Fighting Fire with Fire: two original teleplays on the Chinese-Filipino
Abstract
This thesis attempts to reconstruct and counter the Chinese-Filipino’s image in popular media through the writing of a series of original television plays featuring Chinese-Filipino characters. In the process of exploring ideas of home, identity, and belonging, I hope to shed light on the stories of the younger generation of Chinese-Filipinos and give justice to their narratives, perspectives, and realities
Shirley O. Lua’s De/culturation of Cultures is used as the framework for this project, particularly her discourse on the modes of resistance in which the Chinese-Filipino struggles to deconstruct and reconstruct his fractured identity in Chinese-Philippine literature. This thesis also employs the use of creative writing as a reflexive practice to produce alternative meanings and images of the Chinese-Filipino. It consists primarily of two original full-length scripts for television.
Using drama as a tool, I aim to interrogate the existing assumptions regarding the Chinese-Filipino and Chinese-Filipino culture, and in so doing, assert the identity of the Chinese-Filipino as a cultural and not an alien minority. Furthermore, I intend to participate in the formation of a counter-discourse through the production of counter-images and narratives of the Chinese-Filipino. Finally, I hope to contribute to the growing body of cultural texts on the Chinese-Filipino, specifically in the field of media studies, as a means of empowerment to the rest of the Chinese-Filipino community.
Key words: Chinese-Filipino, Tsinoy, identity, representation, teleplay
CANDANO, B. L. (2014). 以毒攻毒 (Fighting Fire with Fire): two original teleplays on the Chinese-Filipino. Unpublished Undergraduate Thesis, University of the Philippines, College of Mass Communication.