Unrequired Reading: Sirena X This Guy's In Love With You Pare

It's been a while since I posted an Unrequired Reading for everyone's better appreciation of, well, of stuff.

This week's Unrequired Reading is inspired by the recent "Super Sirena" fiasco, the popularity of GMA-7's homoserye "My Husband's Lover", and the absolutely ridiculous Russian policy against the LGBT lifestyle. With these recent events, I took a look at our current pop culture and see if there is positive and supportive LGBT sentiments from straight but not narrow artists. The two examples that easily come to mind are Gloc-9's "SIRENA" and Parokya ni Edgar's "THIS GUY'S IN LOVE WITH YOU, PARE".

I have chosen these two examples because as pop songs, they are narratives (if you are still with me at this point, you will have to start speaking my language; these are more than songs, these are stories) that are most frequently experienced by the ordinary people--compared to movies and TV shows that would take several minutes, as media, to be consumed.

"Sirena" takes in its centerstage an old joke, oft repeated in moments of machismo--after all, when do men need to be more manly than in the intimate company of other men?-- A homophobic father is repeatedly dunking his son's head in a drumfull of water. This reverse waterboarding technique is presumed to convert the gay son straight. As the father interrogates and forces his son to choose between being a girl and being a boy, the gay son willfully defines himself as something else: "A MERMAID!"

Gloc 9's "Sirena" narrative then follows the life of the gay son as he grows up as a troubled teen. Harassed, hated. This does not deter him though from remaining loyal to his abusive father. The song ends at the deathbed of the father, and the gay son, now fully grown, remains loyal to him. Vindictive, perhaps? Or forced by circumstances--after all, a sad reality of the Philippines is the steadfast refusal of the state to recognize same-sex unions.

The music video showcases the likes of prominent LGBT personalities like Danton Remoto, and Boy Abunda, lending some Gay Cred to the project. As Katrina Stuart Santiago praised it, "Sirena is everything I didn't expect."

But there really is nothing new in Gloc 9's narrative, Katrina. On first glance, it may be a narrative proposing an empathic look at members of the LGBT community. True, it dramatized (melodramatized, even) an old joke creating a desensitizing new way of looking at the situation as something more real, more current, but it's an old, tired image: an effeminate son being physically abused to go straight. It offers nothing new.

It's limiting. It defines the LGBT reality as effeminate and that only physical abuse is considered abuse. Whereas it could have broken new grounds by exploring the mental abuse, it shied away (or ignorant of it, ignored) from anything other than the trite and tried Roderick Paulate formula: the gay is depicted as "kumekembot" and his earring dangle ("mga hikaw na gumegewang"), his eyelashes are curled.

Worse, the song defines the gay person's worth by his usefulness to the abusive parent. This sends a strong message to young gay people of the Philippines: "We'll accept you, but you have to take care of us when we grow old." Only when the gay persona is useful can he be tolerated, accepted, welcomed, appreciated.

There is nothing in the song that defined the gay persona as an individual. Whereas the project aimed to humanize the gay persona, it failed by its insistence to stick to the Roderick Paulate image: the opportunity to create a character compromised by the easy route of using a caricature. Like Lolita in Vladimir Nabokov's novel, the gay persona ("Sirena") in the song existed ONLY IN CONTEXT to the abusive father: first, as victim, then ultimately, as the caretaker.

Now, I'd like to turn your attention to a much older song. Parokya ni Edgar's "This Guy's In Love with You, Pare" is a pop rock ditty that tells of a (presumably) heterosexual man's confusion with his best friend's sudden change of heart.

But what's amazing about this song is that it offers a whole new perspective into the LGBT reality. What happens when a gay guy falls for his straight best friend?

The positive vibe of the song makes the narrative catchy, but more importantly, it does not draw importance to its message self-consciously. "Oh, no, my best friend's gay // Is he the same old friend I had yesterday?" the narrator laments, perfectly capturing a sentiment that people have about people coming out of the closet: Will you be different now? Are you still our son? Is our little princess going to shave her head now?

Then, in a brilliant flash of insight, the song explores a common tendency of gay people in fetishizing their straight men friendships: "Oh, di kailangan na mag-on!" // "Converted pa rin, nakikipag-fling sayo."

Sure, the bros did not end up romantically together, but even till the end of the song, even after what the two personas went through, the narrator still insists: "Oh, no, my best friend's gay..." Explicitly refusing to redefine their friendships just because the gay persona fell in love with him.

Whereas Gloc-9's "Sirena" wants to call your attention with how "I feel for gays" the songwriter is ("Acceptance! Tolerance! BUT only if you'll take care of dad), Parokya ni Edgar's "This Guy's In Love With You, Pare" takes on a more creative approach: We're still best friends, it's really not an issue, bro.

Writing At Knifepoint

The reading room at the Graduate Studies Office of our college is open only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays--and only for four hours each day. Last Friday, I filed for a leave of absence from work so I can get some work done on my thesis. It wasn't an easy task navigating through the shelves of works as they were arranged in adherence to the deconstructionist view of tearing down structures; they were not shelved alphabetically, by year, or even by field of study.

Finally, I managed to hunt down relevant works to the one I have planned. I went through the Thesis Introductions--which were the the critical part of the whole thing, being the writer's self-reflective critical paper on his own literary aesthetics.

Going through them, I discovered how most of my contemporaries began their crazy quest to create literature. Some were poignant--with episodes set in the province, by a grandparent's lap, in the middle of Martial Law and marital wars. Some were accidental, in pursuit of a particular science, say, an epiphany would strike, or forced by circumstances and opportunities, a writer would find himself writing and could no longer stop even if she tried.

This got me to thinking about my own origin story. When is it, really, that I started to become convinced that writing is what I want to do for a living? What moment pushed me to the edge of this madness?

Perhaps, technically: it was when I enrolled in a graduate studies program different from my previous education of the law and philosophy. It was the moment when I committed to pursuing a more technical and theoretical approach to my writing, and to fly with more than raw talent, mental illness, and the belief that my public persona can help me sell books.

But even before that I had always been writing, telling stories. In college, in high school. Though they have taken different forms of telling--from performance poetry to stage plays, fan fiction and blog posts--I had always used my grasp of language to convey meaning, to capture truth, to create worlds with the use of words.

Also, I am too short to do ramp modelling. My face looks too flat and common to register on TV. And my singing does not so much inspire others, as aggravate them. So, yeah. In my relationship with my audience, I had always been great when I'm hidden by the page.

Although, if I have to pick a clear episode in my childhood when I--the adult, 2013 version of me-- can say I started to exhibit a certain predisposition towards writing it would be when I was a first grader in an exclusive school for boys, on the day after I was mugged at knifepoint.

***

I wasn't even supposed to wear that fucking watch. My aunts insisted, despite me informing them that I could hardly tell the time--or its importance to my first grader life, that I should wear the new Swatch Pop Watch they bought me.  In the 80's, the Swatch Pop Watch brought the idea of customizing your watch with your outfit. The actual watch part can be popped in and out of the different straps.

My main contention at that point was the watch had no numbers, but my aunts insisted the watch looked really cute on me. Again, I was in first grade. I was three foot tall; anything you put on me becomes cute. If they had dressed me up as a miniature policeman or a politician, it would still have been cute. I could have dressed up in drag, as Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, and they would have swooned at the cuteness. Apparently, at that age, the only way I could avoid being cute was to not wear a Swatch Pop Watch.

I had to bear that unfamiliar weight on my wrist the whole day. It was no use to me because at first grade, I wasn't really interested in displaying material objects on my persons as a way to gain approval of others; that would come much later, and at a much urgent need, in fifth grade, when I would move schools and be forced to co-educate with girls. All the time that I needed to tell was Recess, and Dismissal.

Anyway, at the end of my rather quite hectic day in the life of a first grader, I was enjoying a cone of sorbetes hawked by a peddler with a couple of other boys on the same carpool that brought me to-and-from school. I remember sitting on the warm pavement, on a slightly inclined driveway of a house near the school where our carpool service usually picked us up. Maybe we were talking about the wrestling match on TV last night, or trading jokes that only grade schoolers could get. Now, here comes the important detail: a man approached us and asked for time.

Since, as I have insisted the whole day, I could hardly tell the time, much more, from a watch bursting with colors but had no numbers on it, I did what any helpful boy would have done: reached my wrist to him, and let him have a good look at my watch.

He took his time, and apparently, mine. As soon as he was done checking the authenticity of my watch, he promptly whipped out a switchblade and pressed the tip to my abdomen. My good friends ran away at this point, fortunately.

It was over in seconds. The man had expertly freed me from my watch. With no further business with me, he ran off without so much as a word of thanks. That was pretty rude of him.

I remember not crying. My friends flocked back as soon as they saw me alone. Our carpool service came, and we told the driver what happened. Some kid shared a story about another mugging that happened to someone he knew. Our carpool driver sounded mad. They were congratulating me for not crying, in a way that told me I should really start crying by then. I didn't know why everyone wanted me to cry, it wasn't a special watch, I never liked it in the first place.

Ok, so someone took my watch while threatening to stab me with a knife. Big deal.

When I reached home, the carpool driver walked me to the door and told my grandmother what happened.

"He had a knife," I told her, and then I couldn't stop crying anymore.

***

Now here comes the part where we change the camera treatment a little bit, and look at the young Jose Carlos Malvar as he struggled the next day, as he had to recount the ordeal, first, to his homeroom adviser, then to various school well-meaning officials who had to know what happened to ensure it never happen again: the prefect of discipline, the vice-principal, the principal. They were looking at him with pity, like he was the softest, most vulnerable young boy there ever was, and he was extremely lucky to survived at all.

Yet, no one thought of calling on the police.

The boy Jose Carlos wanted to return to class a hero. He had been mortally threatened, and he survived. It was an amazing thing to face off a bad guy, and not cry. Instead, he was now defined as a victim.

His English teacher, at least, had a different approach. And in this, she was unwittingly an agent of change. Instead of asking the boy to recount for the 15th time what happened, she asked everyone to take out a piece of paper, and write "The Most Memorable Thing that Happened to Me", with a special wink in my direction, and quick explanation that he could "write what happened yesterday".

Of course, as a first grader, there really wasn't much material for Jose Carlos to draw from. He was at the disadvantage of having just 10 years, 3 of which he wasn't conscious of, to write a page-long memoir. Having honed the story with repeated telling, he thought of cashing in on my recent tragedy by penning the event in exchange of grades.

He had an obvious flair for dramatics even early on. On the top corner of the paper, he wrote: "Based on a True Story". It was a phrase he learned from the recent crop of Massacre Movies that were popular in those days.

A few minutes before the class ended, the teacher asked everyone to submit their papers. Jose Carlos passed his dutifully, but with a look of worry over his face. Something wasn't right. He wrote as well as he could, going from one event leading to the next, but there was something wrong. He wanted to reach out, and grab his paper back from the teacher. It was all wrong, all wrong. It was as it happened, but there was something wrong.

It would be days afterwards before he realized what he did wrong.

Struggling to capture the event in English--a learned language used only in school, TV, and movies--he had written about how the stranger mugged him at knifepoint and took his "clock".

A clock. A fucking clock.

Thinking in Filipino, he needed to peg down an English word for "relo", a timekeeper. His wandering eyes fell on the wall clock over the teacher's head, his attention diverted from the absence of the Swatch Pop WATCH on his wrist.

Clock or watch? Clock? Or Watch? Clockorwatchorclockorwatch.

He made the call: clock. He wrote "The man asked for my clock. I gave the man my clock."

20 years later, he still haven't forgiven himself for making the wrong call. It was a watch, man. You meant "The man asked for the time, and I let him take my watch."

***

This obsession for finding the right words is what defines a writer. Writers can spend an agonizing long time staring at ceilings trying to craft the perfect opening sentence to a novel. Sometimes the words may come easy, but not in the right order.

The fact that I was more bothered by my wrong choice of words than the actual harrowing ordeal speaks volume about how wired I was to be a writer. It wasn't about the watch at all. It was about calling it a 'clock'. Since then, I've been weighing my words. Stairs or steps? Purple or Violet? Wind or breeze? Door or door frame? Shadow or silhouette? For a writer, the minute difference in connotation and denotation spells a lot. Gray or grey? There's a difference, and if you want to be a good writer, you should know the difference between nude and naked,  proudly and boastfully, forest and jungle, write and wrung.

I was mugged at knifepoint, and that's exactly how it feels like every time I write. That you are being asked to give up something under the threat of your own life. You need to keep a steady mind, and give the man your watch, not your clock, boy, and live to tell the tale. Because being a writer means finding the right words, even at knifepoint.