Lorem Ipsum
Gela/Gerabee/G/Gelaloo/Gelapagus goes by many names. She also goes by many roles on weekdays from 9-5. She talks too little, edits too often, eats too much, and should write some more.
I have so many feelings about this photo. Filipino mentality about beauty. NOPE. Too frikking low. What’s wrong being dark? I really just don’t get it. There are beautiful dark skinned ladies in the Philippines but the masses just say “mukha siyang katulong! ang pangit!” Like Devon from PBB teens being hated because she is “ugly” compared to fair-skinned Fretzie, fellow PBB housemate, but that’s another story.
Another thing, if this is really plotted to be an issue, shame on you FHM. Making issues to sell. Dirty… dirty… dirty…
Am I over reacting? Ugh.
Meanwhile, back in USA’s neocolony the Philippines, 300 years of Spanish colonization, and 50 years of American imperialist rule, led to this magazine cover.
Not just this magazine cover, though, because a lot of FHM Philippines magazine covers, and magazine covers from most if not all of Filipino magazines, have brown-skinned models who appear a lot whiter on the covers, or are just really light-skinned.
Our system of beauty is so simple, it’s not even funny: dark is horrible, brown is almost there, and light-skinned is akin to a new lease on life. But being light-skinned is not enough. You have to have perfect white skin, even if you’re modeling for shampoos. Oh, we could sit here and watch countless advertisements, but the fact is in the Philippines, as in anywhere that there is a cultural obsession, there is a corresponding industry that serves as proof.
We Filipinos are so quick on the internet to point out that some portrayals of Filipinos or some comments on Filipinos are racist. But we’re very much racists ourselves.
In closing, here’s Manny Pacquiao with his wife Jinkee Pacquiao. Here’s Jinkee Pacquiao now. That, by the way, is a magazine directed at straight Filipina women.
IDEK, GFDI. Long live the indio?
Reblogging for A+ commentary.
And there you have it.
