The 'new' Susan Roces
The 'new' Susan Roces
Updated 01:22am (Mla time) Dec 18, 2004
By Rina Jimenez-David
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the December 18, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
ONE of the biggest treats during my childhood was to be invited by my parents to watch the "last show" at one of the movie houses in Manila. We lived in Cubao, and at that time there were no cinemas yet in our part of the metropolis. Movie lovers had to travel all the way to downtown Manila, to movie palaces like Odeon, Ideal or, much later, Cinerama, if they wanted to catch a movie.
There were nine of us siblings, but my parents could bring only two or three kids at a time for a movie outing, unless it was for a blockbuster like "Ten Commandments" or "Sound of Music." A special birthday treat, in fact, was to be brought along to watch a movie of your choice with a sibling of your choice. An approaching birthday gave you tremendous power, if only temporarily, though if you were wise, you could extend the perks by stringing along your expectant siblings.
If you were one of the chosen ones, the anticipation would build all through dinner, until, at a signal, you rushed up to your room and grabbed a sweater, necessary because air-conditioning was still a rarity and you could come down with a cold from the chill. Then, with Mama and Papa, you walked out to the street corner to catch a bus to downtown. The bus ride was an integral part of the experience, for looking out of the high window at the darkened streets made you feel all daring and grown-up.
Being movie buffs, my parents went on a movie outing at least three times a week, but only to see Hollywood movies. They never quite developed a taste for Filipino movies, or at least I can't remember a time when they bothered to make the trip to catch a local film.
* * *
THIS presented quite a problem to a homegrown movie fan, like me. Weaned on early-afternoon Filipino movies on TV, mesmerized by those flickering black-and-white images, I became early in life a fan of stars like Nida Blanca, Nestor de Villa, Charito Solis, Rosa Rosal, and later, Nora Aunor, Tirso Cruz III, Vilma Santos, and a young, luminescent Hilda Koronel.
But no one, or no love team, had quite the hold on my heart and imagination as the pair of Susan Roces and Eddie Gutierrez. At the time, the only theater that showed Filipino movies downtown was Life Theater. Beyond the strip of movie houses along Rizal and Recto Avenues, all other cinemas around the country showed local movies. But only Life was deemed "decent" enough for middle-class folks. And so, when a Susan-Eddie flick was showing, I had to cajole movie money from my Mama as well as convince one of our yayas to make the trip with me to Life Theater.
The biggest threat to the popularity of the Eddie-Susan pairing was that of Amalia Fuentes and Romeo Vasquez. When Amalia and Romeo ended up a couple in real life, I was driven to hopeful fantasies that Susan and Eddie would fall in love and get married, too. So when the movie press started reporting that Susan ("Swanie" to her friends) was going out with Fernando Poe Jr., already a big star then, but whom I hadn't seen onscreen since I wasn't a fan of action films, I resented this interloper in our idealized vision of life imitating movie art. I'm sure many Eddie-Susan fans' hearts broke like mine did the day it was revealed that our wholesome, sweet and innocent "Swanie" had ended up not with tall, suave, gentle Eddie but with Daniel Barrion.
* * *
WATCHING the blanket TV news coverage of the wake of "Da King," one was brought back to those days of fandom. It was the anniversary of the elopement of Swanie and Ronnie, and the TV screen was filled with images of their younger days, especially of their first movie together, "Perlas ng Silangan." Again, one beheld Susan Roces in her prime, and even just a glimpse of her face, regal and serene, brought one back to the days when she ruled the box-office and reigned as well in her fans' hearts.
But it was a different "Tita Swanie" on TV Thursday evening. Where before, during her husband's campaign and in the first days of the wake, she was all tact and composure, and at times teary and rueful, on the day of her "real" anniversary, she seemed to have broken out of her regal cage. "The Visayan side of me is showing," she warned interviewers. Now that her husband was no longer around to caution her and prevent her from airing her views, she felt free to express her thoughts and feelings, she said.
And boy did she let 'em have it! She let go of a mouthful about how much she resented the way she, but especially her husband, were insulted and vilified in the course of the campaign. She told off Karen Davila of ABS-CBN (who thankfully kept her cool and her professionalism) for their, in her view, "biased" reporting. She chided government officials for belatedly and perhaps hypocritically offering all sorts of honors to her late husband, if only to appease his followers. And then she offered up her views on national problems, from kotong cops to the prices of agricultural goods, from the lack of income opportunities for rural folk to lousy weather forecasting.
* * *
I DON'T know if Ms Roces had always been this ballsy. To the movie-going public, her image had always been that of a sweet, put-upon heroine who prevails mainly through goodness. In contrast, Amalia Fuentes was always the harridan, sharp of tongue and blunt-spoken. Where Amalia exuded sensuality, Susan was all sweetness and light.
Maybe it's maturity, or grief, or the harsh exposure of a killing political campaign. My own take on this sudden emergence of a "new" Susan is that she had always been her own woman, though cloaked in an image far more palatable to a conservative public. She had always been a woman who pursued her own dreams and plotted out her own life, even if it meant breaking the hearts of her fans.
Updated 01:22am (Mla time) Dec 18, 2004
By Rina Jimenez-David
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the December 18, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
ONE of the biggest treats during my childhood was to be invited by my parents to watch the "last show" at one of the movie houses in Manila. We lived in Cubao, and at that time there were no cinemas yet in our part of the metropolis. Movie lovers had to travel all the way to downtown Manila, to movie palaces like Odeon, Ideal or, much later, Cinerama, if they wanted to catch a movie.
There were nine of us siblings, but my parents could bring only two or three kids at a time for a movie outing, unless it was for a blockbuster like "Ten Commandments" or "Sound of Music." A special birthday treat, in fact, was to be brought along to watch a movie of your choice with a sibling of your choice. An approaching birthday gave you tremendous power, if only temporarily, though if you were wise, you could extend the perks by stringing along your expectant siblings.
If you were one of the chosen ones, the anticipation would build all through dinner, until, at a signal, you rushed up to your room and grabbed a sweater, necessary because air-conditioning was still a rarity and you could come down with a cold from the chill. Then, with Mama and Papa, you walked out to the street corner to catch a bus to downtown. The bus ride was an integral part of the experience, for looking out of the high window at the darkened streets made you feel all daring and grown-up.
Being movie buffs, my parents went on a movie outing at least three times a week, but only to see Hollywood movies. They never quite developed a taste for Filipino movies, or at least I can't remember a time when they bothered to make the trip to catch a local film.
* * *
THIS presented quite a problem to a homegrown movie fan, like me. Weaned on early-afternoon Filipino movies on TV, mesmerized by those flickering black-and-white images, I became early in life a fan of stars like Nida Blanca, Nestor de Villa, Charito Solis, Rosa Rosal, and later, Nora Aunor, Tirso Cruz III, Vilma Santos, and a young, luminescent Hilda Koronel.
But no one, or no love team, had quite the hold on my heart and imagination as the pair of Susan Roces and Eddie Gutierrez. At the time, the only theater that showed Filipino movies downtown was Life Theater. Beyond the strip of movie houses along Rizal and Recto Avenues, all other cinemas around the country showed local movies. But only Life was deemed "decent" enough for middle-class folks. And so, when a Susan-Eddie flick was showing, I had to cajole movie money from my Mama as well as convince one of our yayas to make the trip with me to Life Theater.
The biggest threat to the popularity of the Eddie-Susan pairing was that of Amalia Fuentes and Romeo Vasquez. When Amalia and Romeo ended up a couple in real life, I was driven to hopeful fantasies that Susan and Eddie would fall in love and get married, too. So when the movie press started reporting that Susan ("Swanie" to her friends) was going out with Fernando Poe Jr., already a big star then, but whom I hadn't seen onscreen since I wasn't a fan of action films, I resented this interloper in our idealized vision of life imitating movie art. I'm sure many Eddie-Susan fans' hearts broke like mine did the day it was revealed that our wholesome, sweet and innocent "Swanie" had ended up not with tall, suave, gentle Eddie but with Daniel Barrion.
* * *
WATCHING the blanket TV news coverage of the wake of "Da King," one was brought back to those days of fandom. It was the anniversary of the elopement of Swanie and Ronnie, and the TV screen was filled with images of their younger days, especially of their first movie together, "Perlas ng Silangan." Again, one beheld Susan Roces in her prime, and even just a glimpse of her face, regal and serene, brought one back to the days when she ruled the box-office and reigned as well in her fans' hearts.
But it was a different "Tita Swanie" on TV Thursday evening. Where before, during her husband's campaign and in the first days of the wake, she was all tact and composure, and at times teary and rueful, on the day of her "real" anniversary, she seemed to have broken out of her regal cage. "The Visayan side of me is showing," she warned interviewers. Now that her husband was no longer around to caution her and prevent her from airing her views, she felt free to express her thoughts and feelings, she said.
And boy did she let 'em have it! She let go of a mouthful about how much she resented the way she, but especially her husband, were insulted and vilified in the course of the campaign. She told off Karen Davila of ABS-CBN (who thankfully kept her cool and her professionalism) for their, in her view, "biased" reporting. She chided government officials for belatedly and perhaps hypocritically offering all sorts of honors to her late husband, if only to appease his followers. And then she offered up her views on national problems, from kotong cops to the prices of agricultural goods, from the lack of income opportunities for rural folk to lousy weather forecasting.
* * *
I DON'T know if Ms Roces had always been this ballsy. To the movie-going public, her image had always been that of a sweet, put-upon heroine who prevails mainly through goodness. In contrast, Amalia Fuentes was always the harridan, sharp of tongue and blunt-spoken. Where Amalia exuded sensuality, Susan was all sweetness and light.
Maybe it's maturity, or grief, or the harsh exposure of a killing political campaign. My own take on this sudden emergence of a "new" Susan is that she had always been her own woman, though cloaked in an image far more palatable to a conservative public. She had always been a woman who pursued her own dreams and plotted out her own life, even if it meant breaking the hearts of her fans.
posted by Dante at 1:22 AM
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