Nora Aunor with a cig: So what?

Let it be said that Superstar Nora Aunor’s comeback is by all counts a success, if we are to measure it not by media mileage or product endorsements, not by tell-all interviews in every darn showbiz talk show or by grand statements about home being where the heart is. Ate Guy’s return has been about none of this and that is precisely a measure of this comeback’s success. Because would she be the unbeatable popular culture icon that she is, the film actress par excellence, the Superstar in the real sense of the word, if she came back and fell into the trap of showbiz as created by the Kris Aquinos of this world? Not at all. Ate Guy is everything that contemporary showbiz is not. And that was true long before she left, that was real to anyone who saw her films and respected her daring, this was always true for those of us who couldn’t help but be astounded on the one hand, and then be downright impressed on the other, by the life choices she was making, given the little that we actually knew of her. She was rebel long before it became fashionable to be one, she was rakenrol like no other, and in the midst of that she was inadvertently pointing out that she was – should be – nothing but actress, but singer, but star. Ate Guy might be the only icon on these shores who can say to her public: here’s who I am, deal with it.

Because if we can’t, then what a shame. If we can’t, then that is ultimately a measure of us, not of her. And I’m talking to you Philippine Medical Association (PMA), as well as running priest Fr. Robert Reyes, who insist that the cover image of Ate Guy in the October issue of Yes! Magazine is unacceptable because (gasp!) she’s shown holding a cigarette. That this is even in the news as news versus it being questioned and argued about is a measure of our media; that the PMA and Fr. Reyes are even allowed to imagine role models vis a vis magazine covers and pop culture images is just stupid. For really, who is Fr. Reyes talking to when he says to Ate Guy:“The Filipino public is not dumb, if you want to be popular again, be wholesome"? The good priest obviously knows not of what he speaks. Look at the most popular celebrities in this country, and see their billboards that sell sex and sexuality even when they’re holding a can of tuna or are selling computers, look at who’s on television every day and see them selling everything that’s about changing how we look through whitening products and beauty clinics. You demand wholesome? Show me what’s wholesome about the lies that these advertisements sell, and then explain why we’ve let them bombard us every day. You demand wholesome? Begin by insisting that no female celebrity who’s white to begin with should be allowed to sell whitening products; insist that no celebrity shall sell beer or gin on nationwide television; insist that no bodies be used to sell products on billboards – no body at all. And then convince yourself that this will mean role models all around and our kids will be better off. This is at the core of this kind of response to Ate Guy’s photo, holding a cigarette, staring straight into the camera. It’s the question of pop culture icons being role models, a question of how these images are necessarily aspirational ones. They are saying that this image of Ate Guy is so powerful that it will make us get a pack of cigarettes for ourselves the moment we see it. This fails to consider the fact that Ate Guy, is the Nora Aunor, and she doesn’t aspire to be role model, never has, never will. It also forgets that as Nora Aunor, there is more to this photo than that cigarette in her hand. Done by Marc Nicdao, this image renders the Superstar not so much in a role, as she is revealed finally to be comfortable in her own skin. There is nothing here that’s about being the usual cover girl who’s prettified, no heavy make-up, no glamorous clothes, seemingly no digital editing. In black and white, we see the age on her skin, in her hand that holds that cigarette, her crow’s feet, her laugh lines. She’s in jeans, and what looks like a stylized polo shirt, hair cropped short, styled but barely so. But what will grab you are her eyes, questioning and judgmental, just ultimately matter-of-fact: I’m back, I’m here, what’s it to you? No one else – no one else – has the daring to have a photo like this taken and agree to have it on the cover of a magazine as a real portrayal of self. Yes, some younger celebrity might hold a cigarette on the cover of a magazine too, but that would only be within a fashion editorial, a fictional portrayal, ultimately no meaning other than fake edginess. In the hands of Ate Guy, that cigarette is a reminder that there is no one, no male or female celebrity on these shores, who has the chutzpah, the gall, the guts, the darn rakenrol, to release an image of self so real, it makes us all uncomfortable. This is precisely why it’s a refreshing image to see, not just of Nora Aunor, but on a magazine cover. It’s an image that tells us we’ve matured if only because the Superstar now knows to let it all hang, to lay her cards on the table, and she’s forcing us to be prepared for it. You do not change Nora Aunor, you are changed by her. And in the context of local pop culture’s pomp and pageantry, the industry of fake bodies and glossy faces, hair straight and long, necks covered up with scarves, women in conventional outfits or acceptable near-nakedness, I dare say Ate Guy is the most refreshing cover girl there could ever be. The most powerful, too: she has changed here the way we might view ourselves as women, aging as we all are even as we deny it, looking as she does at that camera and refusing to be objectified by its gaze, fearless and without pretentions, Superstar par excellence. Right here is Nora Aunor, all her years as artist, as woman, as pop icon, showing. If only we were more prepared for her. But then again, we apparently never are. - GMA News