Watched: Die Beautiful (Jun Robles-Lana)
What I like about the film: Um, everything? Number one, I like that it didn’t try to sugarcoat the reality that’s happening with most LGBT kids, especially those who are growing/grew up here in the Philippines. Our siblings, in Gladys Reyes’ character as Beth, are usually more tolerant than our parents. They are, in a way, more supportive than our mothers and fathers. That’s first scene, when Beth is filming Patrick doing the pageant poses with his other gay friends. Of course, in Joel Torre’s character, is (I don’t know the exact statistics) most of our parents. Their generation is generally less accepting than that of ours now. They still think that the family’s reputation to other people matters more than what their kid might be feeling.
This story/film/topic hits home. Not even close, but right in the eye. I can tell, I’ve been there, all of Joel Torre’s lines are actually being said to children as young as I don’t know, two or three when they’re already showing their preferences. In the film, we’re all viewers. It hurts like a motherfucker to be called “putanginang gago ka wala kang hiya” (may not be the actual line) after being raped several times. It is very painful to watch, but just imagine how that may feel if you are actually Patrick. Masakit. I’ve never been molested or violated sexually, but to be called that hurts more than a lot of you can imagine. Watching it again as a viewer, the pain’s the same.
I remember that episode from RuPaul’s Drag Race. Ru said something like, “as gay people, we get to choose our family.” In my point of view, I can’t really blame Trisha for leaving her biological family, even after her sister approached him. I understand that in a Filipino point of view, family always comes first, but I also believe that family isn’t always the one we’re born with.
Barbs is family. Family is those who stick with you even when you don’t have anything to be proud of. Family is those who are there when you’re at your lowest. Above all, family is those who will accept who you are.
Is Beth a family? No. Beth is that friend who accept gays but never stand up for you and your rights. Inaabuso ka na, sinasaktan ka na, pero walang ginagawa. Pero tanggap ka. That’s not family. That’s not love in my dictionary.
The story didn’t even try to sugarcoat the fact that gays are going to grow old alone. This country can’t even legalize same sex marriage. They have to look at “having a child” as an investment so that they can have someone who will attend to them when they’re old. For me, it sounds problematic to think about children as just mere aids to take care of you when you're old. But the movie didn't portray it like that. What they showed is that Trisha can be a mother too, even if she did not have the womb that bear Shirley. Trisha loved Shirley like her own, and Shirley to Trisha like her real mother.
What I don't like about the film: Migs. Migs and his arrogant, entitled friends. Migs is the world -- cruel, walang awa, kupal. It pains me to know that those acts are really done by people who have rational thinking and logic. Pure evil. What pains me more is teenage Patrick -- who thought that he deserved to suffer like that in exchange of a little happiness and a little love from Migs. It pains me to realize that there may be kids out there who might be suffering that, and just chose to shut up because when their parents find out, all they heard was that he's gay and he did something "the bible considered as a sin." It pains me that even up to Trisha's death, he never got the acceptance from her dad. It angers me that there are people out there like Migs who live in pure hate and does not know love or respect. It angers me that they are alive, period. It angers me that there are people who take advantage of others can get away with it.
It saddens me to think that straight men get in a relationship with gay men for their money. It saddens me that gay men are aware of it, but somehow, hope that they're going to be loved back just a bit, for a while. But I have high hopes. I've seen a lot of same-sex marriages and relationships, online and in real life, who have succeeded. I'm so happy that the gay people I know (including myself) don't have to have money to find love. We all deserved to be loved, wherever spectrum we are.
What does the film tells me? People in the LGBT community are just the same with heterosexuals. I guess, in a way, we just had it a little levels higher in terms of difficulty. We are not automatically loved by our parents. We are not automatically accepted by our friends. We are not automatically recognized by our society. It took us years before being "out" in terms of sexual expression is tolerated and accepted, all credits to those brave ones who fought hard in the battle of gender equality. It took us years before holding hands and kissing in public places become tolerable. I used the word tolerated/tolerable because I know there are still a lot who think badly of gender-bent relationships and although not actively fighting against it, they are still against it.
What this film tells me is that I should never shut up. You should never shut up. I feel the need to educate people more, to help my brothers and sisters in the community, to stand up against violence and discrimination, to fight for our rights and for equality.
Maybe it's because I am bi (woo spontaneous coming out), but this film empowered me. It represented me in a way, and made me feel things -- some which melts my heart (Trisha and Shirley, Trisha and Barbs), some makes me cry (Trisha's family), and some angers me (Migs kingina mo). And I guess that's when you know it's a great film, when it made you feel and made you ask so many questions and made you speak so much like this trash of an article that I wrote.
Thank you, Team Die Beautiful.
(other obligatory parts of the review na semi compulsory kuno and totally killing the momentum hehe but what the hell)
Favorite Character: Barbs, duh.
What I don't like (yung totoo edition, hindi yung pagrarant lol): Where is the lip-sync reference? I need my girls lip-syncing for their lives! (an rpdr reference sorry)
If you haven't watched it, please do!
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