To speak in Salome's voice: Towards a feminine imaginary in Philippine cinema

• Main Author: Valerio, Elvin Amerigo D.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2024
• Subjects: Motion pictures > Philippines; Femininity; Women in motion pictures; Women's Studies
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etdd_lit/5; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/etdd_lit/article/1002/viewcontent/2024_Valerio_To_speak_in_Salomes_voice__Towards_a_feminine_imaginary_Full_text.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

Within the last twenty years, the Filipino movie industry has witnessed a rebirth of the melodrama and romance films. These types of movies belong to a broad group of cinematic works that feminist film critics refer to as the “woman’s film.” The most visible indicators of this renaissance can be seen in the consecutive release of these movies, their guaranteed profitability at the box office, and the continuing popularity they enjoy among audiences. Perhaps less conspicuous are the ways by which these films have reconfigured the genre in order to foreground the “feminine,” which is evident in its construction of narratives that feature a female protagonist and explore themes pertaining to women’s issues and socially assigned roles. However, what truly stands out is the films’ articulation of female interiority and subjectivity, specifically the enunciation of female desire and fantasy. All these points to a hitherto unacknowledged feminine imaginary in Philippine cinema, or what I allegorize as “speaking in Salome’s voice.” The feminine is often neglected and overlooked by critics and scholars because Philippine film theory and criticism have been largely informed by a masculine frame of reference. Drawing from the philosophy of Luce Irigaray, my notion of the feminine imaginary operates on two levels. On the one hand, the centrality of the female character and the articulation of female interiority and subjectivity feminize the filmic space and provide a framework for female identity and subjectivity construction. On the other, the feminine imaginary creates a space for ideological contention where the masculine hegemony in Philippine film discourse is challenged and destabilized. In order to demonstrate how the feminine imaginary is nurtured and cultivated within Philippine cinema, I provide a textual analysis of five recent melodrama and/or romance films – Starting Over Again (2014/Director: Olivia M. Lamasan), One More Chance (2007) and its sequel A Second Chance (2015/Director: Cathy Garcia-Molina) and Everything About Her (2016/Director: Joyce Bernal), specifically focusing on the central female character. I regard each character as representing a specific ideological construct of “woman.” Starting Over Again explores the aspect of woman as “lover,” One More Chance and A Second Chance interrogates the transition of woman from “lover” to “wife,” and Everything About Her questions the role of woman as “mother.” The feminine imaginary, therefore, opens various alternative ways by which the “woman’s film” in Philippine cinema can be appraised according to its feminine specificities and thus live up to Irigaray’s vision of equality through sexual difference.