9. DEMAND FOR SPANISH MOVIES
The preponderance of the Spanish
language does not merely constitute proof of its daily and official use
by the immense majority of the Filipinos in the 1900’s and the 1920’s,
but until the 1930’s, when the Hollywood movie industry found an important
Filipino market for its Spanish-language movies.
The Manila magazine Excelsior
in its July 1930 issue criticized the practice adopted by the offices of
Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer in Manila of returning to the U.S. the Hollywood movies
produced in Spanish. The return was done to support the U.S. authorities
in Manila in their genocidal campaign to suppress Spanish in the Philippines.
The article entitled Talkies in Spanish of the referenced monthly
magazine published on Potenciana Street in Intramuros says:
"...with respect to the
cultivation and diffusion of Spanish in the Philippines, a vigorous protest
from the Círculo Cervantino, Círculo Escénico, Asociación
Talía, Cultura Hispánica, Peña Ibérica and
other institutions and centers of learning whose names are not mentioned
here, against the practice of Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer of not showing Spanish-language
movies and returning them (that is, without premiering them in the Philippines
first, as was the objective of their dispatch to these Islands) to the
United States.
"They describe this procedure as
unfair, since, in view of the fact that 40% of the older and young generations
speak the language of Cervantes much better than that of Shakespeare, there
is no reason whatsoever to impose only English on them, against all the
rules of equality. Even more, forgetting that the Company in question,
forgetting that Spanish culture and civilization in this country have put
down deep roots in the Filipino soul and that it can easily, without harm
to itself, satisfy this respectable percentage of the island populace.
[MGM is] moved by misguided egoism or by an even more faulty concept of
economy, if it considered that Spanish-language movies are enthusiastically
accepted by the Filipino public, as was demonstrated, according to the
protesters, by the recent film from MGM entitled "Gay Madrid," shown in
Cine Ideal, which had a run of several weeks, to full audiences, setting
a new record."
After commenting on MGM’s violation
of the "so noisily vaunted Democracy" the article ends with the following
paragraph :
"We trust that [the Company]
will bring them back and we shall once more see movies in the Cine Ideal
that are completely filmed and spoken in Spanish, as happens in other moviehouses
that are not so exclusivist, but that cater to the public’s desire to see
Spanish-language pictures" (op. cit., p. 11).
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