a good person, even. But she is a whole person, nonetheless. The ideal heroine is one who feels for the other characters and what happens to them and her. She has dreams and desires. She has flaws and nuances. Not everyone might like her, and that’s okay. But she won’t take kindly to being insult or discrimination.

Pop Culture Issues I Somehow Can't Ignore

I am now 26 years old and have long stopped paying attention to silly "headlines" like what this celebrity wore or whom that celebrity is dating. I don't even go to Yahoo.com anymore because 95% of the stories are about silly things about celebrities nobody should have to care about. If people read more about philosophy and psychology and sociology, maybe they won't have to listen to the babbling of some "influential" celebrities for validation, but I digress.

Anyway, I've stopped buying OK! and Cosmopolitan magazines for almost two years now, and I have stopped browsing Yahoo.com around the same time. This is roughly the period when I've also stopped paying attention to the personal details of celebrities, even of those I happen to like. While I don't enjoy being cynical, I can't help but become a tad jaded when I learned that there are such things as image consultants. Essentially, I learned that the "personal styles" or "fashion tastes" of some celebrities are created for them, rendering "headlines" about fashion hits and misses bogus. The same goes with their "message" and public statements.

Since the downward spiral of Lindsay Lohan following the peak of Mean Girls, I have long since learned that celebrities should be allowed to be imperfect human beings with inevitable psychological problems considering their typically dysfunctional backgrounds. However, at this rate, with irreverent celebrity gossip needed to support the imaginary status of mediocre talents, dreaming of responsible journalism seems far-fetched.

Instead, I'll give in just this once to express something about a few pop culture topics I feel especially strongly about. Feel free to show me where I might be wrong.

Meghan Trainor

When I first heard "All About That Bass," I was in the treadmill on my second day of going to the gym ever. It was the time when I'd finally taken the initiative to get fit after nearly 15 years of being overweight. When I first heard the song, it made me feel glad that there is a popular song that directly addresses the issue of body positivity.

Prior to engaging in boxing workout routines, I'd taken to maintaining a positive but realistic attitude regarding body image. While I've desired to be thinner for both aesthetic and health reasons, I'm determined to still feel beautiful and confident while my BMI hasn't gone down to the normal range yet. On the flip side, I also believe that while overweight and obese people don't deserve being shamed for their looks and eating habits, thin people mustn't get the same treatment for the sake of "body positivity."

So you can imagine my disappointment when I heard more and more flaws in "All About That Bass" each time I heard it on the radio. The biggest problem with the song is when "skinny bitches" are mercilessly slammed in a backhanded insult of a lyric. This leads to another problem with the song in that the bottom line of so-called body positivity as illustrated in the song is that it is sexually desirable apparently. Not because you'll be more content in the long run or that you have more relevant attributes like intelligence or compassion or you mustn't feel guilty about eating fast food from time to time; it's because "boys they like a little more booty to hold at night." While it's a legitimate point that everyone can understand quickly, it once again misses the one best lesson in body positivity that organizations like Dove tend to overlook: People mustn't depend their entire self-worth on their physical appearance alone.

One more point about the song that bothers me intensely are the lines "My momma, she told me don't worry about your size" and "I won't be no stick figure silicone Barbie doll." Let me tell you this: A mother who lets her fat daughter keep getting fat is a negligent parent who doesn't care about her child's well-being. My mother was the one who convinced me that I need to do something about my weight because she is concerned that my obesity might get worse and it was already affecting my psychological health. Since going to the gym, I've maintained a good mood and even improved my humor. I look forward to updating my wardrobe once my BMI reaches "normal."

Regarding the Barbie doll line, I honestly don't understand why Barbie is under so much scrutiny. Why must she have to have a "realistic" design when she is a doll designed to simulate the body of a grown lady? I had never heard of a girl who literally felt bad she can't look like Barbie. And why must her looks matter so much? Barbie as a fictional character is a great role model for girls because she has engaged in plenty of different careers without abandoning her "girliness." Who says the love for fashion and a successful career in business or public service are incompatible?

And finally, there's Meghan Trainor herself. I understand this might be a ploy perpetuated by her record executives, but I'm not falling for her trick in passing off as a new Adele. First of all, she isn't fat. Even Beyoncé Knowles and Jennifer Lawrence are noticeably chunkier than Trainor. Trainor merely has a square, androgynous face she covers up with doll-like makeup to look more feminine. Besides, Adele might be fat, but that's not entirely why she's famous; like Aretha Franklin, Adele makes up for her unconventional figure by having great vocal talent.

Ariana Grande

Ariana Grande is one of those celebrities that are ubiquitous. No matter how hard I try not to pay attention, she is on TV, on the radio, and all over the Internet being talked about by her fans and haters alike. I fall in the latter category, and I believe everyone else has probably pointed out what I'm about to say. Her first few hits were Mariah Carey copycats and, in those songs where she is most like herself, her otherwise impressive range doesn't conceal that her voice is somewhat annoying.

And then there's her Lolita image. It's like she can't decide whether she wants to be sexy and seductive or sweet and unattainable. I'm not impressed either way and I just get angry when she unnecessarily bats her fake eyelashes at me through the screen. I'm just waiting when she finally ditches the dresses and appears nude in a magazine cover or something.

False Body Positivity in Pop Music

The pop music industry ends 2014 with a pair of body positive songs reminiscent of Dove's Real Beauty campaign. Like the Real Beauty Campaign, these songs send the right message to their young, mostly female listeners but also carrying with them misleading implications. Let me just take this moment to give a disclaimer: While I am a music lover myself, I have not been closely following the trends in popular music in the last eight or nine years—even much less in the last five years. As a matter of fact, I have spent the last three years revisiting rock music of twenty and thirty years ago, surprising myself with how much I enjoy them as a twenty-something. Naturally, I've been out of touch with "what's hot and what's not" because I've become more interested in "what's good and what isn't." I am no longer interested in the personal lives of celebrities and find the new ones' appearance and image hugely irrelevant that I find myself identifying most of the songs in the radio as "I like that one" or "Please, skip that one." When I watch music videos on TV, I might identify a few of the "artists" that came after Lady Gaga, but even if I know their names or what they look like, I might stop paying attention when they start talking about their image or when a VJ starts blabbering about the celebrity's recent "scandals." I have quite a few opinions about some of them that might either display my ignorance regarding these musical celebrities or show them for what they really are.

Regardless, let's get to the topic at hand. These two songs I've only heard for the first time in the last few weeks despite being months old by now. I've heard a lot about them before I got to listen to them myself. So I took as long as I can to not listen to them in full in case I go on a rampage of rage like I did following Miley Cyrus' controversial "We Can't Stop" and "Wrecking Ball." But when I started going to the gym in late October, I found myself back in the day when my eyes and ears were open to media solely because there is a radio or TV turned on in the same room.

All About That Bass

So I first heard Meghan Trainor's "All About That Bass" while I'm in the treadmill. When I absorbed the message about accepting yourself even if you're a bit heavy, I appreciated it. But when I've heard it a few more times in the next several days, I noticed this one disturbing line including the phrase "skinny bitches."  It's at the 1:30 mark in the video below:

This is also my problem with Nicki Minaj's "Anaconda"—more on that later. The hateful attitude toward "skinny bitches" undermines the reason for "fat positivity" in the first place: that slim women are desirable. The music video for "All About That Bass" even features a shot of a full-figured woman forcibly bumping a nearly skeletal woman off the frame with her butt. That's a pretty violent image for a video that's supposed to be about loving yourself. Why should loving your fat body have to involve hating someone who is thin, to prove your point? Besides, the desirable kind of skinny isn't the skeletal type anyway; tabloids have slammed freakishly thin celebrities like Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie, and Hilary Duff because they have so obviously mistaken being slim with being skeletal. The attractive kind of skinny is soft somehow.

Natalie Portman. Of course.

There is one more thing that another Internet personality has pointed out that I'm mostly ambivalent about. Todd in the Shadows from the That Guy with the Glasses website has observed that the message of the song is skewed because the persona's self-confidence is dependent on being desirable to men instead of the more progressive ideal that "I'm comfortable to be chubby because I'm happier this way." I don't disagree with him, but I understand that the lyrics are something that teenage girls can understand better somehow.

One last thing that I find disturbing about "All About that Bass" is the message that "every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top." This is not true. If you have to tell yourself this just to boost your fragile ego, you are certainly flawed. Don't fall into the trap of perpetuating a delusion of grandeur that you are "perfect" even with cellulite and stretch marks. A much healthier perspective is to look at those flaws, take them and accept them, and tell yourself that you have other, more important traits.

If you are listening to this song because you have body image issues, stop listening and pursue a healthy lifestyle by losing weight not just because people might like you more but because you will feel and function better. The harsh reality is that people can and will look at your appearance first before bothering with the inner you, so if you want to be accepted, you might as well be as pretty as you can be.

I have been overweight for the last fifteen years of my life. I have struggled with not being able to wear what I want and hearing only comments about my size even from my closest relatives. The nicest remarks people ever say to me was "How slim you seem in your outfit today!" only because I either got very ill recently or I was wearing a great outfit that day. I haven't reached my normal BMI in the last five years. My weight took its toll not only on my body; I also moved more slowly; grew tired more easily; and became more irritable than ever. However, I was determined to at least be and feel beautiful as a fat person because, obviously, I'm not going to shrink back overnight.

A good attitude about body image wasn't enough. I felt like I probably won't ever get taken seriously unless I literally look my best. So I took boxing sessions and have become slimmer and stronger. I haven't lost my weight yet because I'm building muscle as quickly as I am losing fat.  Even now, only two months after I started, I am not only more slender; I am also quicker, stronger, and more alert. It became easier to think positive because I don't have to rely on pop songs to make me feel better; I feel better because of what I do for myself.

Anaconda

As I mentioned before, my biggest problem with "Anaconda" is that it perpetuates a hateful attitude toward "skinny" women. Deciding to be chubby and feel beautiful at the same time doesn't give you the excuse to look upon thin women with resentment and then decide that they must be ugly by comparison to you. If women of any shape and size are beautiful then thin women are just as beautiful as fat women, plain and simple.




"Anaconda" is also that kind of "butt song" that perpetuates that disvalue that Todd in the Shadows has pointed out regarding "All About That Bass": that a woman's self-confidence doesn't come from the self-satisfaction of being intelligent, successful, or influential, but from being physically and sexually attractive to the opposite sex. While this is a perfectly legitimate reason to be self-confident, it shouldn't be the be-all and end-all of the issue. Women aren't made to be sex objects; women are human beings with aspirations. Even if these aspirations do include wanting to be a good wife and mother, that's fine; but one has to learn that she doesn't have to seek social validation for one's looks because looks aren't everything.

Death of/to Democracy

As a child, I learned in school that democracy is the grand manifestation of freedom and independence. It is also this wonderful relief the Philippines experienced after the twenty-year dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. In theory, democracy allows the common people who lead their lives as they choose. They have the choice to select competent officials to represent them in government. However, the success of democracy is dependent on several factors. The people should have the good judgment to distinguish a competent leader who cares about the common good rather than the pseudo-politician who uses cheap tricks on the people to put himself on top. Guess which of these scenarios is actually happening.

I seldom watch the news anymore. Whenever I watch the news, I feel angry and helpless. So when I start to feel the hot sensation in my chest I stop because feeling angry is useless when I can't do anything about it. Then, it occurs to me: What kind of democracy is this that the people literally can't do anything about the wrongs done to them by the people they trusted to make their lives better? Activists might be able to take to the streets, but the government doesn't listen to them. They also inadvertently disrupt the daily schedules of the people who would rather maintain their stable careers by coming to work on time.

The so-called intellectual class of Filipinos might take to the Internet and voice out their concerns in Facebook or Twitter or in news/blog websites like Rappler.com, Anti-Pinoy.com, or FilipiKnow.net, but the government doesn't change its ways. No wonder they don't: A vast majority of them are old men who don't even know how to use the computer. At worst, their spokespersons even silence naysayers by blocking them on social media, like the poet Angelo "Gelo" Suarez and his explicit complaint regarding the MRT.

The news broadcasting doesn't fare any better. Besides the fact that it displays the rather gruesome things Filipinos do to one another on a daily basis, much of its content is incredibly biased and tend to sometimes give people the wrong ideas about current events. This is called sensationalist journalism. It is why Cebu Pacific was pegged as a terrible air carrier after one [casualty-free] incident, which is their first since the fatal crash of Flight 387 in 1998. It is why Filipino Americans are hailed as Philippine representatives for achievements they weren't meant to share with the country they don't even belong to. It is why Filipino athletes and entertainers only get applause when they win when they could have used government support in order to do so. In other words, like Philippine politics, the local news media rouses the people's emotions just enough to give the illusion that the people has power.

But freedom of speech only goes so far. Yes, we can vote for the most competent government officials, but the vast majority of voters can be scammed into voting by handshakes, bogus charities, and last-minute infrastructure projects. That last one should have been taken from the taxes of the people, so politicians should not be rewarded for projects that should be their real job.

Yes, we can take to the streets and have journalists express public grievances, but free speech vanishes in the air as soon as it is spoken.

At worst, our own president uses the musings of a thirteen-year-old girl to protect himself from his detractors. This girl was brilliant to point out that Noy-Noy Aquino should not be the only one to blame for all the country's problems. For his State of the Nation Address, the President uses it as an excuse to blame the country's problems on his predecessors instead. News Flash: It's your job streamline solutions to those problems, SIR.

Stealing because they can, politicians show zero compassion by lording over the people instead of providing honest administration and service. I will not go into any more details because I will go into an unnecessary rage, but the bottom line is that, if it weren't for them, the Philippine would have been as self-sufficient as we were thirty years ago. If the country were economically stable, would the other problems in society be solved, too? I'm not sure, but if government agencies had the "funding" they so sorely need and their employees were humanely compensated, maybe they might actually do their jobs and raise the standard of living in the Philippines.

My heart breaks for the farmers and fishermen who don't get their share of the country's agricultural revenue. My heart crumbles for the OFWs who are forced to leave their families only to be mistreated by their employers because they are perceived as inferior. My heart burns for the middle class Filipinos struggling for an honest living only to be cheated by corruption, poor service in public sectors, and crime by the helpless poor. Something has to change, but I don't know where we can start.

In-Depth Review of Maleficent [SPOILERS and RAEG Ahead]

I'm sure anyone like me who has seen Walt Disney's 1959 adaptation of Sleeping Beauty was excited to see Maleficent since seeing the goosebumps-inducing teaser featuring Angelina. Jolie.

For all the kids who might be too young to grasp the significance of this actress, Angelina Jolie is an extremely talented performer and a devoted philanthropist with six children, three of whom are adopted from Cambodia, Ethiopia, and Vietnam. (The other three are biological children from fellow acclaimed actor Brad Pitt.) She has a long and illustrious movie career and is most famous for the following movies:

1. Gia (1998 HBO Original biographical film)

 2. Girl, Interrupted (1999 adaptation of memoir of the same name)

3. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001 video game adaptation)


Since breaking into the spotlight with these three movies, she has become an A-list celebrity with a string of both action and drama films. The rawness of her performances makes her an ideal choice for one of Disney's most iconic villains.


Maleficent gets roughly 15 minutes of screen time in Sleeping Beauty. As with many classic Disney Villains of the time, there is really nothing we need to know about her except that she is evil. She is so evil that she is willing to kill a baby simply because her parents didn't invite her to the presentation of the infant princess. She is offended at not having received an invitation whereas the Three Good Fairies Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather were invited and were allowed to bestow gifts upon the child. If that's not enough, her very name means "evil." As the villain of the story, the audience only has to wait and see how she is inevitably defeated.

There was really nothing else to it, and much of her background is only hinted at in the dialog. As in the original fairy tale, Maleficent is a fairy; however, in accordance to her name and character design, she is an evil fairy with purely destructive powers. The gentlest fairy Fauna is willing to believe that Maleficent can be reasoned with because "she can't be all bad." But the cleverest fairy Flora tells her with utmost certainly that Maleficent indeed can be all bad. However, when she suggests to "turn [Aurora] into a flower [because] a flower can't prick its finger," the shrewdest fairy Merryweather points out that Maleficent can only easily "send a frost" the same way that she, according to Fauna, "has always ruined [Flora's] nicest flowers." This can explain the outward hatred that the Three Good Fairies show toward Maleficent when the latter appears uninvited to King Stefan's court. Merryweather even goes so far as to call Maleficent a "wicked witch."

It also appears that the hatred is mutual. She openly insults the Three Good Fairies at the presentation by calling them "the rabble," a term meaning, "the lowest class of people."

When Merryweather says that they cannot easily hide Aurora because "Maleficent knows everything," Fauna points out that "Maleficent doesn't know anything about love, or kindness, or the joy of helping others." This is perhaps the greatest form of evil: one that cannot comprehend good or its components. Destruction and malice is all Maleficent can do, so these are also all she knows. It is perhaps for this reason that she lives technically in solitude in the Forbidden Mountain where other fairies are not allowed to visit. In the Forbidden Mountain, Maleficent resides in a decrepit castle where mostly only the dungeons and a few towers are intact. One can imagine that either that the fairies exiled her into her ominous domain or that she separated herself from the other fairies and enjoyed her solitude with her raven as her only friend.

Maleficent turned out to be disheartening for me to watch because I love Maleficent because she's bad to the bone. I love her as a villain because this makes her a force to be reckoned with. This makes the Three Good Fairies work very hard to avert the curse and, when that failed, to defeat her for good.

That's what I wanted to see in Maleficent: besides an account of the run-of-the-mill "how she became evil" narrative in the tradition of Wicked, I expected to see an account of how her destructive powers and malicious ways brought her to the Forbidden Mountain and how she assembled a band of grotesque goblins to do her bidding. This would have been a helpful PG guide for antisocial personality disorder, a frightening real-life psychological disorder in which a patient literally has no conscience and performs harm and destruction for no reason in particular. Patients with antisocial personality disorder are more commonly known as sociopaths or psychopaths. Maleficent is one such character.

Instead, Disney presents us with a saccharine yet cynical narrative of how Maleficent turned evil and, really, isn't evil at all. The whole film and the character it runs with are both victims of incredibly lazy writing. It seemed to me that Disney was like, "Here is Angelina Jolie. We know you all like her, so we won't bother with anything else because you will all pay to see her anyway." This is insulting. While I admire Angelina Jolie very much, Disney was wrong to assume that all of the audience come to the theater just to see Angelina Jolie; no, I came to see Maleficent, the Mistress of All Evil.

Maleficent begins not in the Forbidden Mountain but in what the narrator simply calls The Moors. This was a very interesting start as the Moors is clearly inspired from Fern Gully, a flourishing wetland where magical creatures dwell. Maleficent is introduced as a fairy with kob horns and large hawk's wings with a single talon on each of them. Like the elves in Fern Gully, Maleficent is a force of nature that can grow and heal plants. I was willing to go along with this at first, but I quickly knew that this movie will not be as I expected.

The young fairy Maleficent is established to be proud but compassionate. Her greatest minions are mossy tree creatures with the same silhouette as Chernobog from the Night on Bald Mountain sequence of Fantasia. Because of her strong wings and level head, she becomes the protector of the Moors. In her childhood, she meets the wandering urchin Stefan, with jet black hair, a pale olive skin, and a hard face with a pointed nose. The two become friends and, in adolescence, fall in love.

However, after Maleficent's sixteenth birthday, Stefan leaves the area to pursue success in society as a knight. The king, who is old and has no heirs to succeed him, appoints Stefan to be the new king after the latter, in a heartbreaking sequence, clips Maleficent's beautiful wings instead of beheading her as ordered. Forced to make do of what remains of her powers, Maleficent stops believing in true love and becomes a force of destruction. Creating a wall of thorns around the Moors, Maleficent rules the Moors as its evil queen and turns the Moors into a frosty wasteland where the inhabitants regard her with fear.

From here on out, the narrative diverges from its source material entirely. Maleficent neither resides in the Forbidden Mountain nor assembles an army of goblins. The fairies and other woodland creatures fear her but not oppose her. King Stefan is a lovable, steadfast, and somewhat quirky character from the animated classic but becomes a cruel warrior who is so blind with ambition that he is willing to betray his friend and lover to become king.

This reimagining of King Stefan is both good and bad. It's good because it fleshes out his character. Both his and Maleficent's character become more interesting because it entertains the idea that she cursed Aurora specifically because she has a grudge against him. It's bad because I can never look at this scene the same way again:


The Three Good Fairies are renamed and have dramatically different character designs and attributes.

Collectively known as The Pixies, Flittle, Thistlewit, and Knotgrass are annoying, incompetent, and unintelligent. Taking in Aurora was no longer their idea but King Stefan's, and they are shockingly neglectful guardians to the infant princess. They are not even remotely worried about her when she stays out of the cottage for days on end while spending time with Maleficent.

This is another way that Maleficent diverges from Sleeping Beauty. In the 1959 animated classic, Maleficent was unable to harm Aurora in her sixteen years with the Three Good Fairies because she has no idea where the girl is; in this retelling, Maleficent not only watches over the girl but even secretly cares for her when the Pixies don't. When the girl reaches adolescence, Aurora meets Maleficent and mistakenly identifies her as her Fairy Godmother. After a few days of bonding with her in the Moors, Aurora requests for Maleficent to let her live in the Moors with her. Maleficent acquiesces this request and even attempts to revoke her curse, only to find that the is unable to. Maleficent becomes visibly upset that she is unable to revoke the curse. She becomes even sadder when she points out that the countercurse is designed in a way that the curse can never be lifted: Aurora cannot be awakened by True Love's Kiss because there is no such thing as true love.

This is the part where I got downright disgusted. The Walt Disney Studios, which has instilled three generations worth of people with hope and love, has forgone both in favor of cynicism, which is apparently "cooler." It's one thing if Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty says it, because she's obviously the villain whom you are not supposed to root for; but here, it's Maleficent the designated heroine who says it. Is Disney now trying to teach kids that true love does not exist and so, by extension, the institution of marriage is a joke because a shockingly huge percentage of marriages end in divorce, like their parents'?

While I understand the intentions of this movie, it simply gets Sleeping Beauty all wrong. This movie makes it seem that Sleeping Beauty was an elaborate joke that, by the end, feels like a poor rehash of the ending of Ever After. In the end, Maleficent was a big corny mess and a pile of disappointment.