#the marcoses

[spaceasianmillennial]

Recalling strong crowd reactions when I was attending HERE LIES LOVE on Broadway

"History repeats itself." The DJ informs the audience "Imelda's son is now President of the Philippines. Democracies are under threat."

And I could hear someone from the floor holler, "BOOOOOOOOOO!"

Incidentally, I remember this being the performance where some attendees across from me were grinning and waving the Laban sign at Ninoy Aquino's funeral. (The show encourages the audience to wave the Laban sign.)

I know two Filipino reviewers, who saw the show in person. A Black Filipino reviewer wrote a mixed opinion that criticized the lack of Black Filipino cast members and for embellishing the narrative of the Ninoy Aquino/Imelda Marcos romance. One also wrote a mixed review of the original Public production for doing a non-critical reprise of "Here Lies Love" after focus on the revolution (the Broadway version has since changed that, removing Imelda's lyrics and replacing it with a generalized "Here Lies Love" without Imelda's words). Sara Porkalob also wrote criticism of the Seattle production for watering down the actual intelligence Imelda had in politics, and that's a very reasonable criticism for a show that depicts self-mythologizing as poltical strategy.

[sforzesco]

lmao the rival dynasts are fighting and they're fucking it up for everyone else at a record pace

this tweet made me laugh, and I frequently make political comparisons between these specific groups of people, so now it's finally a comic

regarding the OctavianOctaviaAntony Uniteam Alliance

Octavia Minor and the Transition from Republic to Empire, Katrina Moore

in the red panel, which is an obvious anachronistic soup of events happening all at once: we have on the left: messalla corvinus

Alternative Memoirs: Tales from the ‘Other Side’ of the Civil War, Kathryn Welch

and then octavia (in despair & weaponizing that sacrosanctity to turn rome against antony), some kids (the two closest to antony are the twins, but tbh you can just kind of. pick whoever from the soccer team of kids antony had)

octavian and antony's back and forth is referencing suetonius augustus 68 and 69 (specifically: Antony also writes to Augustus [...] "What has made such a change in you? Because I lie with the queen? She is my wife. Am I just beginning this, or was it nine years ago? What then of you — do you lie only with Drusilla? Good luck to you if when you read this letter you have not been with Tertulla or Terentilla or Rufilla or Salvia Titisenia, or all of them. Does it matter where or with whom you take your pleasure?") and also the whole. thing. about antony's will. that sure was something.

the herod comment from kleopatra is referencing all of this

Mark Antony: A Biography, Eleanor Huzar

AND FINALLY. the art in the inset panels are from The Roses of Heliogabalus, Lawrence Alma-Tadema

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[appleflavoredkitkats]

i am swarmed so this isn't a coherent post but please don't support here lies love the musical as it comes to broadway. the entire show is historical propaganda that romanticizes the marcoses and makes imelda marcos, wife of dictator ferdinand marcos, the main character. there's so much things wrong with marcos, but to summarize, he declared martial law in the philippines 50 years ago, used his position as president to funnel billions of dollars to himself and his family, murdered and tortured thousands of activists, educators, politicians, etc. who opposed him, committed genocides against indigenous folks, and so much fucking more. i despise him and his family. what's worse is that marcos' son bong bong marcos is the current president of the philippines.

if this musical becomes highly-rated, i fear how much people are going to be miseducated. i'm scared of how much power this is going to give the marcoses now. most shitty politicians here are professionals at propaganda, vote buying, and disinformation that if this musical comes into play, i don't know how hard it would be to get leaders like marcos out.

even if the musical does talk about the cronyism of marcos during martial law, making imelda the main character and attempting to peer into her psyche is obviously still gonna make audiences sympathize for her! and i'm so fucking tired of everyone making imelda look like a fucking girlboss when she's part of the reason marcos did all he did! i'm so fucking tired of people attempting to humanize her or make "nuanced" takes on the marcoses WHEN THEY ARE STILL ALIVE AND IN POWER!!! if they rlly wanted to make a musical informing other abt martial law uhhh idk maybe make it in the perspective of those who fought against the marcoses?!?!?!?

please boycott the musical. please constantly shut down their attempts of celebrating their "inclusivity". insult them for all i care. i have no respect for people who don't want to acknowledge the thousands of people who died and were tortured under marcos. marcos has stunted the growth and development of the philippines and i will forever detest him for this.

[not-so-rosyyy]

this 2024 US elections is giving me severe war flashbacks to the Philippines 2022 presidential elections where we all thought for sure a woman who was a public servant and human rights lawyer would win because of the staggering amount of people supporting her both online and offline in rallies and how her candidacy inspired grassroots door-to-door campaigns funded by and led by thousands of passionate citizens all over the country (literally unprecedented for any candidate ever)....only for her to be defeated by that dumb son of the dictator who murdered dissenters and looted our nation five decades ago.

but anyways! i'm really hoping for the best and rooting for Kamala to win. because as someone living in a country whose socio-political and economic conditions are tied closely to the US, i don't even wanna think about the ramifications of Trump 2.0 on my people and the rest of the world.

[thewhizzyhead]

anyways now that I'm back on this site, let it be well fucking known that this filipino musical theatre rambler absolutely abhors the Here Lies Love musical and I am absolutely ashamed that it is gonna be known as the first Broadway musical with an all-filipino/fil-am cast BECAUSE GLORIFYING A PERSON (imelda marcos) INVOLVED IN A CONJUGAL DICTATORSHIP (wife of ferdinand marcos) THAT CAUSED HUNDREDS OF DEATHS AND AN ECONOMIC CRISIS DUE TO ILLEGALLY ACCUMULATED WEALTH FROM PHILIPPINE TAXES ESPECIALLY WHILE SAID PERSON IS STILL ALIVE WITH HER SON (ferdinand "bongbong" marcos jr) BACK IN POWER IS ALL SORTS OF WRONG

[clooverhoover]

I am absolutely fucking disgusted with the Philippine governments support for Israel and genocide. We Filipinos stand with the Palestinians. Never again means never again for everyone.

[themagical1sa]

I remember hearing about the Filipino protests for ceasefire within Palestine.

I remember being glad to see the protests being done in solidarity with our fellow oppressed — having had a history of being colonized and all — and then, my father begrudgingly says, "Ang dami-dami na nga nating problema dito, nakikisawsaw pa kayo sa gulo!" [Tagalog: we already have so many problems here, but there you are joining in their chaos!]

I was immediately pissed — was it so bad to show our solidarity with Palestinians in our own land? — but, even in the moment, deep down, I knew my father's response was some form of valid. We can barely live in our own country still neck-deep in poverty as the corrupt manipulate their way into plundering the masses. I mean, if the 2022 national presidential elections was any indication, we were all fucking cheated systemically! We're living in a damned nightmare woven for decades upon decades by the rich and powerful, like the Marcoses.

A Facebook user once posted in a political discussion forum that we're living in a failed democracy. When I saw and stared at the post, I realized... yeah, we really fucking are. Putangina.

My father's comment about Filipino protests for Palestine implies a lot of valid points — we're in our own kind of hell, and we really should be striving to better ourselves first before we call help for other people... and yet, at the same time, I can't deny that, at least, in my head, heart, and soul, I'm fiercely chanting From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!

I hope that one day we'll all see the day when we're all finally free — free from oppression. Free from corruption. Free to live and just be.

I hope that one day, we'll all be free.

[aro-bird]

I was curious about HLL so I was scrolling through its Tumblr tag and there was someone who straight up made a picrew of Imelda Marcos????? What the fuck???? I feel sick

For context, Imelda Marcos is the wife of infamous Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos and mother of current President BBM. She's straight up the direct reason why so many Filipinos died because she wanted to rush the construction of the Manila Film Center.

Those people trying to justify that it isn't actually excusing the Marcos regime can eat shit. Maybe the last part didn't but it straight up woobifies a living dictator. She avoided jail time just because she's "tOo oLd aND We sHOulD bE gEnTle", despite her being a convicted felon in 2018.

She didn't even attend the trial.

Anyway, I'm just pissed off that people are trying to justify this shit despite the main thing that stays in most uninformed people's minds is not the torture and the revolution near the end, but the quirky songs about how "Imelda's just a poor young girl from Leyte uwu".

[antihibikase-archive]

Today was the municipality elections in the PH and. I'm just going to bring up how weird it is how absolutely flawless and quick the process with the municipality elections' staff were, while everything seemed to go wrong during the presidential elections.

Not saying its deliberate but. Its genuinely hard to feel that way.

[isagrimorie]

EDSA People Power anniversary

translation:

In commemorating the 1986 People Power Revolution, let's look back at the spirit that inspired the world back then. Regardless of (political) color and surname, the world followed the courage of a united people. The Philippines became a beacon for others to begin their historic liberation.

[mourningmaybells]

the myth surronding the marcos regime ending as an act of god in edsa still irks me actually

[missriyochuchi]

On the one hand, Trump’s supporters probably think the obvious anger on his face is defiance and will use it as a rallying point, so circulating his mugshot feels like playing into their hands.

On the other hand, that fucker did demonstrable, immeasurable harm to the country and marginalized people especially and his mugshot is part of his reckoning, so any schadenfreude we can squeeze out of a simple picture should be seized at every opportunity.

[sforzesco]

lmao this is a re draw of a sketch I posted back in december

regarding the antony-cassius dynamic here

Cassius and Brutus: The Memory of the Liberators, Elizabeth Rawson

anyway, @ Cassius: Antony's not obsessed with you because of Caesar and tyranny, he's trying to (redacted) you

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[appleflavoredkitkats]

no matter the intent, here lies love is a dangerous musical to be put on broadway because the political family in question is still in power now. even an ounce of humanization can easily make any audience member be more sympathetic to imelda and her family and reduce the impact of how much martial law has ruined the philippines. again, this is dangerous. this is propaganda. DON'T SUPPORT HERE LIES LOVE

[maya-chirps]

Transferring my Marcos and HLL ranting here since my other blog should be specifically about queer stuff, but I've been trying to sit through a 2003 documentary about Imelda Marcos and less than 10 minutes in and this was already in my notes👍

You could watch the documentary here for free on YouTube.

[thewhizzyhead]

brb gonna speed run my way into launching my musical theatre career through making a musical about Philippine student activism especially in the context of the marcos administrations (yes both the 1970's and the 2020's periods) just to fucking spite the fucking "here lies love" musical and all the fucking marcos propaganda in the world tanayfuckingdana