PEOPLE are talking about a woman on a leash. People are talking about actor Coco Martin, fully clothed and looking smug, holding that leash, with a female Caucasian at the end of it writhing and contorting her way to eternal damnation and admiration.
The event: the annual betrayal of Bench products, as the company sells its goods through a fashion show seen as catering to a gay audience, a straight audience and a male audience. You see, in this show, male and female models strutted in their underwear, with their torsos and hair fully and grandly accessorized with flowers and leaves and leather and lace. The ticket to the show, I was informed, was a coveted invitation.
It is not surprising that admirers of female and male pulchritude wanted to be where the Bench show—called The Naked Truth—was because so much went into it. There was the audition that cut down a long list of so-called hot bodies and sensual charm into a short one. Then there was the production design that asked the models to be vulgar and demure at the same time.
The participants of the show were mighty serious about how they were presented. There was, actually, a competition on who could titillate the audience the best without baring it all. I believe that if the laws of the land had allowed nudity, this show and others like it would have shown frontal and aerial nudity. Yes, sometimes, in such shows, they make the models fly above the heads of the audience.
The show was a circus, a carnival. The day after the carnival, reports on what transpired during the show put to shame the blow-by-blow accounts of a boxing bout or a race. The world has judged on who has the tightest butt, the more pronounced endowments, the freshest look. Careers were made and unmade during the show. That’s how powerful the show was.
For this year, the show turned philosophical, as it announced its intention to show “the naked truth”. The program admitted that nudity is the truth. There was nothing there to mediate between a man and his nudity and the world around him. Given the budget of Bench, I can imagine how well-funded the thought process was. Even before rehearsals took place, I guess, there were researches done. Remember, this is Bench, whose only competition in the Philippines is itself. The transfer from research and investigation to the drafting table must have taken considerable time. And then there was the production design. Rehearsals must have been tedious, too.
When the day of the show arrived, there was Martin all covered up, as if he was ashamed of what the other
models had opted to do: disrobe. Then there he was with that leash.
What was the actor thinking? What was his motivation when he started walking around with that white woman, seemingly uncontrollable without the leash? The actor looked in control. The actor was in authority.
Well, the days after the show saw the criticisms escalating. Everyone vented their fury on the man with the leash, and the woman at the end of it.
Quickly, the apology came: “We at Bench apologize to the public for all the offensive elements of the show The Naked Truth. We will take all these concerns seriously and will serve as a lesson learned when we plan our next show. We at Bench shall continue to uphold the dignity of women and our commitment will remain so.”
If lessons were learned, and if these will be considered when Bench mounts its next show, does this mean it is not going to display underwear anymore? How does one uphold the dignity of women when they’re asked to wear panties in public?
There are going to be tough times for Bench. But the company need not worry. The controversy will just blow over, for this society of ours have always put women on a leash, and the men holding the leash and the women tied to it are ignorant of the ties that bind them all.
So long as beauty pageants of all persuasions continue to abound, women will always be on the leash. The leash may be infinitely longer, but it will always be there. So long as we allow our little girls to dress up as dominatrices and so long as we pervert them to look like big-haired beauty queens in noontime shows, the leash will remain, even if it were made of velvet or silk, supported by endorsers that make that leash alluring.
Last night, I watched Martin in his successful telenovela Ikaw Lamang. The scene involves one of those volatile acting showcases. As Gabriel, he is dealing with a hurt character, played by Kim Chiu, who assumes that he loves her. From behind, walking up the stairs, is KC Concepcion’s character. A confrontation ensues. It was terrible. I am not afraid, though, for Martin/Gabriel. When I looked again, I saw him on a leash that was tied around the two women.
As Mary Douglas puts it in her book Purity and Danger: “We cannot possibly interpret rituals concerning excreta, breast milk, saliva and the rest unless we are prepared to see in the body a symbol of society.…”
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