The
plight of Filipinos in Los Angeles is featured in The
Debut. The Mercado family is about to celebrate the
18th birthday of their daughter Rose (played by Bernadette
Balagtas), so a fiesta is organized. There is an elaborate
preparation of coiffure and food (including lechón),
dance performances are rehearsed (including singkil),
and friends and family (including her grandfather) are invited;
an emcee organizes the events, which begin traditionally and
end with everyone participating in the latest dance crazes.
The venue is the auditorium of a Catholic high school because
the family cannot afford a debutante ball at a ritzy hotel.
The real focus of the film, however, is on Ben Mercado (played
by Dante Basco), Rose’s eighteen-year-old brother. Despite
a scholarship offered by UCLA, Ben has cashed in some $6,000
in savings (including valuable comic books) to pay tuition
at the California School for the Arts. Ben, however, is a
disappointment to his family. His father Roland (played by
Tirso Cruz III) wants him to become a physician, Rose is chagrined
that he will not help in preparations for her party, and his
Filipino relatives think that he is snubbing them because
he hangs around with Caucasian students, including a girlfriend.
Meanwhile, we see why he is disenchanted with life among Filipinos:
Everyone tries to boss everyone else, using angry scenes,
guilt, humiliation, and even the threat of violence as control
techniques, without respecting or understanding one another.
When the party begins, Ben quickly becomes fed up as his parents
try to tell everyone that he will be going to UCLA, so he
excuses himself from the table to await the arrival of his
two Caucasian friends, Doug (played by Jayson Schall) and
Rick (played by Brandon Martin), who drive him to a party
where he can meet his girlfriend. But when they arrive, she
is drunk and insults Ben by suggesting that he eats dog; the
party turns out to involve too much booze and loud music,
so the trio return to the birthday party. Ben then gradually
falls in love with his sister’s best friend, Annabelle
(played by Joy Bisco). Aside from the upbeat part of the story,
the interactions among the generations, however, are designed
to provide some humor as well as serious consideration of
many issues plaguing Filipino Americans that have made the
Mercado family so dysfunctional. One set of issues deals with
how the ambitions of the various generations are unfulfilled;
grandfather Carlos Mercado (played by Eddie Garcia), who flies
in from the Philippines, is disappointed that his son is only
a letter carrier, whereas Ben’s father cannot understand
how Ben’s future career in art will bring credit to the
family. The older generation is particularly miffed that some
younger Filipinos are giving up their culture. Augusto (played
by Darion Basco), a macho teenager, tries to corner Annabelle,
showing that those who have little intelligence can gravitate
to gangs and violence. Some themes focus on relations between
Caucasians and Filipinos, such as the remark about eating
dog meat. One Filipina friend of the family has married a
Caucasian, who keeps injecting silly remarks, such as "Filipinos
are not Asians; they are a Malay people." A more politically
savvy young Filipino reminds his peers about how the Americans
fought a war to stop the Philippines from achieving independence
from 1899 to 1902 and how American residents of Philippine
ancestry who fought in the U.S. Army during World War II have
never been given full G.I. Bill or pension benefits (though
he makes no mention of the Hanapepe Massacre of 1924). Although
the increasing importance of Filipinos in American society,
constituting as they do nearly half the nursing staff at many
hospitals, is duly recognized, surprisingly there is no mention
of Ben Cayetano, two-term governor of Hawai`i. Augusto accuses
Ben Mercado of being a "sellout" for associating
with Caucasians, not Filipinos, and ultimately fists fly.
Doug and Rick, nevertheless, are enchanted by Filipino dance
and music as well as the beauty and charm of the Filipinas.
The purpose of The Debut, thus, is for director
Gene Cajayon to tell Filipino Americans that they should be
proud of their culture and content to be themselves rather
than trying to please everyone (a common Filipino ambition)
while counting their material blessings amid the strange,
often hostile culture of Los Angeles. MH
I
want to comment on this film
