On Hector Eating a 1066-Page Novel, Aesthetics, and FHM
It’s a murky, melancholic, and miserable day. The bows of our narra trees are bent in surrender to the unforgiving gusts, glistening with the tears of the nimbuses. Puddles reflect the swirly depths of prismatic gasoline oil, miniature canvases of the natural and artificial. The sidecar drivers are sweating rain, and grouchy. Aircon buses have metamorphosed into cryogenic crypts.
Hector ate my Battlefield Earth copy.
Hence, the temporary depression.
---
The Cream Silk ‘I choose to be beautiful’ campaign caught my undivided attention the other day. As some of you already know, I do my brain work inside buses. It so happened that the commercial was being shown on the small TV set inside the bus.
Anyway, the commercial models snagged my eye. They were utterly sophisticated in their well-cut, in-vogue dresses. Their makeup was heavy but was done very artfully to highlight their Asian features. Yes, Asian. Not morena.
What does that say about the trend of beauty in the Philippines today? I was reading the Metro magazine issue that has Iya Villania, Ornusa Cadness and Raya Mananquil just a week ago. The last two are top models and Iya is a top TV personality. The cover article’s title was ‘The Changing Faces of Beauty’. The women were olive-skinned, dark-haired, and Asian-looking. Sweet. Now were finally catching up with the Japanese and the Koreans. No, not in economic terms (duh), but in the way they find their women beautiful without the preference for Western features. Unlike in the Philippines…but that is supposed to be changing now.
How many Pinays are willing to give their left eyebrow for a matangos nose? Well, maybe their left leg. Not the eyebrow. And how many Pinays spend how many buckets on whitening gunk just to achieve the Kris Aquino-Regine Velasquez i-hate-the-sun-i-drink-blood-only-at-night look? But that’s a complex question. Fallacious. How many Pinays get their hair chemically done and dyed to look like a blond Morticia Adams? Why am I asking this? I dunno. It seems to me that I’ve always asked such questions ever since I was born: snub-nosed, olive-skinned, curly-haired and all.
And now I’ve got a chance, along with the millions of frustrated Filipinas who do not fit in the traditional made-in-the-factory, quality-controlled mould of beauty. Philippine society is finally evolving---at least, in aesthetic terms. We’ve been stuck too long in the legacy of Western colonialism that even we define beauty by their definition. The Spanish and American conquistadores left us more than God and McDonald’s, after all. All aesthetically-frustrated Pinays must accept that fact. We are the continuing victims of centuries of colonialism! It is the fault of our parents and their parents that we are ugly! Let us rise and loot Pond’s! Let us fight for our rights and imprison Drs. Vicki Belo, Manny and Pie Calayan! Let us have Jessica Zafra be FHM’s sexiest woman on Earth!
Hector ate my Battlefield Earth copy.
Hence, the temporary depression.
---
The Cream Silk ‘I choose to be beautiful’ campaign caught my undivided attention the other day. As some of you already know, I do my brain work inside buses. It so happened that the commercial was being shown on the small TV set inside the bus.
Anyway, the commercial models snagged my eye. They were utterly sophisticated in their well-cut, in-vogue dresses. Their makeup was heavy but was done very artfully to highlight their Asian features. Yes, Asian. Not morena.
What does that say about the trend of beauty in the Philippines today? I was reading the Metro magazine issue that has Iya Villania, Ornusa Cadness and Raya Mananquil just a week ago. The last two are top models and Iya is a top TV personality. The cover article’s title was ‘The Changing Faces of Beauty’. The women were olive-skinned, dark-haired, and Asian-looking. Sweet. Now were finally catching up with the Japanese and the Koreans. No, not in economic terms (duh), but in the way they find their women beautiful without the preference for Western features. Unlike in the Philippines…but that is supposed to be changing now.
How many Pinays are willing to give their left eyebrow for a matangos nose? Well, maybe their left leg. Not the eyebrow. And how many Pinays spend how many buckets on whitening gunk just to achieve the Kris Aquino-Regine Velasquez i-hate-the-sun-i-drink-blood-only-at-night look? But that’s a complex question. Fallacious. How many Pinays get their hair chemically done and dyed to look like a blond Morticia Adams? Why am I asking this? I dunno. It seems to me that I’ve always asked such questions ever since I was born: snub-nosed, olive-skinned, curly-haired and all.
And now I’ve got a chance, along with the millions of frustrated Filipinas who do not fit in the traditional made-in-the-factory, quality-controlled mould of beauty. Philippine society is finally evolving---at least, in aesthetic terms. We’ve been stuck too long in the legacy of Western colonialism that even we define beauty by their definition. The Spanish and American conquistadores left us more than God and McDonald’s, after all. All aesthetically-frustrated Pinays must accept that fact. We are the continuing victims of centuries of colonialism! It is the fault of our parents and their parents that we are ugly! Let us rise and loot Pond’s! Let us fight for our rights and imprison Drs. Vicki Belo, Manny and Pie Calayan! Let us have Jessica Zafra be FHM’s sexiest woman on Earth!
posted by Ferretti shoes at
4:42 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home