Charice - with her thick Filipino-accented English - is being Filipino in America.
Jessica - with her American accent - is trying to be Filipino by loving Chickenjoy in the Philippines.
Go figure.
If you ask any aspiring Filipino singer aged 10 years old and below who their idol is, 2 out of 5 kids will highly likely say Charice.
If you ask any aspiring Filipino singer who's career they want to emulate, most of them would probably answer Charice.
So why isn't Charice getting the product endorsements and media mileage Jessica Sanchez got / is getting?
Sure Charice is pronouncing her name as "Sherees" and not "Charis" as we Pinoys usually do.
Sure Charice is speaking more English than Tagalog during her interviews in Philippine TV.
Sure Charice has more blonde hair now than Selena Gomez,
does that mean she isn't Filipino anymore?
Is the issue really with Charice? or the fact that all transactions to/about her should be now coursed through her American manager?
Philippine media's opinion of Charice's manager could be summed up by @RickyLo's article:
Isn’t she going too far and abusing Philippine hospitality by scolding Filipinos and dictating to them what to do and what to think? The nerve! How would you feel if your houseguest took you to task for not serving meals on a silver platter and covering your windows with curtains and not with Venetian Blinds?
Tell us, madam, who would we rather be proud of, a girl who even if born and raised in America and holding an American passport is proud of her Filipino heritage and has remained Filipino in looks even if she admitted not knowing how to speak Tagalog? Or a girl who was born and raised in the Philippines but who, after she made a name on a foreign land, brazenly forgot her origins, changed not only her looks (hair and all) but also her accent (phony!)? A girl who embraces her “Filipino-ness” even if she was raised American or a girl who has virtually renounced her “Filipino-ness” and obviously assumed a glaringly fake American identity?
Ricky Lo's article stems from Courtney Blooding's tweets re: how she finds it weird that Philippine media embraced Jessica Sanchez when Sanchez is actually American and not Filipino.
It's Philippine media who welcomed Sanchez and who fawned over her while the Pinoy audience gamely went on for the ride.
To be fair, Courtney Blooding's questions are legitimate and I answer them on my previous post on why we claim Jessica Sanchez as our own.
What is weird is the few news reports we hear about Charice as well as how she is not as visible on TV - via commercials, etc.
Who is blocking Charice's local exposure?
Philippine media or Charice's own American manager?
Us being an outsider could only guess DA WHO?
Update -- A Tweet I received from
If this is true. I want to be Charice.
1 comments:
Rickey Lo's description of Courtney Blooding as a "houseguest" reeks of bigotry, implying that a foreigner has no right to express a legitimate question. And attributing Charice's dyed hair as a rejection of her "Filipino-ness" and an indication of being a "phoney," especially for speaking English like a native speaker, unlike Lo who speaks English with a hard accent, seem to indicate how age has affected Lo's way of thinking.
Since I'm not a shrink, I'm not sure if Lo is suffering from loose nuts and bolts in the head, or that a decline in testosterone has affected his gender bias toward gossipmongering.
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