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Yo Filipinos, Take it Easy
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National Treasure; Photo from Contactmusic.com
I’m still compiling the not-so-brief op-ed on how I feel about being an Asian-American for API Heritage Month, but I thought I’d give my two cents about Alec Baldwin’s latest PR nightmare on Letterman recently.
Here’s the skinny if you haven’t heard yet: Baldwin made a crack about Filipino mail order brides on Letterman, which is pretty much one of the easiest jokes you could make about Filipino people short of anything involving eating dog or Balut. Then Senator Bong Revilla (yeah, his stage name is “Bong”) went on this tirade promising to beat up Baldwin, etc.
Since then, Baldwin has apologized and the Philippines is still banning Baldwin from entering the country.
As a Filipino-American, I have to say this is pretty dumb. It was a joke, people. Get over yourselves. It’s not like he said that Manila was a ghastly city which smelled of cockroaches (like America’s sweetheart, Claire Danes, did back in 1998). He made a joke about mail order brides; the funny thing is, while mail order brides are illegal, cruise Craigslist.org; you’re sure to find allegedly teen girls from the Philippines putting up ads to come over to the United States.
Also, no one complained when Baldwin channeled Redd Fox and J.J. Walker for an episode in last season’s “30 Rock.” If African-Americans don’t care that Baldwin was imitating milestone black actors from the 70’s, why should we care that he made a joke on late night television? It probably would’ve been forgotten anyway had Senator Bong not said anything.
I’m sure this will blow over in a few days and this post will be passé. That season finale of “30 Rock” was pretty good though.
