Should Filipinos Win More American Awards?
WRITTEN BY ELLE LAVIN, LEO ALBEA AND FRANCESA JANA SANTIAGO
And the award goes to… Not a Filipino!
It is truly baffling to know that Filipinos often snag wins at international film festivals yet our movies, directors, writers and actors from our community rarely win at major award shows in the west. Take Gene Cajayon’s The Debut, a Filipino-centric film that made an impact in the Fil-Am community during the early 2000s— it not only won accolades at the Ammy Awards (Best Independent Feature Film), the Hawaii International Film Festival (Audience Award for Best Feature Film) and the San Diego Asian Film Festival (Best Narrative Feature), but it also grossed $1.745 Million at the Box Office! It’s also been recorded that since 1953, the Philippines have submitted 32 films for consideration to the Academy Awards under the “Foreign Film” category. And while the entertainment industry is slowly detaching itself away from its racist past in an attempt to be more inclusive for minority groups, Filipinos for some reason are still undermined or given little to no recognition at all.
Matthew Libatique with Bradley Cooper on the set of A Star is Born.
Behind every Best Play, Picture or Album has a Filipino. Did you know the iconic Frozen theme song “Let it Go” was co-composed by a Filipino? You can thank Robert Lopez for that! The nominations of Matthew Libatique’s cinematography from Black Swan to A Star is Born and H.E.R.’s Grammy-Oscar combo win are other prime examples. And in 2022, our people’s talents have been recognized by the Oscars once again through Frederic Aspiras’ hairstyling and makeup in House of Gucci and actor Perry Dizon’s performance in Drive My Car.
But while most of these Filipino artists have won as co-recipients, their contributions are to stories that do not represent our culture, unlike what we’ve seen with Minari and Parasite. So are Filipinos only able to get Hollywood recognition if they don’t work for their own community? The lack of nominations and wins might be baffling, but it does not guarantee the quality and worth of our stories.
Frederic Aspiras with Lady Gaga (who plays Patrizia Reggiani in House of Gucci)
Regardless of how arbitrarily the winners are decided in these award shows, who ends up winning does matter when it comes to folks who are underrepresented. When the entertainment and media industry takes a chance on authentic representation, it celebrates diversity and normalizes inclusivity. Which is why as an audience, we need to demand for more Filipinos and POCs to be invited to the voting committees, for more companies to fund stories that range from family values to the Philippines’ history, for more nominations of our local talents. This not a way of asking nor seeking for western validation, rather it’s to help the world recognize that there is Hollywood magic in Filipinos too.