Finding our own voice–and identity

SHANNE Velasco as Regine Velasquez, “Ikaw at Echo” winner eat bulaga facebook photo

It’s interesting to note that noontime TV rivals, “Eat Bulaga” and “It’s Showtime,” conducted recently contests that both highlighted Filipinos’ penchant for impersonation—“Eat” with its “Ikaw at Echo” sing-alike tilt and “Showtime” with its “Kalokalike” contest.

The “Echo” competition discovered some vocal standouts who not only sang well on their own, but were convincingly able to “channel” the unique and “signature” vocal stylings of local and international singing stars.

For its part, the second annual “Kalokalike” finals on “Showtime” was won by a local Nicki Minaj impersonator. We liked her savvy decision to choose an international star who would be relatively easy for a Filipino to approximate visually.

Another convincing standout was the young tisoy who astutely picked Rowan Atkinson’s “Mr. Bean” character to personify. He was able to mimic not just the “cartoon-y” character’s idiosyncratic looks, but also his comedic movements and funny antics.

A winner

He was a winner in our book, because what he did went beyond imitation—it showed that he had the sensibility to “understand” where the comedian’s antics were coming from.

This was an improvement over last year’s winner, a Christopher de Leon look-alike, who was more predictable and superficial in his approach.

In this regard, the “Kalokalike” tilt has done better on its second year, so things are looking up!

As for “Eat’s” “Echo” sing-alike tilt, we hope that it, too, will continue to prosper, since singing stars’ local “versions” remain popular with the local show biz audience.

Copycats

It’s similarly relevant to note that some local singing and dancing “copycats” have gone on to become stars in their own right, like local “Frank Sinatra” Bert Nievera, eventually finding his own voice, persona and style, and Gary Valenciano leaving his original Michael Jackson “peg” far behind.

Having said which, we should remind ourselves that, when push comes to shove, our penchant for impersonation and imitation is a surviving “symptom” of our “deathless” colonial

NICKI Minaj “Kalokalike” winner, Jennifer Katayong

mentality, which we obediently derived from our Spanish and American colonizers, who “taught” us that their way of doing things was inherently “better” than our indigenous practices and products.

So, let’s enjoy all those cute and clever impersonations, but we should look forward to the day when they don’t subliminally mean that foreign is better than local—

because it’s not!

Weaning ourselves from the colonial cultural “teats” we’ve gotten used to suck won’t be easy, but we really have to do it if we want to no longer be subliminally and psychologically dictated to by our foreign “teachers.”

Preferences

In the pop-cultural field, we should learn to prefer local entertainers who are confident enough about their own talent and musical style that they don’t need to ape foreign singers in order to make a vivid impression. We should also favor interpretations and meaningful, expressive nuances over sheer vocal bombast!

The fact that foreign songs and revivals are currently preferred by many of us indicates how difficult the transformation will be—but, we need to do it to truly come into our own.