Tween Queens

Every time something forces my thirteen year old little sister out of her celebrity-filled day dreams, there probably are only very few other things in this world that she could bear think about. And, whatever those things may be, I’d bet she won’t last a minute letting those linger in her head without regressing back into thinking about her favorite celebrities. News about latest TV projects, romance rumors, celebrity fun facts, name it, my sister’s got it all memorized.

But I can’t help but wonder what is it with these celebrities that they’re basically who my sister is living and breathing for. What kind of addictive substance do they contain that just about every aspect of my sister’s life is evidently laid out with her obsession. You can see it in her every tweet, every Facebook status, every Tumblr post, and because she can’t take a hint that I don’t care, I have to endure it too in every text message that I receive from her.

ABS-CBN successfully conquered the tween scene with the remake of one of their most loved teleseryes, Mara Clara, and with it, they also succeeded in producing two new stars- Julia Montes and Kathryn Bernardo. And these two reigning tween queens, people, are my sister’s obsession.  As I said, it really makes me wonder why my sister would choose to spend her time being a  fangirl  over two teenage girls.Because of that, I’m just going to try and see what possible reasons my sister and basically every tween in the Philippines have for liking Mara and Clara so much.

I asked my sister what she likes most about Julia and Kathryn and she said that she thinks they’re both pretty and talented. Not that looks matter, but I do agree that they’re both pretty. Not the kind of pretty that I would particularly classify as remarkable, but still pretty. I think there’s also no point in disagreeing that they’re both talented. I wish I could deny this but I actually followed Mara Clara all throughout and I can say that they weren’t bad at all. Julia, especially, was effective in portraying her kontrabida role.

Maybe my sister does have valid reasons to like these two after all. They’re pretty likeable, I guess. I can think of a couple of redeeming qualities in them. They do have the charm.Also,they do appear perfectly sweet and polite. I personally think it’s just the kind of polite that knows exactly what’s already perfectly expected of them to say. But then again, I do know that it’s not easy to always appear so perfectly nice, so maybe I’d just commend these two for that as well. 

It’s been almost a year since their debut teleserye ended and they’re both now being trusted with different projects. Julia is currently starring in the teleserye Walang Hanggan. Unfortunately (or maybe, fortunately), I haven’t had time to watch that show yet. All I can say is that it still boggles me a bit that she’s being paired with Coco Martin. It’s seems that the management is building her up fast as a leading lady. She’s kind of starting to remind me of Bea Alonzo.

Kathryn, on the other hand, will soon star in “Princess and I” with not one, not two, but three leading men. As opposed to the management’s pedophilic choice for Julia’s love interest, Kathryn’s currently being paired with a boy of her age, Daniel Padilla. Ugh, I hate to admit this, but I do think they’re vibrant, fresh, and cute together. Her other two leading men will be Enrique Gil and Pilipinas’ Got Talent’s Khalil Ramos.

I totally failed in trying to understand my sister’s obsession, didn’t I? Well, I did try to as you can see. It’s pretty obvious these two girls are on the top of their game. How long they’ll stay on top and how far they’ll go, let’s wait and see. And I’m sure there are plenty of things to wait for and see when it comes to these two.

by Vochelle Sia

Photo source : pep.ph

My "fair" lady

It all started several days ago, with the provision of several social networking sites, the FHM cover spread like a wildfire.Initially, when I first glanced upon the cover, I thought that people are making a big deal out of it because of the cover girl, Bela Padilla. At that moment , I thought that a lot of people are reacting against it because  of their dislike with the cover girl since she had a  controversy in the past with Marian RIvera.But as I ran through the comments about the circulating photo, that's when I finally understood that it was not about Bela Padilla alone, but with the claim that the cover was "racist."

In the magazine cover, we can see that the other women are darker in terms of skin color with the help of  make up  but more importantly, the women in the background are perceived as inferior to Bella Padilla. For  others, what makes this cover racist is simply because it emphasizes how Bella Padilla is said to step out of the "shadows" because of her skin color that deliberately  radiates more than the rest of the girls in the background.

I'm quite surprised that people actually took notice of this cover as a bad thing because it seems to indicate that we actually do care about the perception of inferiority with regards to the perceived beauty.We do not only look at the smaller picture and just be mesmerized by the flawless white skin of a cover girl, but we also look into the impact that it creates.By impact,what i mean is the assumption that the fair skinned would triumph over the "shadows." 

I could not help but think about the perception of beauty alone in our country. Quite honestly, we have been surrounded with tons of whitening products in the market promising to give fairer skin with just a few weeks use.There are even a lot of people who go to drastic procedures just to lighten their skin tone.I am personally not against these things since it's their choice to make, not mine.But the problematic thing is that through all these years, we have this perceived idea of "the beautiful" that society dictates to us.And because of that, we tend to conform to this ideal beauty.For instance, you got to have fairer skin in order to be considered beautiful and have more opportunities.

And this magazine cover alone signifies that we actually do care about these issues constantly surrounding us.We do not only think about how a beautiful a person can be but we look into how the "ideal" beauty was projected in a way that it degrades other people who are perceived as inferior.

With much ruckus about the said March cover of FHM's magazine, the publication made a move in order to minimize the chaos that already has been done. They have released a new cover so that all the controversies would stop soon.I think that the publishing company  made a wise move of changing the cover instead of tirelessly refusing all the accusation whether they are guilty or not.

By Nikki Cea

Photo sources:

http://i.cocoperez.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/bela-padilla-fhm-cover-march-2012__oPt.jpg

http://www.pep.ph/news/33205/New-cover-of-%20FHM-Philippines%20-March-2012-issue-now-out-in-the-market