¡Estoy aqui!
After a long hiatus... yes, I post once more. Certain exciting events have forced me to do so. I was in SM City Fairview, this metro-hinterlandish shopping mall in Quezon City during the uber-hyped Oscar Larios v. Manny Pacquiao fight. Dubbed as "Mano-a-mano, the Philippines vs. Mexico," you'll get an idea how important this event is supposed to be.
In any case, I just came out from one GX class in FF Fairview and saw how everyone was glued to the idiot boxes lined up on the walls of this "global" chain of "wellness" provider. Of course, its quite usual to see Filipinos cheering for their favorite modern-day Hercules (after all, Pacquiao fits the archetype; zero-to-hero, emerging from the margins, battling against all odds - the perfect heroic narrative). If one frequents other branches of FF, especially in the white collar areas of Makati, Ortigas, Eastwood, or even ABS-CBN, there is a striking difference to be seen in Fairview. The mentioned branch caters to a different layer of society (apologies to all concerned; those who I refer to as the upper-proletariat, mainly because of behavior and etiquette [perhaps class C?]). When I first visited this particular branch, my jaw dropped (well, not really) when I heard this small guy say out the following words: "C'mon pare, lift more, the girls would love it!!!" This is something that one would not normally hear in other branches. To drive the point home, there's just this higher level of "masculinity"(?) that is quite absent from other branches (yes Virginia, including FF Manila).
Going back to my point about the Pacquiao-Larios thing: considering that a sense of nationalism is commonly associated with any fight that Pacquiao does, what's so interestingly different with this latest fight, particularly, if contextualized in FF Fairview? The difference: seeing how a form of masculinity comes to articulate itself to a sense of nationality (or to nationalism). I remember this article from one of a former teacher of mine titled "Nationalism as Heterosexism." In this particular instance, masculinity is articulated with nationalism.
Going back to my intro about me exiting the GX studio after the combat class, majority of the club members were glued to the boob-tube. Noticable were the guys in the free weights section (one could perhaps do a spatial critique of the club) who were constantly parrying "guy-ish" comments about the fight. They would nudge, they would give out "manly" reactions to every punch and block that Pacquiao would execute. These types of reactions were visibly absent in other parts of the club (except, perhaps, for the men's locker rooms).
All I'm saying here is that this is a potential research area that would be really interesting. While there have been many stuff written problematizing nationhood, there aren't many think-pieces that looks at it from this particular perspective. Needs more distilling though.
In any case, I just came out from one GX class in FF Fairview and saw how everyone was glued to the idiot boxes lined up on the walls of this "global" chain of "wellness" provider. Of course, its quite usual to see Filipinos cheering for their favorite modern-day Hercules (after all, Pacquiao fits the archetype; zero-to-hero, emerging from the margins, battling against all odds - the perfect heroic narrative). If one frequents other branches of FF, especially in the white collar areas of Makati, Ortigas, Eastwood, or even ABS-CBN, there is a striking difference to be seen in Fairview. The mentioned branch caters to a different layer of society (apologies to all concerned; those who I refer to as the upper-proletariat, mainly because of behavior and etiquette [perhaps class C?]). When I first visited this particular branch, my jaw dropped (well, not really) when I heard this small guy say out the following words: "C'mon pare, lift more, the girls would love it!!!" This is something that one would not normally hear in other branches. To drive the point home, there's just this higher level of "masculinity"(?) that is quite absent from other branches (yes Virginia, including FF Manila).
Going back to my point about the Pacquiao-Larios thing: considering that a sense of nationalism is commonly associated with any fight that Pacquiao does, what's so interestingly different with this latest fight, particularly, if contextualized in FF Fairview? The difference: seeing how a form of masculinity comes to articulate itself to a sense of nationality (or to nationalism). I remember this article from one of a former teacher of mine titled "Nationalism as Heterosexism." In this particular instance, masculinity is articulated with nationalism.
Going back to my intro about me exiting the GX studio after the combat class, majority of the club members were glued to the boob-tube. Noticable were the guys in the free weights section (one could perhaps do a spatial critique of the club) who were constantly parrying "guy-ish" comments about the fight. They would nudge, they would give out "manly" reactions to every punch and block that Pacquiao would execute. These types of reactions were visibly absent in other parts of the club (except, perhaps, for the men's locker rooms).
All I'm saying here is that this is a potential research area that would be really interesting. While there have been many stuff written problematizing nationhood, there aren't many think-pieces that looks at it from this particular perspective. Needs more distilling though.
posted by Janssen at
4:08 PM
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2 Comments
