Queering the Troubled Tropics in Panx Solajes’ Post-Haiyan Short Films

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.23.1.2024.4061

Keywords:

Panx Solajes’ Films, Typhoon Haiyan, Typhoon Yolanda, Queer Ecology, Troubled Tropics, Philippine Cinema

Abstract

This article apprehends a precarious moment when the queer and the tropics coincide to form a new fabric of sensing in this age of climate crisis. Queer and tropics are intimate, not only because both embody their inherent openness and fluidity, but also because each is woven closely by the corollary contradictions that besiege them, such as heteronormativity, capitalism, and environmental degradation. Within such an intersecting framework, this study critically engages with a selection of three works by the queer Filipino filmmaker Panx Solajes who attentively observes the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan (locally called Yolanda) in the Philippines, a tropical storm that occurred in 2013, and is still considered to be one of the strongest in modern records. Solajes’ post-typhoon films Balud (2014), Iskwater (2015), and Himurasak (2015) are experiments in the troubled tropics that configure a queer vision to engender a habitable and inclusive future through a coupling of human and nonhuman subjectivities. Thus, this post-Haiyan filmography relies on unconventional and resistant forms of queer visibilities that respond to the current climate crisis. Such filmic reading, therefore, can best emerge through allied histories of queer studies, the tropics, and the environment to harness discursive turns that offer alternatives from rigidly pessimistic and realist horizons of the future. This study commits to render visible a balance between the duty to remember and the agency to imagine a habitable future in this equatorial zone of the earth.

Author Biography

Ian Harvey Claros, Ateneo de Manila University, The Philippines

Ian Harvey Claros teaches Filipino and Literature and the Environment at the Ateneo de Manila University. He finished his AB/BSE Literature at the Philippine Normal University, and MA in Literary and Cultural Studies in Ateneo. Currently, he is a member of Young Critics Circle- Film Desk. He led an Arete Sandbox Residency group that commemorates the 10th anniversary of the Typhoon Haiyan through grassroots and multi-sectoral conversations in the Eastern Visayas. His research work deals with vernacular interventions in memory and trauma that both resist and engage with their western constructions.

References

Aaron, M. (2014). New Queer Cinema: A Critical Reader. Edinburgh University Press.

Alegre, B. (2022). From Asog to Bakla to Transpinay: Weaving a Complex History of Transness and Decolonizing the Future. Alon: Journal for Filipinx American and Diasporic Studies, 2 (1), 51-64. https://doi.org/10.5070/LN42156404 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5070/LN42156404

Algue, J. (1898). El Baguio de Samar y Leyte. Foto-Tipografia de J. Marty.

Alunan, M. (Ed). (2016). Susumaton Oral Narratives of Leyte. Ateneo de Manila University Press.

Alunan, M. (2017). Running with Ghosts and Other Poems. Ateneo de Naga University Press.

Aguilar, F.V. (2016). Romancing Tropicality: Illustrado Portraits of the Climate in the Late Nineteenth Century. Philippine Studies Historical & Ethnographic Viewpoints, 64 (3-4), 417-454. https://doi.org/10.1353/phs.2016.0035 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/phs.2016.0035

Ahmed, S. (2013). The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203700372 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203700372

Angelides, S. (2013). The Queer Intervention. In Hall, D. & Jagose, A. (Eds.), The Routledge Queer Studies Reader (pp. 60-73). Routledge.

Ang Sayaw ng Dalawang Kaliwang Paa. (2021, October 22). Ang Sayaw ng Dalawang Kaliwang Paa Pasasalamat [Video]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/100064235013620/videos/432251814996393.

Baudrillard, J. (2000). The Vital Vision. Columbia University Press. https://doi.org/10.7312/baud12100 DOI: https://doi.org/10.7312/baud12100

Benitez, C.J.R. (2022). A Tropical Traumaturgy: Rereading the Folk in “May Bagyo Ma’t May Rilim. Kritika Kultura, 38, 232-265. https://dx.doi.org/10.13185/KK2022.003811. DOI: https://doi.org/10.13185/KK2022.003811

Benitez, C.J.R. & Lundberg, A. (2022). Tropical Materialisms: Toward Decolonial Poetics, Practices and Possibilities. eTropic, 21 (2), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.21.2.2022.3929. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.21.2.2022.3929

Borrinaga, G. (2019). Solidarity and Crisis-Derived Identities in Samar and Leyte, Philippines, 1565 to Present [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. The University of Hull.

Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that Matter. Routledge.

Castiglia, C. & Reed, C. (2011). If Memory Serves: Gay Men, AIDS, and the Promise of the Queer Past. University of Minnesota Press. https://doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816676101.001.0001 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816676101.001.0001

Claros, I.H.A. (2024). Tongues of Trauma: Narrating through Code-Switching Typhoon Haiyan in Daryll Delgado’s Remains. Forum for Modern Language Studies, 60 (1), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/cqae003. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/cqae003

Crimp, D. (2002). Melancholia and Moralism: Essays on AIDS and Queer Politics. The MIT Press.

Deocampo, N. (1985). Short Film: Emergence of a New Philippine Cinema. Communication Foundation of Asia Publications.

De Veyra, A.S. (2021). Ugmad: Storm Surges, Super Typhoons, and Ecopoetry of Post-Haiyan Leyte and Samar, Philippines. Journal of Southeast Asian Ecocriticism, 1 (1), 74-88. https://scholarbank.nus.edu.sg/handle/10635/227360

Edelman, L. (2004). No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11hpkpp DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11hpkpp

Evans, R. (2017). Fantastic Futures? Cli-fi, Climate Justice, and Queer Futurity. A Journal of Environmental Humanities. 4 (2-3), 94-110. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5250/resilience.4.2-3.0094. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5250/resilience.4.2-3.0094

Fisher, M. (2009). Capitalist Realism: Is there No Alternative? Zero Books.

Flores, P.D. (2008). Palabas. Crtl+P Journal of Contemporary Art, Issue No. 11 March 2008, 8-9. https://www.ctrlp-artjournal.org/pdfs/CtrlP_Issue11.pdf.

Foucault, M. (2002). The Order of Things. Routledge.

Garcia. J.N. (2009). Philippine Gay Culture. Hong Kong University Press & University of the Philippines Press.

Garcia. J.N. (2012). Aura: The Gay Themed Philippine Fiction in English. Anvil Publishing.

Gray, J.M. (2017). Heteronormative without Nature: Toward a Queer Ecology. QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, 4 (2), 137-142. https://doi.org/10.14321/qed.4.2.0137 DOI: https://doi.org/10.14321/qed.4.2.0137

Halberstam, J. (2005). In Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. New York University Press.

Hall, S. (2017). Familiar Stranger: Life Between Two Islands. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1168cgk DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1168cgk

Inton, M. (2015). The Bakla and Gay Globality in Chis Martinez’s Here Comes the Bride. Intersection: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, Issue 38, pp. 1-12, http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue38/inton.html.

Jacobo, J. (2011). Homo Tropicus: A Yearning. Kritika Kultura, 16, 65-83. https://ajol.ateneo.edu/kk/articles/58/546.

Jacobo, J. (2011). Mood of Metaphor: Tropicality and Time in the Philippine Poetic [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. State University of New York at Stony Brook.

IMDb. (n.d.). Panx Tabao Solajes. IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6255569/.

LaCapra, D. (2014). Writing History, Writing Trauma. Johns Hopkins University Press. https://doi.org/10.56021/9781421414003 DOI: https://doi.org/10.56021/9781421414003

Manila Observatory (n.d.). History. https://www.observatory.ph/about/.

Miller, Q. (2014). Queer Recalibration. Cinema Journal, 53 (2), 140-144. https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.2014.0018 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.2014.0018

Mojares, R. (2013). Isabelo’s Archive. Anvil Publishing, Inc.

Mortimer-Sandilands, C. & Erickson, B. (Eds.), Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire. Indiana University Press.

Mortimer-Sandilands, C. (2010). Melancholy Nature, Queer Ecologies. In Mortimer-Sandilands, C. & Erickson, B. (Eds.), Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire (pp. 331-358). Indiana University Press.

Muñoz, J. E. (2006). Thinking beyond Antirelationality and Antiutopianism in Queer Critique. PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 121(3), 825–826. doi:10.1632/S0030812900165885 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1632/S0030812900165885

Muñoz, J. E. (2009). Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. New York University Press.

Pear, M.B. (2013). AIDS and New Queer Cinema. In Aaron, M. (Ed.), New Queer Cinema: A Critical Reader (pp. 23-35). Edinburgh University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474463768-006 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474463768-006

Rappler. (2020, October 10). 3 films on Yolanda featured in Daang Dokyu festival. Rappler. https://www.rappler.com/entertainment/movies/films-about-typhoon-yolanda-daang-dokyu-festival-2020/.

Sanchez de la Rosa, A. (1895). Diccionario Hispano-Bisaya para las Provincias de Samar y Leyte. Tipo-Litografia de Chofre y Com.

Segdewick, E. (2013). Queer and Now. In Hall, D. & Jagose, A. (Eds.), The Routledge Queer Studies Reader (pp. 3-17). Routledge.

Seymour, N. (2018). Bad Environmentalism: Irony and Irreverence in the Ecological Age. University of Minnesota Press. https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctv65sz3q DOI: https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctv65sz3q

Snediker, M. (2009). Queer Optimism: Lyric Personhood and other Felicitous Persuasions. University of Minnesota Press.

Solajes, P. (2013, July 4). Érintés (Touch) [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/70278661.

Solajes, P. (2013, December 1). Balud [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/80735933?share=copy.

Solajes, P. (2015). Iskwater (Displaced) [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/137670901?share=copy.

Solajes, P. (2017, May 27). Himurasak (Harvest of Souls) [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/219181796?share=copy.

Solajes, P. (n.d.). Panx Solajes. Panx Solajes. Retrieved April 26, 2024, from https://awrinkleofwine.wordpress.com/info-2/about/.

Sontag, S. (1964). Notes on Camp. Picador.

The World Bank. (2014, October 30). 10 Inspiring Climate Films from Young Filmmakers Win Action4Climate Documentary Competition. The World Bank. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2014/10/30/inspiring-climate-films-from-young-filmmakers.

Rappler. (2020, October 10). 3 films on Yolanda featured in Daang Dokyu festival. Rappler. https://www.rappler.com/entertainment/movies/films-about-typhoon-yolanda-daang-dokyu-festival-2020/.

Unson, J. (2024, January 7). Villagers collect sardines swept by waves to Sangani shores. Philippine Star. https://www.philstar.com/nation/2024/01/07/2324107/villagers-collect-sardines-swept-waves-sarangani-shores.

th Eastern Visayas Pride Week. (2018, March 18). Panx Solajes – LGBT Stories [Video]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2075383019145503

Downloads

Published

2024-08-14

How to Cite

Claros, I. H. (2024). Queering the Troubled Tropics in Panx Solajes’ Post-Haiyan Short Films. ETropic: Electronic Journal of Studies in the Tropics, 23(1), 76–94. https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.23.1.2024.4061