Given that homosexuality is an iffy subject in the Philippines, new rock band Syato (for the children’s game involving sticks and the risk of losing an eye, I guess) tries to up our awareness of lesbian rights with their “salute to the pink community,” a song called “Tibo” (slang for lesbian, derived from another older term for lesbians, T-bird.)
Listening to the song, and watching the video,one is led to ask three questions:
1. How is it a tribute to anyone at all?
2. Hey, whore. How’s the whoring?
and 3. What the fuck?
Fine,we all have seen lesbians who look better than us, as the band wittily articulates in the line “ang pogi ni tibo, nakakatibo (Tibo is so handsome, she’s turning me into a tibo)” for maybe 95% of the entire song. But, come on, this is hardly a blow for (or against) LGBT rights, or anything at all.
And cross-dressing in private high school uniforms is hardly a statement at all, except if the statement is “we like wearing high school uniforms.”
[Video can’t be embedded here, but her it is: Tibo by Syato]
I am hoping to hell that these guys are in high school themselves, because the implications otherwise are pretty dire (infants quarter’d with the hands of war, etc.)
Guys, listen, if you want to make silly songs and dress up as girls, that’s fine (in the sense that it isn’t exactly illegal.) But allowing your label to market your song like that just as easily trivializes lesbians as it does uphold their equality.
I mean, writing a song about a lesbian who makes you want to be lesbian and then cross-dressing isn’t enough to qualify as an argument for gender equality or a so-called “salute to the pink community.”
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