Cenon O. Palomares
Faculty Member
UP Film Institute
Cenon O. Palomares
Faculty Member
UP Film Institute
A gay student once confessed that he usually goes to Quiapo, Manila to buy pirated films in VCD/DVD form, back when the Optical Media Board (OMB) was still lenient with film “pirates.” He said vendors, upon sensing he is a homosexual, would approach him and say, “Boss, gusto mo ng indie-indie?”
Apparently, these vendors labeled most locally produced digital films with male homosexuality as theme “independently-made” or indie for short. According to Cenon O. Palomares, a UP Film Institute (UPFI) faculty member, this scenario is understandable because most gay films in the Philippines were actually produced independently by filmmakers who wanted to create something that is free from the dictates of so-called “macho” producers.
The advent and proliferation of digital films finally emancipated gays from being poorly stereotyped in Philippine Cinema. “It is a revolution waiting to happen,” Palomares expounded in his paper entitled Opening the Closet with a Digital Key: Gay Desire and the Birth and Evolution of Philippine Digital Cinema
In its 91-year history, there have been only a few movies with gays in Philippine cinema and most of these stereotypically portrayed them as man-hungry sex fiends. Gays were either typecast as “villains, idiotic sidekicks, willing victims of pranks and jokes and hopeless romantics who pine endlessly for their object/s of love and/or lust.”
Some of these stereotypes were portrayed by the King of Comedy, Dolphy, in such movies as Ang Tatay kong Nanay, Facifica Falayfay, and Jack and Jill; or by veteran comedian Roderick Paulatein Petrang Kabayo, Ako si Kiko, Ako si Kikay and Jack en Poy. Although these films raked money at the box-officefrom the 1950’s and 1990’s, Palomares said these have “only made gay stereotyping even worse and their naked corpus as social opprobrium.”
However, several landmark gay films that were critically acclaimed such as award-winning director Nick de Ocampo’s 1983 documentary, Oliver, which featured the double life of Reynaldo Villarama as a husband and loving father at home, and a female impersonator at night who uses the name Oliver in his job at the club; or Raymond Red’s experimental short film Ang Magpakailanman (1983). But, Palomares said such films are too few to have any cultural and business muscle to flex and be considered as a movement.
Ang Lalaki sa Parola by Joselito
Altarejos (2007) Photo credits:
http://picsdigger.com/image/
dfe4d684/
In 2000, when digital filmmaking became popular and gay films significantly flourished, Palomares said gays began to be portrayed differently and that the new breed of artists, writers, filmmakers and wannabes made films about their own experiences, fantasies, thoughts, ideas and ideals that are free from the dictates of macho producers.
In his analysis of gay films that have been made and released in the last seven years, Palomares noticed that most of them have one thing in common— desire. He said this is perhaps due to the fact that the genre is still relatively young and “both filmmakers and the audience are still microscopic, subjective/personal and hedonistic in their approach.”
He asserted that these are cinematic and visual manifestations of the filmmakers’ desire which could be romantic, physical, sexual, social or economic. Among the examples of these films are Ang Lalaki sa Parola by Joselito Altarejos(2007) and Cris Pablo’s Quickie/Quicktrip (2008) and Showboyz (2009).
The geographic and social environment in most gay Filipino digital films “is very accepting, if not permissive, of the gay lifestyle, or at least the pay-for-gay and the gay-for-convenience setups.” He also said these kinds of environment are accessible as well.
Gays in digital films are also given the opportunity to experience happily-ever-after endings which Palomares said is usually the staple of heterosexual films. Gay filmmakers, on the other hand, depict gay men as young, smooth, slightly muscled and handsome which embody their idea of beauty.
Palomares observed that in most gay films, role-playing is challenged and depicted equality as reality. For example, in Hamid Rahmanian’s movie Daybreak (2008), the gay couple is financially independent and sexually aggressive in bed wherein the young partner is usually on top but at the end of the film, a power-shift takes place and the young lover will allow the older lover to be on top.
With the present unconventional portrayal of gays in these digital films, Palomares concluded that the challenge for the penniless and ill-connected but passionate and creative gays is to create and give birth to Filipino gay cinema by making their presence known and appreciated and by carving their niche in the local film industry.
Palomares presented his paper at the College of Mass Communication Faculty colloquium on July 30.
—Haidee C. Pineda