Scary shows

photo: marc clifford calumpang




Scary news that was. On the eve of the Gay Pride parade in Baguio City, ABS-CBN ran that “news”, if news has come down to that, headlined, KONTROBERSIYAL!

Isang bakla at isang tomboy magpapakasal daw! At ang pinagdedebatehan ay, Sino ang magsusuot ng gown??? Ang bakla o ang tomboy?

Ang tomboy naka T-shirt at pantalon, lobong-lobo na ang tiyan, advanced stage of decomposition na kumbaga, at ang bakla naman ay naka-T shirt rin at nakapantalon, nakalipstick, naka-pencilled eyebrow, nagbunot pa yata ng bigote.

That was the kind of horrid stories Korinna usually showcases in her Balitang Katakataka. Horrid because Korinna does not educate; you survive her shows not any more informed than when you first stuck your head in. But damnation, because except for Danton Remoto and Bemz Benedicto, almost all the spokespersons of the LGBT Rights Parade were there: Germaine Leonin, Ceegay Agbayani, and… was that Malu Marin thrown in there and cut in mid sentence?

“May mali eh...” she managed to put in, but was shuffled off into space and disappeared as soon as she opened her mouth to speak. The cam that shot her was positioned right above her head, so she looked slumped, and you are grateful she looked up and rolled an eye, oh my Lord, why did she agree to be set like that, like she was talking from ground zero?. What she gets for making so much sense when sense wasn’t called for, I told myself.

Eh, sinong magga-gown senyo? ABS-CBN, in characteristic Balitang Katakataka deadpan politese, asked.

The tomboy replied: Payag lang ako na mag-gown kung magpapakalbo siya. Ha,ha,ha.

I was in the house of a friend, borrowing wifi connection. I usually do not look up to watch TV, but she’s a recent gay advocate convert and was really trying to reappreciate things, including her ex-husband’s leaving her for a saucier and younger man.

Bishop Oscar Cruz was enlisted, too, saying hindi dapat ganyan, parang pinapababa mo naman lalo ang sarili mo. And he had his eyes cast down, head bowed, like he didn’t want to be audience and witness to some striptease that degrades the whole Church and humanity as well. I felt like bleating. Baaaaaaaah!

Germaine was quoted well, you would think all was fair in love and war. It’s about human rights, she said, to which each one of us is entitled. Kung may karapatan ka, meron rin ako. Though that, of course, would not sit well with Gabriela and Bayan Muna. And how well-scrubbed she looked. So lawyerly, so well-to-do. Pro-Gay is at large.

I was facebooking and Ceegay was online, and I wanted to ask: When were you drafted for this freak show? But Ceegay, I reckoned, will probably say, It’s not a freak show, Sheilfa. What can be more subversive and more feminist than a transwoman choosing to marry a tomboy over all the execrable boys?

Right. And what braver act than crossgaying in weddingtown?

But maybe, just maybe, Ceegay won’t say that either. Gay men are misogynists, didn’t he say so to their asses. Who knows, the cad on TV was probably just renting a low-cost petridish. He seemed old to be artificially inseminated himself, she young to change sex again, if she likes, say from calf to bulldagger dyke. And like most of the shows that deal with the poor, the whole thing looked Darwinian to me. You know, And they unawares bore apes, like the species never evolved. The triumph of Biology over Biology across the centuries, when LGBT is supposedly postmodern, progeny to metrosexualism.

And the two don’t even look like they went to St. Scho or Mabini High School. Baklang kanal na parlorista, a Pro-Gay lesbian in classic pre-class consciousness mode said, to my horror. You can’t trust ABS-CBN to pay for their tuition, do you?

But again, as the boys in LGBT town say, it's very hard to make a point with Establishment media. They splice the wrong cuts so that you come out the clown they want you to be. They edit you out.

Except, of course, when you’re Boy Abunda doing The Buzz.