Filipinos: New Villains in Hollywood?

During my the first preview, I didn't get to hear the words well of the possesed girl in the first part of the film. Although, I was already told me that the girl had supposedly spoken in Tagalog. When I saw it again, yes, indeed! She said, in a devil's voice, "Papatayin namin sila..."



It was an ecstatic feeling hearing our language being spoken on a Hollywood movie. Remember "Her Alibi" starring Tom Selleck with a Filipino maid cursing? T'was very funny!



Or this B-movie actually shot in the Philippines with an eating crocodile monster called "Krocodylus" (not the international title). It has Filipino actors in it, as well, like Rez Cortez and Maureen Larazabal canoodling with the ever handsome (model) Joel West, among others.



The truth is, I'll be proud of it as the concept is clear to me! Heck, it is seldom that we get to be "recognize" in Hollywood! It is just I'm a Filipino and fighting off prejucides against our race is hard enough, what more put to a movie unabashingly?

With "Constantine", I wonder why the devil has spoken in Tagalog and not some language that truly didn't exist? Could the people behind the film have some connections with the Filipino community? Actually, the character who played the possessed girl was a Filipina named Joanna Trias. Could be she related to Jasmine? Or is it because Filipinos, being devout Catholics, believe in such - exorcism, possession, and the devil? Or does it want to portray again the kind of Filipinos that the movie called "Aswang" did?

"Aswang" is about an American family who lived in the Philippines for quite a long time, particularly Samar, if I remember it right. They went back to the US and committed murders because they had to - they are aswangs! They need to feed themselves. They were with a Filipina helper who was the one who turned them into such. They even know how to speak our language! The film wants to portray that Samar is truly the land of the aswangs. It didn't make mention that aswangs are Filipino legends or myths or that some Filipinos actually practice in certain parts of the province. They just told it as if it was a simple known fact.



Hollywood have a knack of turning other nations into villains. They were done with the Europeans and Africans, now they are targetting the Muslims and Asians! Are they turning the Filipinos into their own kind of villains? I hope not.

(full write-up here: The "Tagalog-Speaking" Demon in Constantine and other Trivia)