Maganda Ka Ba? from Sex Object to Powerful Women: a Look at Posing in Lad Magazines
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Maganda ka ba? From Sex Object to Powerful Women: A Look at Posing in Lad Magazines Rosalinda N. Erpelo Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Cultural Studies Prof. Allen Chun Supervisor Institute of Social Research and Cultural Studies Department of Humanities and Social Science at National Chiao Tung University Hsin-chu, Taiwan June 16, 2008 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract iv Acknowledgment v List of Tables and Figures x Glossary of Filipino Terms x CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW / 1 1. Introduction / 1 2. Theoretical Perspectives on Gender and Feminist Studies / 7 3. The rise of the 4th State: The Corporate Media and the New Morality— The Power of the Media to Insist and the Power of the Person to Resist / 18 4. Lad Magazines in the Context of Gender, Power and Morality / 22 5. Female ‗Celebrity‘ Model in Men‘s Magazines: A New and Powerful Breed of Worker Within the Sex Industry / 32 6. Celebrity Culture: Cashing on Celebrity Complex / 35 7. Research Methods / 37 CHAPTER TWO: CULTURAL AND POWER DIMENSIONS OF GENDER IN THE CONTEMPORARY PHILIPPINES / 40 1. ‗Si Malakas at Si Maganda‘: A Look at Filipino Indigenous Legend / 40 2. The Gendering Concept of Maganda and Malakas in the Context of Philippine Sex Trade: Prostitution / 44 3. Influence of the Catholic Church in the Changing Context of Gender and Sex Trade / 47 4. Poverty and Smut Culture: From FHM to Pinoy Playboy Mansion? / 49 CHAPTER THREE: SEXUAL IMAGES AND SELLING SEXUALITY / 51 1. Sexuality in the Media and the Arts (Television and Film): Stereotypes, Sex, and the Decency Issue / 51 2. Graphic Images: Pornography and the Public‘s Response to ‗Selling Sexuality‘/ 52 a. Defining Obscenity / 52 b. The Movement against the Sexualization of the Visual Media / 55 c. Female Celebrity Models in Lad Magazines and Selling Sexuality / 57 ii CHAPTER FOUR: BEYOND STRUCTURALISM AND EXPLOITATION/CHOICE / 61 1. The Exploitation/Choice Dichotomy / 61 2. The Gendering Power of Sexual Discourse / 67 CHAPTER FIVE: FEMALE CELEBRITY MODEL'S SUBJECTIVE ACCOUNTS OF POWER / 73 1. Female Celebrity Models in Lad Magazines: Strategy and Tactics / 73 a. Female Celebrity Models in Lad Magazines: Conceptualization of power and positionalities in the sex industry / 75 b. Female Celebrity Models in Lad Magazines: Subjective accounts of power / 82 c. Female Celebrity Models in Lad Magazines: Demands for basic rights and other social and civil considerations / 91 d. Female Celebrity Models in Lad Magazines: Understanding about feminism and/or access to feminist programs /92 CHAPTER SIX: POLITICS OF SUBJECTIVE POSITIONALITIES / 93 1. The Maganda/Pangit Construction of Female Celebrity Model‘s Decision-Making Agency / 93 a. External Impediments to Empowerment / 94 1. The Powerful World of Showbiz / 94 a. The Coercive/Adoring Power of the Public / 95 b. The Power of the Network/Producer / 97 c. The Power of the ‗Gossip/Infotainment‘ Press / 98 d. The Power of the Celebrity‘s Manager /Talent Agency / 101 2. Culture in Power / 103 3. International Structures of Political Economy / 109 b. Women's Internal Impediments to Empowerment / 111 CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCLUSION 115 Implications for Further Research / 119 BIBLIOGRAPHY / 120 iii Abstract Where are women located in the struggle for freedom to express and have control of what can or cannot be said and done in the media? Female sexuality becomes a site for contestation not only on relational levels such as social, moral, religious, economic and political but also on the personal level. This thesis discusses the significance of subjective accounts of power in which female ‗celebrity‘ models in the Philippines exercise decision- making power to pose ‗sexy‘ in lad magazines. The politics of these women's positionalities can be examined in the complexity of competing and hegemonic structural power struggles involving global capital, the Philippine state, the Catholic Church, the media, and the sex industry, as well as in power relationships between, and/or among female celebrity models and their managers, publishers, editors, magazine consuming customers and the general viewing public. Different perspectives of Filipino feminism explain women's decision-making agency. They generally see power inequality surrounding women in the sex industry as fundamental impediments to the exercise of women's decision-making power. Structuralist feminists argue that women's abilities to exercise choice are absent because of poverty and patriarchy; it is the ‗sexploitative‘ system of the international political economy that forces women to enter the sex trade to serve as commodities for male sexual gratification and financial profits. Structuralist feminists call for elimination of all forms of sex trade, the prostitution business especially, where poor women's choices are reduced to being male sex objects. On the other hand, liberal and neo-liberal feminists argue that women, regardless of their socio-economic background, exercise choice by entering the sex industry, which needs to be recognized as a legitimate form of work performed by workers in the sex industry. Liberal and neo-liberal feminists both endeavor to oppose the abusive and exploitative operations of the sex industry, where women's choices and rights are unrecognized especially those engage in prostitution. One can regard women in the Philippine sex industry as oppressed or marginalized in the power discourse of sexual morality. Being disempowered at the bottom of the malakas power structures of the sex industry, such women are „mahina‟, the weak in society. But this is not the whole story. While I recognize the realities of these women's oppression and exploitation, my focus is not to replicate structuralist accounts of the sex industry in the form of prostitution and pornographic activities, which further victimize the already vulnerable lives of women in the sex trade. Instead, my point of departure poses the question of women's agency in order to look not only at their unequal positionalities in the power dynamics of the sex industry but also the subjectivities constructed through those positionalities, in essence by offering female celebrity models as an example where women can work in the sex industry and still preserve and/or restore the social adequacy of being maganda (‗beautiful‘), disente (decent) and „malakas‟na babae‟ (strong and powerful woman) in the power dynamics of the Philippine sex industry. By transcending the exploitation/choice dualism in a (neo-)liberal prostitution debate, I hope to offer new post-structuralist interpretations of women's decision- making agency that examine the subjectivities of female celebrity models in lad magazines within the Philippine sex industry, which create instead a space for such women to challenge existing rules of conduct yet emerge victorious, by gaining celebrity status that affords them more space and power to exercise their will to attain personal goals they set for themselves. In other words, I argue that there should be some space for women's subjective accounts of power in a feminist theory of the sex industry—not limited exclusively to prostitution and/or pornographic acting and includes all forms of work within the sex industry that do not require actual sex acts—that are not predicated on women "choosing" to enter the sex industry in the face of patriarchy and/or political economy. It is therefore crucial to listen to female celebrity models voices in order to understand the extent to which women's self-disciplining impact on iv their decision-making agency within the power dynamics of the Philippine sex industry. Acknowledgment When I decided to go to Taiwan and study in National Chiao Tung University Institute of Social Research and Cultural Studies (ISRCS) I never reckon that I will have the hardest but the most rewarding academic journey of my life. My experiences in and outside NCTU afforded me to evaluate my own biases, fears and limitations first as a student, a woman and a person of value. I have learned that voices from within are more powerful than voices from outside of our own. We are only good as what we think. And what we think is what we will become. Writing this thesis is not just an academic journey for me, it is emotional, spiritual even. Thank you very much if only for these. I owe so many people for the help and support while I am writing this thesis throughout to its completion. I am most grateful to my thesis supervisor Prof. Allen Chun (NCTU ISRCS and Academia Sinica) for making impossible things possible for me. I am still totally in awe of him. I must be the most fortunate advisee in the whole NCTU if not the whole world. Even after all things were done and over with I still couldn‘t find the words to express the importance of his intellectual advice and support. Prof. Allen is methodical and totally obsessed with logic and consistency. My writing style (journalistic and impassioned) is totally anachronistic to his. He is about keeping all my arguments clear-cut and clean but still making room for the possibilities of contending arguments. He is always supportive of my intellectual needs especially for developing my understandings on difficult writings of Foucault, Adorno, Frankfurt School, theories of power, empowerment in gender and development discourse, and the whole business of culture industry. I am also most grateful to Prof. Hsin-yi Lu (NCTU College of Hakka Studies) and Prof. Teri Silvio (Academia Sinica) who served as my external readers. Their valuable inputs especially during my proposal oral defense redirected some of my arguments and strengthened my theoretical framework. Their comments gave me a great deal of useful textual and empirical information in understanding women positionalities and subjective accounts of power. Their vocal thoughts helped supplement and develop my understanding of culture industry beyond the existing literature.