http://www.manilatimes.net/index.php/opinion/columnist1/45206-shamelessVery good and intelligently written article on Kris Aquino from Manila Times.
Parang the writer read many of our comments from here kasi she's saying what many of us also said LOL
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SHAMELESS
By Katrina Stuart Santiago
We’ve always known Kris Aquino to be shameless.
And no, to me this didn’t start with her wanting to join show business, neither was it about the fact that her mother’s presidency was riddled with her love affairs with “wrong” men, with a couple even fighting it out in Malacañang, no less.
To me, the shamelessness began in 2003, September to be exact, when Yes Magazine featured this ex-presidential daughter as nothing but her clothes, her make-up, as nothing but her body and her looks. “Kris Aquino: love lipstick & liposuction” (34-47) was a grand display of superficiality and shallowness, where she talked about having the Belo Medical Group remove half a liter of fat from her puson, and a breast augmentation from 36A to 36B: “Yung cup lang ang nag-change,” Kris (then 35) said with pride, it would seem.
She would also display her wardrobe, her expensive imported jeans, her perfumes and jewelry, and speak as if these are the most important things to have, as if these are the brands that we should buy, too, no matter how expensive. At this time Kris was also already selling a whitening papaya soap even as, since the time she entered public consciousness, she’s always had white skin.
This was the kick-off to the kind of consumerism that’s become part of the narrative of Kris’ career. And yes we complain about how she has made a killing out of using her personal life to keep relevant, from one scandal after another, but do you know how far she has taken this? Or just how bad it has gotten? And how ultimately she’s been able to use the personal to further the cause of the unthinking consumption of products that do nothing but raise other women’s needs?
Blatantly banking on the personal, Kris has made spoken word CDs like no one else has in this country. And I don’t mean that they’re original, as they are always about only her, and what she’s learned, what she seeks to become. More than that, many of these CDs were released vis a vis some personally excruciating and painfully public tears from Kris, where she is always the one who is wronged. Some also come with pictures of her happiness.
That is: I am happy in my marriage, and I make a CD. My husband cheats on me but I understand, and I make a CD. I have a son who’s learning his ABCs, and I make a CD. My mother dies, and I make a CD. My brother’s running, and I make a CD.
That this makes money is not surprising: such are the well-calculated risks that Kris takes, and I don’t mean falling in love.
I mean the way she uses her personal life to make money, the way it is really only the personal that Kris still falls back on now. It is the only thing that makes her relevant, the only thing that will put her in the news. Not any of the “talents” she might have acquired since 1986 when she told the late Inday Badiday in an interview: “I want to be like Sharon Cuneta!” It’s a dream she’s had since she was two years old, she tells Korina Sanchez in a 2003 interview. Also in a 2003 interview, Teodoro Locsin Jr. would confirm that Kris’ entry into showbiz happened as a “political favor” to then President Cory. It was considered a harmless one, too.
But Kris is far, far from being harmless at this point. In fact she ceased to be harmless the moment she started endorsing products. No, wait, the moment she started endorsing products by invoking the personal. That would mean way before the 2003 admission of liposuction and breast augmentation. How long ago exactly?
Try the early 1990s. In a commercial for a toothpaste, she invokes the fact of her mother and says: “Best care? Lumaki ako diyan. For my mom, only the best care will do. Sa toothpaste di puwedeng basta-basta, dapat yung may best care!”
It’s irresponsible because it uses only her personal, who she is, versus what she’s achieved, to sell a product. At least Paris Hilton doesn’t pretend to be more than a socialite-celebrity. At least Imee Marcos and Irene Marcos-Araneta refused to be used, by showbiz and TV ads both, even as they support local arts and culture.
And in 2013, when we are sold the idea that Kris is a different person, that she is now more responsible, that she is now all-media star, she remains nothing but exactly that same person from the early 90’s. Yes, irresponsible and merely wanting some mileage.
Except now she holds quite an amount of political power. From the notion of credibility that is in her selling every imaginable product, to the fact that she is presidential sister. From the box office successes of her films no matter that she’s only playing larger versions—or screaming versions—of herself in these, to her constant articulation of wanting to run for President. From funding—and endorsing—politicians and political organizations like Akbayan.
Except now she is proving to be most useful for a brother who is President. Recently it did look like she was just out to save her brother from the embarrassment of once again failing to acknowledge the tragedies that befall this country and our countrymen now and again. Kris kept the country glued to TV interviews with the usual tears and a pretend-resignation. It didn’t take long to find that her resignation is sadly not possible.
We’d like to think that Kris has matured, and I think for a while we all thought that she would outgrow this superficiality and shallowness—this giddiness— about her showbiz success. But Kris hasn’t, and now with the power that she has, Kris is the worst version of her 1986 self.
And there is no reprieve. What with infecting the rest of the family with the shamelessness. Of course I mean PNoy, he who cannot for the life of him speak in a time of tragedy, even if it’s only to say he’s sorry that his government didn’t see it coming. Heck, even if it’s only to pretend that he wants to allay the people’s fears.
And now, too, there is Ballsy Aquino-Cruz, peddling a multinational brand of detergent with Kris, where the conversation is not only absurd because surely they’re not speaking from experience, surely they don’t do their own laundry. Worse, they invoke the name of their mother in the task of selling this product. Ballsy also says at some point in the ad, that Kris has truly matured.
I could only think: this is mature? Throwing tantrums on nationwide television, accusing her son’s father of unwelcome sexual advances? Moving heaven and earth, so to speak, to change her son’s surname to Cojuangco-Aquino? Selling whitening when she is white to begin with? Selling fakery to young Pinays who don’t know enough not to take her seriously? Saying she will resign (twice!) and finding that she won’t / can’t do it?
Really, Ate Ballsy? This is mature? The mature thing would be for Kris to stop collaborating with these multinational companies the products of which she endorses. The goal should be to cease to be indebted to any huge capitalist. The task at hand is to disengage with this project of raising the needs of consumers, and demanding of them to look, and be, a certain way, because this product says so. The goal is to be as quiet as possible, yes? And if she needs to speak at all, let it be as the voice of PNoy during times that call for compassion.
In any other country, selling detergent on nationwide television would be a no-no for a presidential sister. Especially so, invoking a sainted mother’s name.
In the Philippines, every shamelessness is allowed the Aquinos. That’s PNoy and Kris, now Ate Ballsy, too.
