Stay Angry Or Kill Them With Laughter

On Saturday, I was at The Tarragon Theatre for the Fringe Festival. I saw two shows by filipinx performers. The first was a solo outing called Amanda vs the Internet Trolls (Tales of a SJW). From her beginnings as an Youtube uploader who still drew nasty comments for her feminist content despite having an obscure channel, Amanda detailed her family history including numerous encounters with racist attitudes both personally and professionally. Sometimes funny, sometimes strident, the show was a bit scattered, but there were some good shots. I wonder if any Caucasian audience member will take to heart her admonition that the first, smallest step to dismantling white supremacy is for white people to feel uncomfortable in any situation where there are only white people: a party, meeting, music show, and so on.

The second show was lighter in tone. It was a series of sketches presented by the Tita Collective about life in the filipinx community. One running gag is that they sometimes explain a term (a tita is an aunt - "now you know"). So now you might empathize with how someone from a different background might feel about some opaque North American sitcom detail that is simply assumed to be obvious to everyone. But you don't need much inside knowledge to laugh at gossipy church ladies, a girl of colour being of two minds about dating a white boy, or an ambitious/pushy friend trying to sell you MLM schemes. There were some jabs at the filipinx's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" attitude toward queer folks. Throughout the show, there were plenty of singing since these performers were also playing a fictional girl group called Tita Girls modeled after the Spice Girls. I couldn't help but contrast these "aunties", who despite immigrant travails, were surrounded by community versus Amanda's family, 3 generations who seemed to have lived without any local filipinx connections. Prejudice may be a little easier to bear if you have people who sympathize.