Ep.7 Why are Fillipino romcoms political? (feat. Janus Nolasco)

This episode features our first podcast interview with our firend and colleague, Janus Nolasco, who will discuss the connection between Flipino romcom films and politics. This is also the first episode of the "PILM INSTITUTE" where we discuss Philippine cinema and their relevance to politics.

[SPOILER ALERT]The discussion contains key plot details of the following films:

Sana Maulit Muli (1995)

One More Chance (2007)

English Only Please (2014)

Day after Valentine's (2018)

Alone/Together (2018)

The Hows of us (2018)

Isa Pa with Feelings (2019)

Hello Love Goodbye (2019)

You may find other works of our guest at https://up-diliman.academia.edu/JanusNolasco

Time Stamps

0:00 Intro

0:15 Greetings

0:40 Introducing the PILM Institute

2:00 Introducing Special Guest: Janus Nolasco

3:20 How did your journey as a researcher begin?

5:20 What are your interests in Asian Studies?

6:40 What made you decide to write on Filipino films?

8:30 Philippine films in context

9:30 What film made you want to write about films?

12:20 On English Only Please: His first published review

13:20 What can you say about the division of english and tagalog speakers in society

16:20 How did the Filipino adapt the american romcom as a genre

17:30 The division between Mainstream romcoms and Indie films

19:40 What do romcoms have to do with politics?

24:58 The connection of romcoms and power-relations, heirarchies, democracies

26:30 Romcom espousing a liberal democratic values and expose certain struggles for self-determination

27:10 Predominance of more subversive and critical rom-coms or "post-romcoms"; 

28:40 Liberal democracy demands singlehood

30:00 Examples of movies demanding singlehood

32:40 Fantasy and endings

33:10 Democracy and Patron-client relations and gender relations

34:00 The Post-romcom and self-care

35:20 Love and equality

37:30 Love and Politics

39:00 Is love a political emotion?

40:20 Eros as a destructive force; Love as a civic virtue

41:30 Love as a tool of power

42:15 Do you have pegs or frameworks for looking at films?

44:00 Rom-coms and political life

45:46 What tips can you offer ordinary audiences in appreciating deeper meanings in films?

48:28 Recommendations

Recommendations

“Origins and Rise of the Filipino Novel” by Resil Mojares https://books.google.com.ph/books/about/Origins_and_Rise_of_the_Filipino_Novel.html?id=QOx9PwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y

Richard Gomez at ang mito ng pagkalalake, Sharon Cuneta at ang perpetwal na birhen at iba pang sanaysay ukol sa bida sa pelikula bilang kultural na texto by Rolando Tolentino

https://www.amazon.com/pagkalalake-perpetwal-sanaysay-pelikula-kultural/dp/9712709353

100 Tula Para kay Stella

https://www.netflix.com/ph/title/81131706