Image taken from — oh, you all know where it’s from.

So there’s this project I’ve been working on for some time (and to be roundtabled here next month — oops, they have my affiliation wrong!) that deals with the question of Pinoys and music and how Pinoy performers explain why and how they do what they do. A big excerpt from my writings might explain this better:

In my interviews, Overseas Performing Artist returnees constantly spoke of a spontaneous and naturally Filipino ability to imitate. As a skeptical cultural anthropologist, I initially wanted to dismiss this out of hand. There was, of course, no such thing as a natural ability to imitate, much more a naturally Filipino one.

But the discourse that supported this supposedly inherent mimetic ability could be consistently drawn from over a century’s worth of history. What was one to do, for instance, with Dean Worcester’s assertion in 1900 that “the Filipino …is endowed with great talent for imitation…. …in a short time [the Filipino] learns how to play any sort of an instrument, but the bands…are poor because of their lack of knowledge of principles, and many of them play by ear without understanding a single note?”

Or of the New York Times reporter who wrote in the twenties, “Where music is concerned, the Filipinos are known as the Italians of the East. Add their own barbaric musical strain — a blend of Oriental and Spanish ‘ear culture’ — and you get an idea of their adeptness with the torturous instruments of jazz?” Or of essayist Pico Iyer, and anthropologist Arjun Appadurai after him, who, after watching a Filipino band play the music of John Denver, would pronounce Filipinos as “[creating] a nation of make-believe Americans?”

Or the countless Filipinos who would assert the seeming truism, “Magaling manggaya ang mga Pilipino [Filipinos are great at imitation]?” Or Danny, a keyboardist who had played in Tokyo and Pasadena, who told me, matter-of-factly, “Filipinos can imitate any sound?” Or RJ, a guitarist I interviewed in the summer of 2007, who said, “Ang Pilipino, sila lang ang tanging may dila na katulad nang loro [Filipinos are the only people with tongues like parrots]?”

A “natural ability to sing” and a “natural ability to imitate” are two different things, of course, but you get the general idea: to sing well is seen as natural for and by Filipinos. (Not me, of course, as my friends can attest. But give me a karaoke mic in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other and I can do the collected oeuvre of Thom Yorke fairly well.)

So I am quite tickled by the idea that 3 out of the 14 finalists for the Voice of McDonald’s II competition — which I found out about via the New York Times — are Filipino. (The third, if you even had to guess, is the Canadian guy.)

And I just love the fact that Mary Yu — who does those cute hand gestures (and more) on “Son of a Preacher Man” — is a choir member and “worship/song leader in our church.” Holy Dusty Springfield! That’s sure some church — sign me up!

Meanwhile, speaking of other Filipinos, my friend Carolyn (who isn’t Pinay but knows how to spot ‘em) sent me this hilarious YouTube video of a Southwest Airlines commercial. That guy’s gotta be Pinoy. What’s even funnier is that I could totally see a Filipino guy doing this in real life, if I actually went to clubs.

Popularity: 1% [?]

In an attempt to jumpstart a discussion I started but never got to participate in, I’m reposting the responses to a former post. I am not entirely sure that pursuing the origins of ideas regarding the aesthetic valuation of skin color in the Philippines would lead to a definitive answer; as in the present, the “explanation” would surely have to be a combination of both class and the globalized spread of Western ideals of beauty. But I am also intrigued by Iggy’s answer, also below, that raises a particularly Asian aesthetic. (The long line of beauty queens profiled in Doris Nuyda’s The Beauty Book, so sadly out of print, begins mostly with moneyed Spanish mestizas — more an indication, really, of the high regard in which beauty pageants were originally placed — and it is not until you get to the late ’60s or so that skin color becomes darker.)

Here are the earlier responses:

Ed writes:

I’m Filipino and I’m aware of this practice, as many women on my family subscribe to it. I personally think it’s silly.

But I guess the first question to tackle would be whether the “light skin” ideal is an imitation of the Western/Caucasoid image, or is it a separate status indicator?

Light skin used to be a coveted social emblem back around during American colonial times too, as evidenced by how Ben Franklin powdered himself silly. Apparently it symbolized wealth, for the same reasons as mentioned in that linked IHT article – rich people didn’t have to work in the sun.

But now there’s a reversal of that ideal; the current craze among the West is to get that killer tan. So it’s said that a tanned skin represents a “well-traveled” person, who can afford to sail the Bahamas barebacked.

There’s an entry in wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_attractiveness#Skin_color

And so to reiterate the question, is Asian people’s valuation of light skin a reflection of their desire to imitate the Westerner’s phenotype, or is it simply as the article puts it, that it is a status/wealth symbol?

O.P. writes, in response to the initial entry:

This is disturbing. Yet we do know that light skin colour is also associated with high status in Thailand, which does not have a colonial past, and therefore no colonial mentality to blame for this phenomenon.

My own experience as a Filipina has been the opposite of the Eskinol thing. I’m relatively dark compared to some of my cousins, who appear to have inherited more of the Germanic genes of a shared ancestor (our maternal grandfather). They had light brown hair, almost blond to a Pinoy’s eyes, and of course lighter skin than most Filipinos. My poor cousins tried in vain to tan so they could “look normal,” but despite tons of Coppertone tanning oil, even baby oil, they would only burn and turn reddish and I hope they don’t have to deal with melanoma one day. One female cousin started dying her hair black once she started college in Cebu.

On the whole, despite some teasing from classmates about how “dark” I was (from being at the beach all summer), I grew up thinking that brown was beautiful, and thinking that my cousins who looked the most “native” were the most beautiful. Still do. So, I guess it’s in the eye of the beholder.

And Ed responds at length to O.P.:

Hmmm, yea, that’s a real good point. As confirmed by wikipedia, Thailand was never colonized, and so suggests that the social effect isn’t so strongly correlated with colonization:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thailand#History

The Thailand case works against the effect of -direct- colonization, as Thailand is a subscriber of the ‘whitening practice’, but was never colonized under a European country (although that doesn’t exclude interaction through trade).

But the original question’s dichotomy is still in play. That is, selection for ‘whiteness’ stems from either:
1. global valuation of the Caucosoid phenotype, or
2.that ‘skin hue’ is a mere indicator of wealth.

Although, the Thailand argument excludes rule of colonization as a root cause for the ‘international valuation’ effect (#1). But I would also posit that adopting the values of another culture doesn’t have to follow from colonization.

If #1 is the case, is that a product of history? Pardon a second dichotomy, but is it because of:
1a. a wipespread dissemination of Western values of beauty or is it that
1b. the European phenotype is the universal ideal for beauty?

I know not a lot of people would be willing to accept #1b, but it is still a viable explanation. I myself have reservations to this.

And in order to accept #1a, proof of concept demands that there be some reasons for introducing yet another factor in the effect. So I would propose that history has a hand in it, colonization and industrialization being its vehicle. Again, I don’t think value adoption had to follow from direct rule (as in the case of Thailand), and so even Thai people can value the Causian image from mere association with adjacent colonized countries, for example.

As for industrialization, MTV bears to mind. Therefore western values disperse even more efficiently, as developing countries are consumed by vogue western fashions and images through the tv.

——————–

That’s interesting, o.p., what you relate about the opposite valuation of the Malay beauty. I didn’t have that experience when I was living in the PI 14 years ago, nor is it collectively true here in the US among Filipino-Americans.

After all, many Filipina-Americans (Filipino-Americans even) dye their hair blonde, as well as buy those whitening soaps/creams (not the males, to my observation). And as I recall, in the Philippines there were a lot of derrogatory terms reserved for denigrating the Malay image: Pango, Ita, Itim, Pandak, etc. True, there is variation among the Malay/Filipino phenotype (due to normal distribution and genetic intermixing with other countries), but these rough ‘characteristics’ are nonetheless unique to the regional genepool of Southeast Asia, and therefore define it.

I wanted to add as a reply to o.p.’s post,

I believe it’s true that beauty is in the eye of the individual. But I also believe that beauty is also defined by cultural standards, a collective beholder, if you will.

And so when 4 out of every 10 people in a culture actively take part in a fashion (ie skin whitening), it says to me that there is a definite group of people that agree to a certain criteria of beauty. And when that criteria is contrary to what the ancestral phenotype is, it becomes somewhat of a curiosity as to why?

And Rebecca responds to the initial entry:

Does this “beauty” standard really not affect Filipino men?

My husband started a job two years ago where he is out in the sun every day, turning his pale brown complexion very, very dark. His mother’s first reaction was to make fun of him for it (and she still does). I’m not fluent but what I did understand was pejorative at best. She even pulled his shirt up to see what color he was born.

He has since refused to wear shorts or short sleeved shirts to work for fear of telling tan lines. And he’s been honest about it being almost purely out of vanity.

And here’s O.P. again:

Relating the story of my personal experience regarding valuing the more “normal” Filipino skin hue, I tried to convey the view from the “other” side of that divide.

I agree that lighter skin IS a status symbol back home, and I did not do well against that standard, mainly because my mom envied our ability to tan and therefore encouraged us to be in the sun and slathered lots of tanning oil so we could be nice and brown like our dad (who is very dark). As a teenager I tried to even out my acne-prone skin using a whitener and was lectured to within an inch of my life for it.

However, those that have MUCH lighter skin (i.e., looking more like white people than like light-skinned Filipinos) don’t necessarily fare better and have insecurities of their own, as they are also judged (or judge themselves) against the native standard.

One of my school friends — whose parents were Canadian and pure Spanish, and therefore she was really a white girl born and raised in Manila — was teased mercilessly by my other classmates as an “Amerikanang Hilaw.” If white makes right in terms of beauty standards, one would think she could have been the most popular sought-after girl in the whole school. But she was put down for being unattractive and “too” white, and became the poster-girl for low self-esteem.

As for me, I grew up thinking I was too dark, because my mom liked to see us with deep tans, maybe so we would look more like my father (who is very dark). I felt fine around my relatives, because they didn’t seem to care, but around other Filipinos it was a different story. I had been called negra a few times even.

It wasn’t until I arrived in the US that I heard anyone compliment me on my nice colour. And it wasn’t until later, spending lots of time indoors in winter climates and libraries and at a desk, that I lost my tan and found out I am actually rather light-skinned. It was weird at first — even some of my relatives who hadn’t seen me in years thought I had gotten some kind of cosmetic procedure, because I had always been very dark as a child.

———————–
As for looking at it from an academic perspective… I remember reading an article about fairness of skin and what that means for attractiveness in Japan — don’t remember what journal it was in. But the gist of it was that there is a particular kind of lightness of skin that is considered attractive — the mere fact of “whiteness” is not it, because Western women are not considered attractive.

From what I recall of accounts of the first Spanish voyages to the Philippines, they noted how the higher-status Visayan women were lighter skinned than the rest, shielding their faces from the sun or something. I’ve also seen first-hand in some Lumad communities how the women who shield their faces from the sun and achieve a nice, even glowing complexion (as opposed to sun-ravaged), which not surprisingly is a mark of beauty.

So, it’s not just a simple dichotomy or the belated application of Western standards. Globalization is not necessary to blame.

Iggy joins the discussion from a different angle:

In my personal experience, I guess what Asians strive for is the kind of fairness that is more “Asian” and familiar rather than “Caucasian” – think the skin color of Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese. I remember back in high school where there was a French guy and a Jewish girl who went to my school and were mercilessly teased for being too pale. It’s funny, because the people doing the teasing were the same ones who praised a Chinoy girl for her milky, even skin. I guess “real” Caucasian fairness – complete with the blonde eyelashes and pinkish undereye circles – is almost too ‘alien’ for an Asian to aspire to. I don’t know, just adding my two cents.

And Ed responds to everyone:

Rebecca,

Yes, I do believe that Filipino men are affected by the beauty standard. I mentioned that hair bleaching (blonde) is a popular practice here in the States among Filipino-American boys, at least here where I lived thorughout high school. But the linked article’s focus (on wily’s blog) was on female consumption of skin lightening products, and so my response was also focused on that demographic accordingly.

—————–
O.P. & Iggy,

Yes! I found an article called ‘Cultivating Japanese whiteness’ by Mikiko Ashikari (University of Cambridge) published in the Journal of Material Cutlure asserting that ‘Japanese whiteness’ is actually idealized from Japanese whiteness – which is of a different hue from ‘Caucasian whiteness’. I think this is close to what you’re talking about, Iggy. She says that the Japanese white skin is actually a means by which the Japanese now identify and racialize themselves; contrary to idealizing the Western image. If anyone is having a hard time finding it and wants a copy, feel free to email me, and I’ll email you one.

But this still leaves the question, for what reason do Filipinos (Thais, Malaysians, etc.) use whitening products? It cant be that they identify with it (like the Japanese), because the simple fact is that ‘whiteness’ is not part of their genetic heritage.

O.P., I acknowledge your case when you say that the opposite phenomenon occurs, as in your anecdote with your Western school friends. That wikipedia article mentions the ganguro of Japan, which serves as a parallel example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_attractiveness#Skin_color

But again, a sizable Southeast Asian majority use skin whiteners to imitate an image that isn’t granted to them by genetics. You said that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’, so the interesting question that comes up is: why does the Filipino behold ‘whiteness’ as beautiful, when the majority of our ethnic composition is Malay, a dark-skinned people?

For the Japanese it is a way for them to express their Japanese ethnicity. But for us, isn’t it being anti-Filipino?

Popularity: 2% [?]

File under: beauty, class, colonialism.

In a survey carried out in June 2004 by Synovate, 61 percent of respondents in Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan said they felt they looked younger with a fair complexion. Half of Filipino women, 45 percent of Hong Kong women and 41 percent of Malaysian women said they were currently using a skin-whitening product.

Discuss.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Why was this picture taken? It’s the first question, perhaps, that comes to mind after the question “who are these people?” These are dead Filipino “insurgents” killed in the Philippine-American war; I have no more information on why or how they were killed, or who they were and who killed them. (The original is apparently at the Missouri Historical Society archives, which I hope to visit in July — the scan above was made from a photograph I purchased on eBay.)

There is little dignity or repose in this photograph; limbs are twisted together, forming a stark white contrast between the clods of earth on the left and the tangled grass on the right. A bare foot dangles over another man’s head.

But why was this picture taken? Was it for strategic reasons? Was it for later use as propaganda? What did one get out of it? Was it part of a military archive, as evidence of a particular troop’s activity for the day? Or was it meant for commercial purposes? Images like the above — either reproduced in stereoviews and in monographs — were already widely available as early as 1899. Along with photographs of such quaint Philippine sights as carabaos, local women, nipa huts and the streets of Manila, one could similarly see, with seemingly little dissonance, images of soldiers killed in trenches.

Unlike paintings, photographs could be made available to a mass audience — through reproduction from negatives, and the invention of halftone plates in 1880. By 1897 speed presses could print photographs in books, magazines, and most especially, newspapers. It was this quality of reproducibility, as Benjamin wrote, that effected a radical shift in the conception of the work of art. The artwork was no longer a unique object, but was now a commodity that could be duplicated and circulated.

The pinnacle of this commodification (at least before film) was the postcard. Gradually losing its primary use as an epistolary medium, the postcard’s image, instead of the writing space on the back, became more important. Whether it was actually sent or simply kept for a collection, the postcard was dominated by the image; in a sense, the postcard was the nearest one could come to the commerce of pure image. As David Prochaska writes, about Algeria: “These images were not made to be viewed aesthetically, but to be bought and sold, as capitalist commodities produced in a colonial context…”

The image above is not a postcard; indeed, I am not entirely sure what it was used for. (I cannot identify the coat-of-arms — fleur-de-lis on one half, lion rampant on another — but I suspect it has to do with the military unit associated with the photograph.) What makes it particularly chilling are the decorative lacy twirls that run along the border — a macabre attempt, it seems, to render the photograph suitable for framing.

Was it, perhaps, a souvenir? The tourist souvenir relies on the capacity of the photograph to provide evidence: proof that the photographer (or the photographed) was there. Look, we’re in Disneyland! Look, he’s riding the bike with no hands! Look at all the fun we’re having! A souvenir is intimately incorporated within — perhaps even proceeding from — the sphere of the personal. Possessing a photograph entails the ownership of a possessed and objectified (and perhaps eroticized as well) subject specifically meant to evoke memories of the same possessed and objectified colony. The Philippines, in effect, was also symbolically possessed through the purchase of images. The Filipino subject, decontextualized and objectified, was reduced to a replicable (and replicated), commodified image.

It is the act of symbolic possession of the subject, ensuing from actual physical possession of the photograph, which gives the commodification of the image its disturbing quality. Perhaps this accounts more for the talismanic properties of photographs: the ability to solely possess, the capacity to direct an unlimited gaze at the subject/object.

But in what capacity does the photograph above serve as a souvenir? Who framed it? Was it hung on a wall? Was it displayed prominently? Was it tucked into a scrapbook? Was it ever for sale? Who bought it? How many copies were sold? Was it looked at often? Was it placed at the bottom of a drawer? Why was the picture taken?

Why were the pictures taken? What did one get out of them? Were they souvenirs? Were they proof of all the fun they were having? Why are they giving the thumbs-up sign? Why were they e-mailing these pictures to each other? Why were the pictures installed as screensavers on the interrogation room laptops? Why are they smiling?

Popularity: 2% [?]

The iconic image of the Philippine-American War — I’m posting it above because there’s something hinky with Jim’s java applet — is of the massacre of Bud Dajo, where 900 Muslim men, women and children were killed in a mountain crater. The photograph was subsequently published by the Boston-based Anti-Imperialist League in a pamphlet, of which 3,000 copies were made and distributed to the press. (When Moorfield Storey, the first president of the NAACP, writes, “The spirit which slaughters brown men in Jolo is the spirit which lynches black men in the South,” I’m reminded of Luc Sante’s recent op-ed piece in the New York Times where he compares the Abu Ghraib photographs — in particular, those dazzling smiles — as similar to postcards of lynchings and the happy block party underneath.)

The photograph of Bud Dajo — with American soldiers posed in victory over the corpses of the enemy — and the image of Lynndie England dragging an Iraqi prisoner with a leash around his neck both raise similar questions: why were the photographs taken at all? Was it, as the privates now allege, part of a tactical program of interrogation? Or were the images meant to be incorporated into an official (or unofficial) government archive, a shadow archive of humiliation and homicide?

(One of the crucial differences is in this process of incorporation. The increased portability — and most important, the novelty of the equivalences of the visual field of the camera and the viewer — and the ideological function of the photograph in the visual possession / colonization of the Philippines are clearly contextually different. But the images are a nice bookend to the American empire — one taken at its violent birth, the other at its similarly blood-soaked twilight.)

Barthes, following Benjamin, has famously written about the aura of the photograph and how, through the chemical process, “radiations” from the body of the photographed “ultimately touch” the viewer. But unlike Barthes’ notion of the “punctum,” the crucial, piercing part here is the sociohistorical conditions — and their uncanny similarities — upon which both photographs were produced.

In a superb series of essays, the Reverend Mykeru writes about all the hand-wringing on outrage — and rank idiots being “more outraged by the outrage” — and writes: “it’s simply amazing that people are treating these incidents as if they are something new, as if ground is being broken with brutal photographic records of a brutal war.”

Flashback to W.E.B. DuBois, who wrote that the photograph of the massacre was:

…the most illuminating thing I have ever seen. I want especially to have it framed and put upon the walls of my recitation room to impress upon the students what wars and especially Wars of Conquest really mean.

It’s what war really means, but Bush and his sheep don’t really get it.

Here’s Storey again:

When a man is lynched the community which tolerates the offence suffers more than the victim. When we honor brutality in our army we brutalize ourselves. Our colleges have failed if they have not taught a better civilization than this, our churches have failed if this is their Christianity.

These Moros were robbers, it is said. Alas, what are we? We who went as their allies and friends, who made a treaty with them to be kept while it suited our convenience and then repudiated, and who now have robbed them of their country, their freedom and finally of their lives. Have they ever injured us that we invade their little island and kill them in their homes? “They do not know how to govern themselves.” That is our excuse, and how do we govern them? We have shown them how little we regard our agreements, and when they “stir up a dangerous state of affairs” we exterminate them. Thus we teach the Filipinos what American civilization means.

And you’ll no doubt be reminded of another leader doing a “superb job” after reading Roosevelt’s letter of commendation to the commanding officer after the massacre:

I congratulate you and the officers and men of your command upon the brave feat of arms wherein you and they so well upheld the honor of the American flag.

Popularity: 8% [?]