12/10/2022
In the entertainment section of today’s Philippine Daily Inquirer , actor Stefanie Arianne says:
“If you watch Hollywood shows now, let’s say ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ you’ll see that it’s all a big joke. You know it’s just television because there’s no Filipino in the emergency room. Everyone knows that there are a lot of Filipino nurses in America. Filipinos are a lot of other things, too. We are also teachers and nannies. We are all over the place …”
On Hollywood’s “inclusion rider,” she adds: “Whether or not it’s a good thing really depends on certain things. If the production outfit is bringing in Asians or other minorities just for the sake of bringing them in and not for representing them, then I don’t think that’s a good thing. It doesn’t solve the problem. But if they do bring them in and listen to how they want to be portrayed, then it’s a really good step for representation … Asia is so big. When we say Asians, the first thing they would imagine are the Koreans, Chinese and Japanese. They forget about us. Sometimes, people would ask me, ‘Are Filipinos the same as Mexicans?’ since our names are so similar. So I give them the long history of Spaniards staying in our country for 300 years.”
We tackle this exact issue in “Where All The Filipinos At??” Check it out on Apple, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts!
Represent, .arianne ! 👏🏽
