Performing theBaklainThe Care Divas

Crossdressing, Affective Labor, and the Glimpse of the Cosmopolitan

Bibliographic Data

ID3622092
AuthorsAnril Pineda Tiatco, Sir Anril Pineda Tiatco (0000-0002-8333-5708, University of the Philippines Diliman, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume62
Issue11
Pages1485-1511
Publication date2015-11-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Homosexuality (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0091-8369 • E-ISSN: 1540-3602
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00918369.2015.1073031
PMID26291029
OpenAlexW1937348186
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited21

This essay is a close reading of The Care Divas, a Filipino musical revolving around the struggle of five Filipino caregivers in Israel who also struggle with their sexual identities as bakla (Filipino homosexual). The analysis is both an affirmation and a critique of the performance. In the affirmation, the musical is argued to present a social reality that is intended for and in need of interrogation: the Filipino bakla. The musical implicitly features the bakla as a cosmopolitan. At the outset, this cosmopolitan disposition comes from the fact that the characters are migrant workers (caregivers). But more importantly, the cosmopolitan character is from a responsibility toward the other anchored within a genuine caring as implicated in the affective labor of these caregiver characters. In the critique, the essay marks some problematic limitations in the treatment of the bakla. In doing so, the musical, despite its attempt to present a social reality, is a problem play, a social drama touching social issues--realistic in approach, but the representation seems like an editorial. In the final analysis, The Care Divas is argued to seemingly fail because artists are not able to see the complexity of their chosen subject in a bigger picture

Aesthetics · Art · Drama · Literature · Musical · Political science · Politics · Reading (process · Representation (politics · Sociology · Subject (documents · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Gender Studies · Law · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Socioeconomic Development in Asia

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