Filipinos Were Poked Fun At Again, Oh Noes!

.:Here We Go Again...:.

Because Chip Tsao is soooo yesterday’s news, as far as Filipinos are concerned.

Alec Baldwin makes a joke about Filipina (And Russian) mail-order brides, and Filipinos predictably bristle. Obviously, the overblown reaction to the offhand comment will follow, and Bong Revilla doesn’t disappoint.

As always, I’m here to say that while I understand people who take offense over these jokes (I personally don’t, but I am all for YMMV.), I don’t think that reacting like boors and savages will get the point across that Mr. Baldwin’s comments did not go over well with people. Personally, I’m of the belief that a joke is a joke is a joke, but hey, I’m the type who laughs at dead baby comedies, so my tolerance for risqué humor is higher than the average Filipino’s.

Just look at it this way... are the Russians reacting nearly as violently as some of us Filipinos are right now? A simple Google search would tell you that no, the Russians aren’t the least bit offended by this off-handed comment. While we tolerate our own brand of racism here in this country (Albeit Candy Pangilinan’s joke about Igorots didn’t fly too well with us, either.), we cry foul when it’s our turn to be in the limelight.

You gotta love the double standard on free speech here, and I doubt it’s endemic to Filipinos alone. How many people have we heard whining in their blogs/twitters/plurks about people who whine about them in their blogs/twitters/plurks? How many of them wish these people who have something negative to say about them disappear, yet turn around and do the exact same thing to other people?

Ladies and gentlemen, if you can’t take it, then stop dishing it out. You made your bed, so freaking lie in it. You can’t expect to make up some silly standards for yourself then break them when it’s convenient then uphold them when someone else is breaking them and it’s not to your liking. If you want to besmirch someone, then be prepared to be besmirched right back... or poked fun at, for acting like an airheaded boor with no concept of manners whatsoever.

So yeah, Mr. Baldwin: I didn’t take offense over your not-so-funny joke, and on behalf of the Filipinos who will overreact, I apologize in advance.

But man, you should learn to treat your daughter nicer. That was pretty harsh, and unlike Christian Bale, this wasn’t your DP you chewed out. It’s your own daughter.

P.S. Of course, I do wonder if the Russians aren’t reacting because they’re sending the KGB to deal with Baldwin and Letterman as we speak...

.:So Why’s Nobody Reacting To Roger Ebert Yet?:.

Roger Ebert slams “Kinatay” as the “worst film in Cannes history”, and am I wrong in thinking that there will be a backlash against Ebert over this?

If a person thinks the movie was crap, then that’s one man’s opinion. He even sort of liked “Serbis”, which was shown last year, so to pull the racist card on the man would probably be quite a stretch of imagination.

But lo and behold, I will just have to wait. Give it about a week to sink in, and you will have Filipinos calling for Roger Ebert’s head for giving a negative review about a film that just happened to be Filipino. How dare a man do his job and not like a movie? It’s Filipino! Filipino movies are good and perfect! With classics like “Enteng Kabisote” and “Lapu-Lapu”, how could he possibly denigrate the very pinnacle of filmmaking genius?!?

That’s right. Ebert is a hack, and a racist hack at that! We demand he apologize to the Philippines, nay, we demand that he kneel down before us and ask for our forgiveness, because we will never let him see another Filipino film ever again until he does! He will be deprived of cinematic greats like “Kangkong” and “Itlog”, and forever rue the day that he deigned to express his opinion against us Filipinos. Only us Filipinos should be allowed to criticize fellow Filipinos...w ait, no! We shouldn’t do that either, because that’s called “crab mentality”. Nobody has the right to criticize Filipinos!

P.S. Here’s hoping this preemptive jocular gesture will remain only that – a jocular gesture. I will seriously palmface if I see another politician attempt to use this incident as an opportunity to grandstand again. Guys, do your job! Stop scrounging the internet for what other people have to say about us!