It was enough of a challenge to just sit through and watch, especially when I knew I could be watching Glee or something equally entertaining instead of torturing myself with substantial life lessons. The grainy visuals and the not-quite-cleaned-up sound were just as much representative of the truth as they are part of the charm of independent cinema. Truly, independent cinema is unlike anything else.

The film hit closer to home than any other—perhaps for the obvious reason that it was, in actuality, closer to home. Where else would you find star shaped plastic lanterns and Christmas lights you know—you just know—someone went through bulb by bulb to find the loose one and bring the entire set back to life after finding it in someone else’s trash? There were other familiar scenes, of course: a poster of Claudine Baretto and Vilma Santos, neighbors betting daily in jueteng or Lotto, yellow and green striped taxicabs, tabo and balde baths in the morning, and the sign of the cross before family dinner.

For a movie about a twelve-year-old, it was heavy. It was dark and slightly depressing. It dealt with morality, poverty, desperation, hunger (and not just the kind that the scarcity of food fails to fulfill), death, responsibility, sacrifice, family, loyalty, betrayal, and the blurred lines between right and wrong. Oh, and a tiny tinge of sex, but only in little hints.

Maxi Oliveros needed to grow up fast, as dictated by the circumstances (a late mother and the need to scramble around for money to survive), but within him is still a young, innocent child, who has yet to learn so much.

It’s confusing for the viewer who needs clear cut lines. The stereotypical hero isn’t, and the family that seems to have such skewed values formed only through intense rationalizing. But then you’re also forced to realize that these values come about as a result of real need. Towards the end, even the very straight (and not necessarily in terms of sexual orientation) police man fails to hold on to the values that the silver crucifix perpetually hanging on his neck reminds him never to let go of.

This was difficult.

You would think that tradition only lived where it was born. And you would be wrong. It follows you wherever you are; it’s not something you can separate yourself from. Surely something will give you away—the way you speak, the way you dress, the way you struggle to keep your shoes on when you enter a house because you’re just so used to taking them off, your slit eyes.

Wilhelmina grew up in the States, but was raised Chinese. She grew up in a liberal culture, and has assimilated into a kind of life that seems perfectly normal—except it doesn’t; at least not for her family.

Her widow mother, comically portrayed as a stubborn yet deeply understanding woman, drags her to regular get-togethers of the Chinese community, where Wilhelmina is expected to find her future husband. (Why, her mother asks, is she wearing men’s clothes again?) It is at these get-togethers that we see how high the expectations are to fulfill what has been dictated by tradition, culture, and elders.

Along the course of the story, Wilhelmina does meet someone, a childhood friend she has forgotten, and something begins between her and Vivian. Wil holds back. Vivian tells her, in a line I cannot forget, “you’re too scared to look the world in the eye and let it watch you fall in love.”

Together, mother and daughter learn about each other, learn to support each other, and learn to stand up for themselves. In a way uncharacteristic of the expected subtleties, they break away from the restricting concepts of arranged marriage, sexuality, and shame.

I appreciated the character of Wilhelmina’s African-American best friend, a laid back guy who thinks Wil worries too much. He gives comic relief that is welcome but unnecessary (this is a very light story), and it is for him that all the nuances of Chinese culture need to be explained.

Also, I enjoyed how the Chinese culture was illustrated, but I wouldn’t be able to tell whether or not it was accurate. Our Philippine culture, though, did seem quite similar, albeit much less blatantly imposed. Culture is just as much part of one’s identity as sexuality is.

Everything is intertwined.

Coming out is something that each individual has to go through, whether homosexual, bisexual, transsexual, transgender, heterosexual, or anything else. It’s just far more subtle when who you are inside happens to be the same as who people can see outside. For Luna, it’s not that easy.

Luna cover

Luna is transsexual teen who was born in a boy’s body, but wishes more than anything to live in the body where she belongs. She faces discrimination, bullying, and is misunderstood with her life under the magnifying glass of critical peers and a very conventional family. But at least she has her younger sister Regan to help her through.

Regan doesn’t just watch as her brother Liam morphs into her sister Luna at ungodly hours, prancing around in their shared basement in dresses and makeup. She keeps Luna’s secret, knowing it matters more than anything else possibly could. It’s a heavy burden that she describes as feeling like a suffocating jacket she can’t seem to take off. But she loves her sister, and it pains her to see Luna unhappy.

When Luna finally decides it’s time to tell their dad the truth about herself, Regan worries. Regan is always worrying about Luna; it’s as though her whole life has revolved around protecting her. Flashbacks tell bits of the story, little things that Regan remembers and now sees through a different light.

The entire story is told through Regan, which I felt was the best way it could’ve been told. The book doesn’t attempt to get deep into Luna’s mind—only as far as Luna allows Regan. (Also, it shows the truth of how sexuality is no longer a personal matter; it affects so many of the people who surround you). In this way, we understand just how complicated it really is, just how difficult it is to understand transsexuality, but also how difficult it is to be someone you just know you’re not. The trouble lies in who the rest of the world think you should be.

I’m still undecided—was it happy ending? With so much at stake, you’re bound to have to give something up.

Don’t you know, you’re the girl I always wanted to be.

Ellen has been in love with James since the seventh grade. She loves her brother Link (James’s best friend) just as much. The three of them have a close-knit relationship, the boys sharing a special bond Ellen accepts she isn’t part of. Ellen has just started ninth grade at the school James and Link are about to graduate from. One of her new friends casually mentions that she thinks James and Link are a couple.

So Ellen wonders. Finally, she asks them, but still she doesn’t get a clear answer—because neither of them is sure.

My Heartbeat cover

As they each begin to understand further, an interesting point is brought up. James tells Ellen that she was their insurance. So long as she was around, they were safe—nothing that shouldn’t be happening would end up happening.

My Heartbeat is a story of fear and expectations, and what it means to really know someone. There are unwritten social laws yet to be understood, and a mind with a heartbeat yet to be formed. It’s a love triangle that you don’t even realize is there until you take a step back and stop to think. It’s a love triangle where each one truly loves the other two, and that, I think is something to be admired.

Together and apart, they deal with their own issues. From all sorts of rebellion, to music, to advanced math, running seven miles every morning, searching for happy endings, sketching strangers, and learning to see—to really see, the three of them develop subtly but beautifully.

James has experienced much more than either of the siblings, in terms of sex and life in general, and speaks with wisdom that he doesn’t acknowledge. Ellen and Link are both under the guidance of a pair of loving parents: a mother with the ability to understand what is unsaid, and a father who wants nothing more than for his children to develop their own minds (so long as they conform to certain boundaries).

There is no lack of love in this story.

In the words of one of the characters, a good book is a reflection of some kind of truth. This was a good book.

You’re given an exclusive girls’ boarding school, checkered skirts and maroon blazers, a wide-eyed sheltered blonde skinny girl and her two older roommates who have a world of their own, and you know exactly what to expect.

Lost and Delirious was based on a novel entitled The Wives of Bath by Susan Swan.

Mary is the new girl suddenly exposed to long-existing traditions within the school, and she has to find her place. Slowly and unaware, she is drawn into the lives of Tori and Paulie, and inevitably exposed to the relationship the two have. They made an effort to involve her in their plans. She grows so used to them, and they get used to having her around. She sees, but she doesn’t understand.

In words that can only be described as innocent she narrates the tale in her quiet voice, thinking that when she sees her roommates kissing, they’re practicing for boys. She only has preconceptions, and misconceptions, but makes no judgments. While she doesn’t seem to understand, she accepts wholeheartedly, almost without even thinking first.

The couple faces its own challenges in the form of boys, teachers, and most especially, family. Tori and Paulie are only a couple in secret, but when Tori’s younger sister catches them in an extremely suspenseful scene, everything changes.

While Tori deals with fitting back into what is demanded of her, Paulie tries her hardest to fight for her love as she deals with other problems beyond losing Tori. Mary becomes confidante to both girls, but this time around, separately. Listen to their conversations, because they let you forgive each of the characters for their actions.

Beyond pressure and expectation looms something so much greater. Whatever it was, it was an emotion so uncontrollable, overpowering, irrevocable, maybe irrational, but just the same, true.

The idea of just how easily the expectations of a teenage girl’s parents and peers can push her to follow a given mold is magnified. Ultimately, the movie illustrates how a love so great can become someone’s sole purpose for living, no matter who opposes.

What happens, then, when your reason is gone?
So the story ends. I rush into the secret house.

I was a dependent twelve-year-old when I picked up Hard Love in the bookstore and handed it to my mother for her to skim and scan through the pages and ultimately determine whether or not the book was fit for me to read. She concluded, from what she saw, that the book was mostly about the character’s relationship with his parents, and was therefore safe for twelve-year-old me to read. Also, it was multi-awarded, with Michael Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature on a silver seal printed on the cover.

The book is also a winner of the Lambda Literary Award, which not many people know is given by a foundation that pushes for “raising the status of openly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people throughout society by rewarding and promoting excellence among LGBT writers who use their work to explore LGBT lives.”

Hard Love cover

Ellen Wittlinger writes the book for everyone whose first love was a hard love—and really, whose wasn’t?

Each member of the very diverse group of characters (who have nothing in common except for their passion for writing what they call zines) has his or her own set of personal issues revolving around dysfunctional family, sexual identity, and strangely enough, names.

You have a pair of very understanding, supportive parents on Marisol’s side, and another two parents who you really couldn’t call a pair, extremely distant and unable to communicate, on John’s.

Interspersed with excerpts from the characters’ zines, Ani DiFranco lyrics, letters, and poetry, is a story of how John falls in love with Marisol. John is not particularly interesting in comparison to Marisol Guzman, Puerto Rican Cuban Yankee Cambridge, Massachusetts, rich spoiled lesbian private-school gifted-and-talented writer virgin looking for love.

And it’s hard love, because you can’t blame anyone for why it just can’t work out. He can’t help who he fell in love with (and they say you’re not supposed to help it, anyway), and she can’t help who she can’t fall in love with. They’ve both had their hearts broken, but they aren’t meant to be the ones to mend the other one.

It’s not a happy ending, but you understand why it just can’t be.

I was sitting on the floor of a corridor in school at lunch break earlier today, waiting for my next class to start. I had my earphones plugged in as I watched Boys Don’t Cry for the first time. I must have looked slightly crazy to the people passing by, because my face was all scrunched up. I would catch myself sometimes, but inevitably end up with the same scrunched up face all over again.

The movie was extremely intense. I couldn’t help but feel so involved.

I’d gotten used to sugarcoating in the movies I’d been watching, but there was none of that here. I was being thrown into a world I wasn’t ready for, and I didn’t know what to do. It was harsh, without even a heartwarming ending to make up for the emotional torture. If there was even a hint of happiness, it was bittersweet.

Scenes from the movie may cause disgust. The characters themselves certainly will not fail to. It’s difficult to learn to like a single one. Whereas other stories are about those people you know you should hate but you just can’t help but love, these people, I couldn’t seem to love. And it had nothing to do with the issue of Brandon’s being transgendered. It was just that no one could seem to do anything right, even by the lowest standard of simply acting with decency towards one another. There was so too much deceit and too little respect.

From disturbed people living in a world driven by the unnatural high of drugs, and drowning in the intoxication of alcohol, you cannot expect much. I say this as objectively as possible.

But as much of a challenge it was to watch the whole movie, it was an eye-opener. Sure, we hear about violence against transgendered people. We hear about violence about minorities in general. But we don’t see it quite as often, so we’re given the lucky privilege of choosing not to know. Not anymore.

Boys Don’t Cry, while partly fictionalized, is based on the true story of a real Brandon Teena.

This is the cold, hard truth right in front of your eyes. Don’t shut them.

From the very beginning, The Realm of Possibility is not your ordinary book. It’s shrink-wrapped in clingy plastic and set on one of the bookstore’s shelves, and you pick it up, scan through the back cover, and buy it.

The Realm of Possibility cover

You’re waiting a tale of teenage love and intertwined lives to be spun in beautiful lines like those you copied onto your planner because you didn’t want to forget (maybe for this book, you’ll write, this will linger). Because that’s what the back cover tells you.

You pinch off a hardened corner of the plastic wrapper, slide your finger along the sealed line, and proceed to peel off the rest. You’ve seen the two hands and the crowned heart on the cover before, but this time you take a second glance. Then you leaf through the first few pages until you make it to a gray page that has the heading “one,” followed by a list of four names.

Then you find that the book has been written in free verse, and you think, really, should you have paid all that money for a book with pages almost bare save for a few three-word liners?

But soon enough, you realize, yes, it was worth it.

You read through some stories, excited to figure out how each one connects to the first, so you cheat a little and look through the four other chapter dividers and you’re surprised to find your own name on one. But you don’t want to spoil it for yourself, so you quickly return to where you stopped.

Levithan isn’t telling the story this time. He lets the twenty teenagers write for themselves, each one with their own distinct style, and distinct mind.

Whereas other stories are limited by their one or two main characters, this one has twenty, a completely heterogeneous group in terms of sexuality, beliefs, culture, and experiences. Through these twenty, we see a full spectrum.

Leviathan understands, and lets us understand, there will always be different people with different interests. Here, in this realm of possibility, some of them intersect.

The Claddagh ring says, “With my two hands I give you my heart, and crown it with my love.”

Bare was being staged by Ateneo’s BlueRep at a time when I was developing a renewed interest in plays. Many cheap (as compared to those of Trumpets and Repertory in Meralco Theater) plays were becoming accessible to me as a college student. I almost missed Bare, because I was busy around the time it was showing. I just got lucky – the show was extended, and an insistent friend forced me to watch.

BlueRep’s run has long been over, but if this play is staged again, it shouldn’t be missed. It’s been seven months since I watched the play, but it remains fresh as ever because of its exquisite soundtrack. With its poetic lyrics and very up-to-date music, the soundtrack can stand alone.

I thought it was perfect that Ateneo staged it. It was very current, and so much in context. Peter, Jason, Claire, Ivy, Matt, and the rest are us. Theirs is a world that so many of us have lived in: one of strict Catholic values and conservative beliefs, and more than a little bit of secrecy.

We end up falling in love with both boys through their heart-rending words to each other. They go back and forth, unsure of their decisions, unsure of their identities, as they encounter reactions from the people in their direct environment. It’s frustrating to see how fickle they are, but even more frustrating when you so clearly see why it’s so difficult for them.

Bare is unique in that highlights how the people surrounding the couple are so much affected by them. While some stories only touch on the subject of homosexuality and focus more on the world around it, and others focus solely on it, Bare brings into discussion how the two worlds interact.

It’s a very problematic two worlds, where there is, as Peter describes, safety in falsehood. But well beyond the boundaries of private Catholic high school, this will always be a problem. This is exacerbated by them being teenagers. Peter struggles with the decision of whether or not to come out to his mother, although he ultimately knows that he has to. Jason worries “if they knew, my parents would die—they would die.”

By the time I heard about South of Nowhere, the show was on its last few episodes. I was a little late. I don’t think it’s ever been aired here. A friend burned me DVD’s of the first two seasons.

Its storyline was similar to that of any other teenage drama. Family moves to California from another state, the kids are exposed to local life and begin to adjust, the parents go through culture shock. It’s always the same, with just a little tweaking – look at The OC and 90210.

South of Nowhere scene from opening credits

So Spencer Carlin moved to Los Angeles and met the bitchy cheerleader, developed a crush on the heartthrob jock, and met the strange girl, Ashley, who didn’t quite fit in. But stereotyping is done away with soon enough. Each of the characters grows and learns – through religion, death, discrimination, drugs, money, sex, parenting, siblinghood, and prom.

By the end of the third season, you don’t have that character that you wish would just get out of the way of everyone else so that life could just be happier. The show isn’t presented in a particularly biased way; it just shows what is. The thing is, you have to be willing to see what is, as it is.

Don’t think of it as a lesbian series, because that’s not all it’s about – just like people are not solely defined by their sexuality. Everyone is something more. South of Nowhere is something more.

Perhaps what made the show succeed was that it had found its niche. It dealt with teenage homosexuality, which should’ve been so obvious, and yet no shows before it had ever focused on the topic. If anything, all the other shows would have at most a few episodes of a character going through a gay phase (Marissa Cooper in season two of The OC, and Rebecca Logan in season two of Greek).

It didn’t have the elements that would make other shows work – the stunning actors, the beautiful wardrobes, the poetic dialogue. (In fact, I personally hated the outfits). It was so simple.

I loved the day at the beach. It was beautiful. And I loved how Ashley always stressed, “because it’s so important.”