Art Mirroring Life: Furor Over A ‘Beeb’ Sit-Com
Written on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 at 11:17 am | by Ding G. Gagelonia
The ‘Beeb’, a.k.a the British Broadcasting Corporation, nicknamed such by Brits, in a playful nudge at the American ‘boob-tube’, is facing a firestorm of sorts over episode 4 of the new sit-com ‘Paul and Harry’ where a Filipina maid is shown being made to dance seductively to try to ‘awaken’ the libido of a seemingly impotent ‘bloke’, and later on being shooed away.
The 57-second clip which is on YouTube is being roundly denounced as racist and demeaning of Filipinas.
The British embassy in Manila has tried to distance itself from the controversy, saying only that the BBC is independent of the government and enjoys considerable editorial and production freedom.
Surely the Brits will likely just sit tight and wait for the headline-grabbing issue to blow over as it likely will.
In a sense, perhaps, the BBC episode might serve as yet another wake up call for how Filipinos, unable to find good jobs at home, continually do face such indignities and labor under even worse circumstances, with Maria Claras hard put to protect their virtue at the hands of lecherous masters.
Was the Beeb really being racist? Or was the episode also meant to remind us Filipinos how out society is consigning its women to lives of servitude, nay slavery, in foreign shores all in exchange for the precious dollars and pounds that prop up the Philippine economy?
It is undenied that Manila actively promotes the export of Filipino labor just so the economy can stay afloat.
With the global financial crisis possibly getting worse before it gets better, how many more replays will there be of the degrading BBC sit-com scene.
Over at the Philippine Senate and House, except for activist lawmaker Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel, no one really seems to mind, with no one authoring a wider Resolution to express the Philippine legislature’s wholesale anger over the incident.
Don’t expect much. The others are all waiting to go on holiday after properly assuring their budget insertions and pork barrel allotments.
Tags: BBC slurs Filipinas, RP-UK relations- On Prostitution
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I read somewhere that what makes humour EFFECTIVE is the ounce of TRUTH behind it.
Here’s what I thought when I saw the clip; I saw a person going above and beyond her normal duties to fulfill the wishes of her boss. I saw her intent and determination to execute the task and not care if it is demeaning, because she herself does not find it so.
It’s the same to what happened to me yesterday when I (an IT manager) was asked by my boss to buy coffee downstairs. Should I be embarrassed? Should I start feeling low for myself?
People who are raising hell for this non-event, I recommend looking at the glass half-full, I promise you it’s not bad at all.
And for goodness sake, it’s a sitcom, not a documentary for the holocaust.
It’s kind of ironic that when Lea Salonga does the same (as Miss Saigon) over at West End, we honor her.
But then again, cvj, Lea was portraying a role of another race (Vietnamese), add to that, it was a tragic setting, compared to the ones portrayed in the sitcom?
Which begs the question then, would we feel less insulted if we saw the Filipina maid “reluctantly” dancing (with matching copious tears) compared to going all comically out?
If Risa Hontiveros is disgusted with the maid’s gyrations, can I ask her to watch Wowowee or Eat Bulaga’s scantily-clad girls doing fan-kicks and leg-splits?
Mikey, yeah i was thinking along the same lines that if we Filipinos think it’s ok to portray a gyrating Vietnamese bar girl as compared to a gyrating Filipina maid, then that means we’re not really that different from the ‘racist’ Brits whom we are criticizing.
This world is so fucked up that, with all the real problems at hand, people still manage to make a big deal about gyrating and/or scantily-clad women. Where’s the sense of proportion?
As for Risa Hontiveros, i watched her gyrate in the play ‘Grease’ (shown in Meralco theater) when i was in High School. It was a good performance.
Bulls eye on that Mikey Liling: eat bulaga and wowowee! Scantily clad Filipina girls doing the dirty dancing day in day out. Victimology is the science of our indispensable grievances which blinds us to our own worst faults.
Spot on DJB,
It surely is weird, our sense of ‘dishonor’ when foreigners slur our women, but each passing day in media, and in darkened honky-tonks, our women are prostituted, with nary a whimper from the guardians of our morals and the vanguards of the true, good and beautiful. Alas.
If I may take up the cudgels for the other side, whom I expect to arrive any moment now, the scantily-clad women in Wowowee are dancers. They signed up for this. There’s no question that these dancers do not feel their profession is degrading. The maid on the other hand is different. Theyre expected to be at the beck-and-call of their amo. As degrading enough as that is, the sitcom added insult to injury by prostituting the maid to get a rise (apologies) out of the catatonic Brit. The sitcom made it appear that the maid performed the dance with gusto, as if she were enjoying herself, which couldnt possibly be the case. It gives the impression that Pinay maids are like that: unquestioning, docile, and ready to do sexual favors.
Jeg, I agree with you here. But I think what is really under indictment here is Philippine society as well and how it allows its women, dancers, or maids, to be left to the not-so-tender mercies of the exploitative system, the uncaring media establishment, and the economics of it all.
But Jeg, why the distinction? Just because the Wowowee dancers are doing their “jobs”, does it mean they can be subjected to sleaze?
Lisa Macuja is a dancer and I doubt you’ll see her wearing a leopard thong while doing an arabesque.
Jeg,
No really, when the middle-aged DOM hosts of these noon day shows leer at the latest “dancer” with her wiggling pudenda, I see sexploitation writ large in the light of day. I know she is probably supporting a whole family in some squatter area or squalid barrio, and would grant her the ‘dignity of labor’. But for us to ascribe to foreigners despicable attitudes that we ourselves are guilty of, does not speak of moral consistency. We have a grievance over colonialism and blame it for everything, when the fault lies in us for not doing more with our country now that it is our responsibility. By the way, the scuttlebutt is that those hosts, the producers and all the men behind the scenes, really do get the pick of the litter and the side benefits of doing “job interviews” from an endless supply of desperate women needing a job. Any kind of “job” if you know what I mean.
DJB, is it even possible for pudenda to ‘wiggle’?
Obviously, cvj, you haven’t seen a “Tiger” Show in Bangkok. You’ll be surprised what pudendas can do.
You’re right on that Mikey. Apparently, i’m not as well-traveled as DJB.
Hehe guys, the discussion has turned to anatomy. In other lexicon, I believe you call pudendas ‘camel-toes’.
Right cvj?
If the maid dancing wasn’t Filipina would anyone here have given a hoot?
Ding, honestly, i had to look up the word in the (online) dictionary.
At least FV is more efficient. Over at Manolo’s blog, it took a few hundred comments before the conversation turned to the subject matter of ’sphincters’.
missingpoints, imho most likely not (unless Muhammad was depicted as the maid). What i find interesting with the online petition is that it takes pains to point out the variety of professions that Filipinos are engaged in the UK.
Just playing a devil’s advocate, what if, instead of a Filipina maid, it’s a Filipina NURSE they’ve used as the gyrating character?
You think there would be more clamor?
If DOM’s leer at the dancer with a wiggling pudendum, why is it the dancer’s fault? Why is it sexploitation? Theyre adults, they know what theyre doing, and theyre not ashamed of it. They know they have power over men. Who’s exploiting whom? When you go home from a night on Patphong and feel your severely depleted wallet, for instance. I dont know about you but in those instances I feel really exploited. It’s economics. It’s supply and demand. We have no right to look down on the prostitutes who know what theyre doing.
I would say, since it was a maid, and she didnt sign up for that sort of job, and knowing that she might lose her job if she didnt comply with her master’s wishes, that’s exploitation.
I think the reaction to the sitcom is so overblown, it’s hilarious. It’s a comedy for crying out loud. But come on, there are real issues behind the uproar.
it’s a Filipina NURSE they’ve used as the gyrating character? You think there would be more clamor?
Im thinking less clamor.
Edit that to: “I dont know about you but in those instances I’d feel really exploited.” Subjunctive mode. It’s not as if I do that sort of thing.
Oo, hindi Filipina ang sumasayaw, pero ang ideya ng palabas ay ipahiwatig na iyon ay isang Filipina Domestic Helper.
Tama ba nabasa ko na hindi dapat gawing issue? Para sa anong dahilan dahil isa lang syang domestic helper? Kung comedy show nga ito dapat bang huwag nang pansinin? E di sana hindi na lang natin ginawang issue ang Desperate housewives noon dahil tutal part lang ng script ang linya ni Teri Hatcher tungkol sa Pinoy Doctors at di naman Filipino yung doktor na kausap nya.
Ang hirap minsan sa ibang Filipino na OO lang tayo ng OO sa mga anong gawin ng banyaga sa lahi natin kaya lagi tayong biktima, lagi tayong kawawa. Bakit hindi tayo lumaban at ipangalandakan sa kanila na talamak na ang diskriminasyon sa mga Pinoy, kung si Apostol nga noon nasita ng Chinese Community dahil sa sinabi niya. Tayo pa na tahasan na biktima ng diskriminasyon ay tatahimik na lang?
Tandaan lang sana natin na doktor man yan, domestic helper man yan, o pulitiko man yan, FILIPINO PA RIN YAN kaya hindi natin kailangan i-level ang idea na kesyo huwag tayong maging sensitive sobra dahil aminin man natin o hindi sa ibang tao hindi issue ito dahil “DH” lang ang issue sa palabas at di yung “mataas ang propesyon” kagaya ng doktor.
Narito ang video para sa hindi pa nakakapanood http://www.filipinovoices.com/sila-lang-ba-ang-anak-ng-diyos
Flow, sa ganang akin, issue talaga ito hindi dahil biktima sila ng mga banyaga. Issue ito dahil biktima sila ng mga Pilipino. Tungkol sa mga doctors nung panahon ng Desperate Housewives, mas natawa ako sa reaction dun sa kainsecure-an ng mga doktor. Dito, dahil mga domestic helpers ang ginamit sa sitcom, kahit na sa ganang akin ay napaka-OA ng reaction natin tulad ng pagpapatawag ng British ambassador, hindi ko magawang masyadong matawa. Pero alalahanin mo na biktima sila ng kapwa natin, at hindi mga banyaga. Umalis sila dito dahil kapit na sila sa patalim. Hindi yun kasalanan ng mga Brits.
well, there we are.
We’re already deprived in material wealth, and worse we can’t even stand-up to do something about the perception towards Filipinos. Very good. VERY good of us.
Some of us here are even missing the point by hauling in arguments comparing Filipino behavior to foreign behavior (in the context of the issue at hand) in the hopes of just letting this incident pass. Very good. VERY good of us.
[…] our sensitivities run only one way, and our sense of irony is as dead as a doornail. Classic pikon, as they say in […]
@flow: Oo, hindi talaga dapat ginawang issue yung sa “Desperate Housewives.” Bobo talaga at medyo racist ang character ni Teri Hatcher kaya bagay lang yung dialog.
Ibang kaso si Apostol, government official siya na nagsalita ng offensive. Kung si Gordon Brown ang nagsabi na pinapasayaw niya yung Pinay na DH niya, magrereklamo rin ako.
Iniistereotype din naman natin nito si Rick Everley sa lahat ng telenovela for comedic effect.
@tambay: We CAN stand up, the question is should we? It’s a non-incident, pinapalaki lang natin dahil feeling “api” tayo lagi.
Let’s say that a program like Joey de Leon’s Nuts Entertainment is shown in the West. Expect a similar ruckus like what we have here. If gays and other pansexuals are ridiculed, the Western networks will immediately apologize.
The hypocrisy of the West is clearly shown in the Her Britannic Majesty’s Embassy statement. Very little regret is even mentioned.
Maybe we should get the Men in Skirts at the CBCP to just issue a fatwa against those Big Bad Racist Brits and all convert to Islam so we can whip ourselves up into a proper frenzy at such disrespect for our concept of Filipina dignity, march around in angry phalanxes calling for the beheading of the show’s producer and show them damn lobster backs what happens when they make of fun of this great Malay nation of truly mature patriots.
[…] Posted on 9 October 2008 by rom Over at FV … ‘pudenda?’ What the fuck? Is there a dalaga in that room that those boys […]
blackshama, your 10:11 shows only one thing — when locals make politically-incorrect jokes about fellow filipinos, it’s fine; when foreigners do that about us, it creates a ruckus.
i’m disappointed with BBC, sure, but unless and until our local networks and entertainment outfits move from such comedy standards (what was that gma afternoon show before? daisy siete? tabachingching? uling-uling?) i can see very little reason to hold foreign ones to task.
Oh dear, this really is a storm in a teacup.
The thing with this sketch is that the Filipina was not the target of the joke.
It was actually mocking how certain types of English people see themselves as superior to all those outside their social class. A popular theme of British humour centres around British people making fun at themselves. In this case, we are supposed to be laughing at the middle-class English guy who reveals his own stupidity by the way he treats others.
If you’re interested, I’ve explained this in a little more detail in my own post about the Filipino community’s petition against the Harry and Paul show.
The more we put attention to this, the bigger arses we make of ourselves.
Pinoy nga naman talaga
Parang aso
Matangkad lang kapag naka-upo.
-
bengn0,
Tumbok na tumbok mo. Sadya malungtkot nga na galit tayo kapag dahuyan ang bumabastos sa dalaganang Filipina, nguni’t kapag tayo ang lumalabag sa kanilang dignidad tawa rin tayo nang tawa kina Tito, Vic, and Joey. Ito nga lang ang ang sukat.
The 2nd Global Forum on Migration and Development will be held here in Manila at the end of the month. While the UN and other participating IOs have already set an agenda there is lee-way for local participants and the Philippine government to highlight the need for increased protection for migrant labour. The first forum was held in Belgium. I believe this to be a symbolic gesture to let labour-sending countries such as ours have a say with high-level negotiations.
The merits of the multilateral agreements, plans of action and norms that will result from this forum will of course be debatable. I know plenty of INGOs along with local civil society counterparts will be coming here as well to hold an “alternative” forum. Ours is hardly a model of labour export.
At the multilateral and transnational civil society levels at least, there is lee-way to make foreigners “sensitive to our plight.”
It is a small thing to sign the petition, but ordinary Filipinos’ collective voices calling out what they see as injustice is a symbolic gesture that we do expect labour-receiving countries and their peoples to be sensitive to migrant workers who answer their labour shortage.
I think we are missing the opportunity inadvertently brought up by a British comic. One Representative has taken the initiative to MAKE THIS AN ISSUE and steer the discourse in THE RIGHT DIRECTION.
This is an issue of migrant labour and human rights.
Sparks,
When the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Miriam Defensor Santiago slurred the Chinese people as the inventors of corruption for all of human civilization, the Chinese Ambassador protested with a note verbale to the DFA. What do you think should be the government’s response to a case like this.
Now suppose the governments, or blog swarmers of Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Hindus or other foreign nationalities that are regularly portrayed in some stereotypical way by our movies, tv shows, komiks, radio programs, plays and other entertainment related media, were to protest such maltreatment of their citizens in our media, what should be our principled response?
Should our government maybe single out the most famous or egregious examples pointed out by the protesting countries and punish those severely to make examples of them, put fines or demand apologies for them?
What about freedom of expression? Was there really a slander or slur against all Filipinas in the BBC’s show?
Look around you, the whole world economy is collapsing. Should we really be making mountains out of mole hills?
This is an issue of migrant labour and human rights???
Why what British or Filipino law has been broken? It was sitcom ferchrissakes!
DJB,
Yep, I agree with you regarding our noontime shows. Napaka-sexist ng mga noontime shows natin. Halimbawa si Joey de Leon, hindi ‘yan nauubusan ng mga jokes that discriminate against gay people. Nasa national TV pa man din siya at maraming nanood sa mga remarks niya.
But then again, it is not the fault of the media entirely dahil sa ang canvass ng media natin for their shows ay kung ano ‘yung talamak sa society. Talamak ang discrimination sa mga gays and lesbians, talamak ang Visayan jokes, talamak ang subtle (or is it?) negative views sa mga Filipino muslims, sa mga Aeta at sa mga minorities at large.
Ang nagin problema lang sa media ay imbes na maging venue ito for social change, naging venue pa ito ng pagpapalaganap ng mga mali sa lipunan in the name of raking in big big cash.
DJB, You of all people will agree that the Filipino people is not the Philippine government. In case you missed this part, let me reiterate:
I think we are missing the opportunity inadvertently brought up by a British comic. One Representative has taken the initiative to MAKE THIS AN ISSUE and steer the discourse in THE RIGHT DIRECTION.
Yes. If we say migrants are the life blood of this country, and the domestic set-up is inhospitable to economic growth and the creation of new industries able to absorb labour, and the Church doesn’t want to stop population growth, then we go back to the engine of this country’s consumption-driven economy - migrants.
The TV show is beside the point. It started this discourse. Let’s point the discussion to substantive matters.
@Blackshama
Family Guy and American Dad routinely poke fun at gay people all the time. very funny stuff! one ep had a fight scene between stan’s gay neighbors and stan choreographed as a ballet (in american dad)… stewie sometimes acts as if he’s gay and ashamed of it. hehehehe…
[…] to the BBC brouhaha, Jeg writes a post on the world’s oldest “profession”: Not one to pass on the […]
@caffeine_sparks
That’s the part in which I agree with you. There’s a valid cause that must be fought, and that is the safety of our OFWs. What I’m not liking though is that people have to drag a TV show into this, asking for an apology even. It’s a TV show; it’s fiction. Move on. In another perspective, the show is doing us good because it is bringing up an important issue at hand: the state of domestic helpers in other countries. It is like what the title of the post is saying: art reflecting life. The art form doesn’t encourage what people do in real life; it reflects what people do in real life and that is what must be addressed. It isn’t as if the art form drives real life to what it does.
if there is another group who should file a complaint, it is the British employers of the domestic helpers themselves.
They were put in the bad light . It portrayed them as exploiters of young women, vulgar and immoral using their employees as a sex toy.
but why is it that nobody is raising hell about the gutter humor of the duo?
those who raise this as an ofw issue are insulting the filipinas who work as domestic helpers.
they are accused of bearing this indignity because
they have a family to support.
Filipino domestic helpers kill in defending their honor. Some escape from their employers leaving everything…their months’ unpaid salaries…their
passports. Just read the stories from the middle east.
Filipina domestic helpers in UK are certainly the people that the employers can not abuse and make to work beyond what they were hired for. If they are hired as cook, they function as cook. if they are hired as nannies, they function as nannies.
if employers breach this contract, they can always look for available employers who will give them better treatment. The demand exceeds the supply.
Some filipinos treat their maids worse than their animal pets.
Do these human rights advocates bring out the issue? nahhh. it won’t put them in the limelight.
OFW issue will.
Well, Migrante International certainly thinks its a migrant issue.
sparks,
I have a feeling that as a result of this incident we can expect an increase in Brits hiring Filipina domestic helpers. It’s a form of branding. True, some of them may do so out of some perverted fantasy that they will get some bombshell sex dancer who also works like a dog without eating or sleeping much, but the vast majority will just get to appreciate the tender loving skills of our English speaking domestic helpers. There might be a slight increase in marital strife, and even inter-racial marriage, but most British-Pinay mestizas I’ve met usually do great Shakespeare.
“They were put in the bad light . It portrayed them as exploiters of young women, vulgar and immoral using their employees as a sex toy.
but why is it that nobody is raising hell about the gutter humor of the duo?”
Because, unlike Hontiveros, they understand that it’s a joke?
MP, it’s ok for the Brits to poke fun at themselves and their foibles, but I guess it’s also another thing to be sensitive to the sense of dignity of the ‘help’ given the circumstances that drive them to become peons in foreign lands, hospitable or otherwise.
@missingpoints
Pinapalaki? You mean to imply this one is a microscopic case that we’re trying to inflate? Well, it must be. Look at how small we look at ourselves, figuratively. What BBC did is just to portray Filipino women–not to mention those who labor for foreign masters in a foreign soil–as objects of pleasure. No big deal, eh? Just a friggin’ small case. Sure, we can smile at that and make that a precedent for future generations.
That scene in the show may be a joke, but it certainly did not make me laugh. Neither smile. It’s a gutter humor that’s pointing to a reality that shouldn’t be laughed at.
Because just like Mandela, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, they have other concerns to attend to rather than dignify a comedy skit that is not even funny.
@tambay
Nope, what the show did was play up the stereotype of horny white men with a case of jungle fever. Why do we assume that they’re poking fun at us and not them? Ganun ba tayo ka kulang sa pansin?
You’re reading too much into a show that doesn’t aspire to social commentary. They needed a character to do a lapdance and instead of getting your standard peroxide blond stripper they used a foreign domestic helper. The fact that she’s Filipino doesn’t really matter to the joke.
It only matters to people who keep thinking that we’re always “inaapi.” We have better things to do.
MP.
You are certainly entitled to be ‘unaffected’ and not feel that you were not among thosed ‘poked fun at’. Bur go back to the very title of the offending episode ans you will know it was a particular choice to project a ‘lowly’ Filipina maid offered up to be ‘mated’ by a Northerner, being ordered to offer her rear and later to be brusquely shooed away like a dog. Is the slur now abundantly clear to you?
Then again, may I go back to my own post’s point: that this episode serve as a wake up call, among other wake up calls for how our society is allowing out compatriots to suffer indignities far worse than what is portrayed in the skit. Need we be reminded of Sarah Balabagan and Flor Contemplacion and other faceless Filipinas who, to this day, are in the clutches of virtual slavery.
Ding,
“the clutches of virtual slavery?”
Even middle class folks employ domestic helpers right here in the Philippines, millions more than Brits employ.
Are we a nation of brown slavers then?
I think MP is right that the show pokes fun at the male characters as much as the Filipina.
There are also freedom of speech issues involved here. We cannot fight disinformation (if that’s what the BBC was doing) with suppression.
Agree. So I googled what bills have been originally authored by some people who are always in the news because of some advocacies just to earn media mileage…
Sad, most of them authored bills like declaration of observation for blahblahblah awareness. Talagang pang media image lang. Nasabi pa namang mga lawmakers.
Gentlemen,
You will, I hope realize that here, in the Filipino context, there is necessarily an appeal to emotion to try to awaken us from the stupor of resignation to the fate our women are being consigned to.
C’mon, it is just really okay for us to shrug our shoulders since anyway its not the menfolk who are left to the lecherous and leech-like designs of foreign masters. Yes here at home we do employ ‘kasambahays’, but let’s not think we are “brown slavers” in that sense, right DJB? We that point is humane and dignified treatment and estimation of workers of whatever ethinic backgound or socio-economic station.
Ding,
Fair enough, though slavery was not my characterization. Indeed, I reckon most Brits actually treat their Filipina maids better than we do. Else, why would they willingly go to England to work, given the tremendous hardships involved. Honestly, if my maids had a chance to work in England, I’d probably be doing laundry tomorrow. Besides even in the clutches of virtual slavery, our OFWs sure make a lot of dough to send back to families back home. For every Flor Contemplacion, how many Filipinos suffer worse from fellow Filipinos but are never heard about? I’m just struck at the characterization of them as “virtual slaves” in the context of a Brit sit com. Filipinos will gain the respect of others by their good works and true accomplishments, not our whining as victims of professions and situations we freely choose to enter. I sympathize with your sentiments and reacted much the same way when Cory Aquino was depicted as a slut. I was wrong then, I think.
@DJB
Really? You reacted to the “Daily Show” gag? I find that hard to believe.
MP,
Sure. That’s why I understand how people here feel the way they do. But I didn’t go for the diplomatic protests, blogswarms or other useless actions. Certainly not now when it seems the world is about to fall into an abyss.
Re: Was the Beeb really being racist?
Don’t think so — in the first place, the Filipino maid portrayal could easily have been a Brazilian maid portrayal.
Secondly, many Filipinos in Britain are for the most part doing either hospital assistant jobs if they are lucky but most of them are doing maid, houseboy work so how else could or should they be portrayed? They’re not teachers, not civil servants, not doctors, not lawyers, not even as shop keepers, etc.
Yes, some folks back home might not like the overall depiction of Pinoys/Pinays as domestic workers in the UK but heck, let’s face it, RP exports most Pinoys to the UK for that purpose (wasn’t it Gloria’s policy to launch them as Super Maids or something?) so we can’t be so onion skinned with regard to how these human exports are portrayed over in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
[…] Dear mouse, This is old news. The comedy starring BBC Harry and Paul had that episode where a Filipina maid is shown being made to dance seductively to try to ‘awaken’ the libido of a seem… […]