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The Jeepney Stop

Sexual harassment isn’t a joke!

July 28th 2008 03:46

There’s an article that got my blood boiling this morning, all about sexual harassment and how many people don’t see it as a big deal.

There is a certain B-grade actor in the Philippines, known as a Wild Child, because of his abusive and aggressive behaviour when drunk, some of which were captured on TV as an ex-housemate in the Philippine version of Celebrity Big Brother. He violated the rule Big Brother enforced on him (no drinking because of his reputation), and, when drunk, touched, attempted to kiss and grope certain female houseguests. He was finally booted when he violated the rule a second time.

Some weeks ago, a friend of his, a daughter of a celebrity couple, invited him along with some friends to a bar where he proceeded to drink and asked her for a one-night stand. His attempt at apologising was to ask for a hug then groped her breasts. As a result, the girl filed a sexual harassment case against him to teach him a lesson.

Reading the comments following the article, I was surprised and disgusted to see that almost half of the people felt it was her fault – bullshit like she knew what he’d be like drunk and shouldn’t have invited him, thus she provoked him; that he was drunk and obviously had no control over his actions so his groping was unintentional. But what pissed me off the most was the disbelief that someone like this guy would attempt to flirt with a girl who wasn’t ‘sexy or pretty’ while there was another flip comment, ‘at least it wasn’t rape’.

What the fuck?

Can a girl not bring attention to feeling violated without the public delving into what she looks like, how she dresses, her lifestyle and sexual orientation, etc? For people to say that she should’ve seen it coming with the bastard’s reputation is akin to a woman being told ‘What do you expect when you dress like that?’

This brings me back to when I first started at my current work and how much I had to fight for sexual harassment to be taken seriously. As an Operations manager in a predominantly male working environment, I was surprised to find my butt tapped twice, was asked to enter a roomful of men so they could have a contest to see which one could correctly guess my cup size and been told that jeans with pockets definitely made my ass look better.

I may have made my displeasure at such treatment known to the point that I am no longer sexually harassed but it came with consequences. I’m not invited to many rowdy lunches (granted, they’re at Hooters) and no one jokes around with me because I apparently don’t have a sense of humour.

I then had to watch them focus their unwelcome attentions on new female colleagues. I remember a girl who fell for that lame joke ‘I bet you $1 I can make your breasts jiggle without touching them’ only for her breasts to be groped and a $1 given to her. Another girl, at a staff party in a bowling alley, was invited to play with a male colleague’s balls any time and another almost got fired because she turned down a manager’s date invitation.

But what grated on me the most was my boss’ attitude toward it all. When I heard these things happening, I told him something had to be done because these women were feeling increasingly uncomfortable about working in such an environment. While he agreed that a memo should go out to all and action would be taken against those who harassed, I wasn’t happy when I heard another colleague tell me that my own boss had dubbed me a troublemaker for making a big deal out of the situations.

And before anyone can accuse me of just accusing the men of such disrespect, I should point out that I had to defend a male colleague’s integrity when a group of girls tittered and asked him to turn around so they could see his butt.

Seriously, what do we need to do to prove that sexual harassment is a serious case? Having our private parts groped, joked about and being made to feel like succulent pieces of meat when we go into a boardroom for a work-related matter make us feel violated and frustrated. Then to be thrown into our faces that ‘it’s not a big deal’ and to be hinted at that we should just go along with it and that we’re just complete whingers when we complain is utter bullshit.

I spoke to a group of people at work and a couple confessed that they had been victims of sexual harassment but didn’t feel secure enough to stand up to it because of the negative reaction to those who had complained against it (like yours truly). No matter how much I tried to incite them that it’s their right to feel safe at work and not put up with the harassment, they’re too scared. So when someone taps their ass, they pretend to laugh. When someone makes a comment on how ‘delicious’ they look that day, they remain tight-lipped. When someone grabs their arms from behind so their tits are thrust forward for other male workers to ogle at, they go along with it. And it saddens me.

I’ve vowed to take up their cause and keep an eagle eye on anyone behaving inappropriately. If my own boss has dubbed me a troublemaker, I may as well cause trouble for a good reason. But it’s extremely frustrating to feel that I seem to be the only one fighting for it and, yes, a little scared that I could be jeopardising my job and my career.

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How to make a successful Filipino Action Film

April 9th 2008 00:27

Here's the second installment in the How to Make a Successful Filipino film trilogy. This time, focusing on action films. It still boggles me how my dad can get so excited watching these films, when to me, they all look and sound exactly the same (the bullets, the punches)- just with different leading men. So how do you make a guaranteed box-office Filipino film? Read on :

1. First off and most importantly, pick a leading man you can support as the next senator, congressman or president of the Philippines. Heck, if you can, get Manny Pacquio to play the usual film action role of a good cop, ex-cop or dishonoured cop wrongly accused by corrupt colleagues.

2. Pick a title that will eventually be uttered as a threat near the end of the movie – either by the hero to the villain or vice versa . Like these ones (translated from Tagalog titles) – ‘My poison will kill you’ or ‘You’re only one bullet’.

3. The hero should be gruff, no-nonsense and a loner type but is eventually joined (to his reluctance) by a beautiful, sexy love interest (you should include a shower scene there where you can see the woman’s bare shoulders and calves) and a sidekick whom the hero can use as a punching bag – for comical effects. The slapstick, the better.

4. The hero and the villains must wear sunglasses and, despite the scorching heat and humidity, a leather jacket. Or a denim jacket. Or, if you want to salute the 90s action films, have the hero wear nothing but a leather vest and jeans. And a cap.

5. Include a scene where the hero is surrounded by a band of villains, with no weapons so they have to use their fists to fight. But refrain from listening to your common sense and getting the villains to jump on the hero all at the same time. Rather, get them to play tag, like the ones you see in the hammy wrestling matches, where one villain fights the hero, gets thumped heartily, then another villain steps forward to take his place. Keep this going until all the villains are lying on the ground, groaning with the hero standing with nary a scratch. It’d be good if you have this fight in a restaurant (complete with smashed plates, tables and chairs) or on the street with a couple of street vendors with their carts.

6. Oh yeah, the sound of the fist hitting a jaw or a stomach should come in a millisecond before the actual impact. Doing it at the same time will just look…well…unprofessional.

7. The main villain must have many opportunities throughout the movie to finish off the hero but he will always leave the fate of the hero in the (in)competent hands of his cohorts. Don’t make him stick around to watch either but get him to drive off, in a jeep, cackling with a cigarette in his mouth - and a rifle (which the audience will think could have better off left with his cohorts).

8. Include a scene near the middle or the end where the hero and the band of villains are now involved in shooting at each other. Despite running for a long time in open fire, the bullets will miss the hero. But when the hero holds up his gun to shoot, he will never miss his target. Most of the villains should be lying injured on the ground while only a couple escape to let the main villain know what happened.

9. The final confrontation between the hero and the villain should be drawn out as long as possible – include a dramatic scene where they are standing on either side of a wall with their guns poised. Get them to talk about anything under the sun, as long as it goes on for about 5 minutes or so. Now is the time to utter the line of the movie in a low, menacing voice. Finally, the hero kills the villain with a gun while injured - either slumped against a wall or lying on his back .

10. Have a swarm of police, hell, get the whole precinct, arrive after all the bad guys are dead and the hero is limping out of the warehouse where the main villain is now lying dead. The door to a police car should open and the beautiful, sexy love interest and the bumbling side kick stumble out in relief.

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How to make a successful Filipino Romantic Film

April 3rd 2008 00:31

Growing up on Filipino romantic flicks, I noticed the producers seem to have a certain formula they stick to, which seems to go on for a decade. In the 80s and early 90s, the romance flicks were laced with fantasy. It wasn’t rare for the boy and girl to meet and fall in-love among a bottle of genies, a mysterious jacket, a magical ring or book. Then the girl was always poor, uncultured, couldn’t speak English to save her life (English speech was a sign in the Philippines that a person is rich and ‘social’) and lived in a ‘squatter’ area. The man, meanwhile, was tall, handsome, rich, speaks English very well as he would have likely ‘grown up in the States’.

In recent years, I’ve noticed that this formula has been revised or tweaked with other elements being added. So, if you want a guaranteed box-office romance hit, just pay attention to the following tips -

My Best Friend's Girlfriend - most recent box-office romance flick

1. Choose actors that have previously worked together on a small screen and whose tandem already has a huge fan base. Even better if the actors are a real-life couple.

2. Have the guy play a rich playboy and the girl a poor, hardworking Uni student/part-time worker. Spend the first ten minutes (which is basically the intro of the movie) cutting scenes between the daily lives of the boy and girl. Show the boy flirting with a girl at a club, waking up late the next day with the said girl next to him, then driving off in a hot car with a fussy servant calling after him. Have the girl walking from Uni or work through crowded, cluttered streets, waving hello then coming home to a small cluttered house where she then performs the role of a dutiful, obedient daughter by bringing dinner. Include a background music that sounds like music you’d hear in an elevator that would make you insanely mad if you were stuck in it.

3. Throw in secondary characters like an alcoholic father/mother and a dead parent for the rich boy and an ailing mother/blind father/dead parent with a supportive younger sister or a scantily dressed, flamboyant best friend for the girl.

4. The first meeting between the boy and girl should hate at first sight. The girl will think the boy is a frivolous playboy while the boy thinks the girl is pretty but uptight.

5. Show the boy and girl getting to know each other and eventually falling in-love through a montage of short clips with an upbeat song in the background. Cue in a scene of the two chasing each other on the beach, in the rain, around a tree, in a hut…you get the drift.

6. Include a short cheesy dance routine somewhere which all the characters can repeat at the end of the movie as the credits roll. And which you hope will become the next Macarena on the dance floor.

7. Always have a third party. This third party should be rich, good-looking, financially successful because of rich parents (both alive, mind you) and speak English with that exaggeratedly American drawl. Make this third party a dick or a bitch but in the end, give them a complete turnaround by showing a heartfelt scene in which he/she willingly lets the hero/heroine go – with a huge flow of tears, of course, from both sides.

8. When the boy and girl come to their big conflict, show their separate ways of trying to move on again, a montage of short clips. Fill this montage with plenty of crying scenes – especially from the girl. Make them walk aimlessly around a park, garden, hotel – anywhere just as long as they eventually burst into uncontrollable sobs. Don’t forget to include the worried faces of their loved ones and that soppy music in the background.

9. 75 minutes into the film when the boy and girl have a huge opportunity to resolve their differences, DON’T MAKE THEM. Come up with some inane reason why they can’t get together at that time. Just as long as they don’t get together – yet.

10. Then fast forward at least a year later where the boy and girl meet again and somehow, the differences they didn’t manage to resolve in the first 75 minutes of the movie get resolved in less than 3 minutes. Spend the last two minutes on credits, showing the boy and girl, now married of course, chasing each other on the beach, in the rain, around a tree, in a hut…or repeating that cheesy routine with the rest of the cast of characters – plus the movie crew.

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Embarrassing memories of settling in Oz

March 26th 2008 00:49

Last December, my family and I celebrated our 20th anniversary in Australia. We arrived with very limited English with the expectation of seeing tall, lighter-skinned men and women living harmoniously with thousands of kangaroos bopping over a dry patch of land. Now, two decades later, I can barely speak Tagalog, now reading the journal I myself wrote back in the 6th grade requires a translator and going back to the Philippines for a visit means being stared at and branded a foreigner with lots of money to spend.