All The Beautiful People: What Dolly De Leon’s Rise Means For Challenging Colonial Aesthetics

“On the yacht, toilet manager – here, captain.”

This line from Dolly De Leon’s character Abigail in Triangle of Sadness signaled a flipping of the lens and a switching of hierarchies in the movie, discombobulating an established system that has been designed for the privileged. Bolstered by a multilayered performance, these words would eventually also trigger a changing of fate for the actress. Often sidelined for minor roles and characters with no names in Philippine cinema and television, De Leon would receive the prestigious honor of being the first Filipina actor to be nominated for the Golden Globes.  Suddenly, people know of who she is, even by her own countrymen.

De Leon acknowledges this irony and what many would also call as a travesty. In an interview with Filipina journalist Karen Davila, the talented thespian described herself as a Filipino actor who was not known in her home country, but finally and only got the recognition she deserved when she did her craft in foreign shores. When asked in the same interview why did she think she was often overlooked and relegated to bit roles back then, De Leon said it was because she has a “very plain face”. She doesn’t have the kind of looks that the Philippine industry prefers, pushes and pays for.

“White is Beautiful”

In Philippine cinema, these looks would be those that are akin to the Caucasian mold – fair-skinned, a nose with a raised bridge, high cheek bones, also considered as the “ideal” kind of beauty. While these beauty standards have also permeated and have been glorified in other industries and cultures elsewhere, it’s worth knowing that the Filipinos’ preference and fascination for these features have colonial roots.

Critic Nicanor Tiongson wrote in his essay “Four Values in Filipino Drama and Film,” that the notion that “white is beautiful” came from how Spanish dramas and religious plays would feature mestizo and mestiza-looking people in the role of the protagonists. They would play Jesus Christ or Mama Mary, who have often been depicted to be white too, or the prince and the princess.

When the Spanish rule over the Philippines ended after 400 years, Tiongson wrote that Americans came in and so were their own stage shows or vaudaville introduced to the masses, with again the lead roles going to those who looked like or resembled American celebrities. It birthed an archetype of celebrities described as the “Elvis Presley of the Philippines,” or the “Elizabeth Taylor of the Philippines.”

This specific kind of beauty perpetuated in popular culture has also been perceived as an embodiment of the white privilege that the colonizers had, as raised by history professor Vicente Rafael.  “To understand the logic of this envy of and for mestizaness, it is useful to recall that in the Filipino historical imagination, the mestizo/a has enjoyed a privileged position associated with economic wealth, political influence, and cultural hegemony,” he wrote in his book White Love and Other Events in Filipino History.

Film professor Bliss Lim, who also referred to Rafael’s assertion above, saying that this white colonial power channeled and perceived in physicality, has become in itself a cultural capital, “one repackaged in Filipino films that indigenized the Hollywood film via imitation, in part by proffering mestizo/a versions of Hollywood stars,” she wrote in “Sharon’s Noranian turn: stardom, embodiment, and language in Philippine cinema.”

The Miracle of Nora Aunor

Notably, Lim in her article mentioned Nora Aunor, a Filipino actor who did not fit these beauty standards but was still able to clinch the admiration and adulation of the hoi polloi. Aunor, with her brown skin, won hearts and minds when she first emerged as a champion in a popular singing contest. She would later play roles which magnified the state of the oppressed, those who belonged to the lower socioeconomic class. Aunor would later play the iconic role of Elsa, a faith healer in Himala, (Miracle) hailed as one of the best Filipino films of all time.

Aunor is more of an exception than the rule, however. Mainstream movies and television are up to this day, dominated by those who have the “white is beautiful” features. Big productions often have them as the stars, their bankability securing them the top billing while other actors, those that are “plain-looking” like De Leon are reduced to background characters. Others are typecast into comedic roles, at times their looks used as a punchline in itself.

Shatter Stereotypes

With the recognition of De Leon though, the aspiration to reconfigure the artistic space for Filipino actors who do not fit the idealized aesthetics has been at the front and center of the discourse again. To be sure, aside from De Leon, other actors like Chay Fonacier, who starred in psychological horror film Nocebo and Soliman De Leon who played the lead role in the Romanian film To The North have also been challenging the dominant stardom structure in Philippine cinema and entertainment overall.

As they break this status quo though, there is also the hope that they do not get pigeonholed in certain roles and tropes in Western cinema. On a positive note, Filipino-American actors have become more visible in Hollywood, with Jacob Batalon playing Ned Leeds in Spider-Man: No Way Home and the titular role in Reginald the Vampire and comedian Jo Koy and other Filipino-Americans also starring in Easter Sunday, which was produced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment.

Visibility though is just one aspect and much remains to be done. In its 2021 study “I Am Not a Fetish or Model Minority: Redefining What It Means to Be API in the Entertainment Industry,” the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media found out that even as there are Asians and Pacific Islanders who are part of the main cast, most still played supporting roles. Meanwhile, about a third of the characters they played also reinforced stereotypes such as a “martial artist,” “the model minority,” or the “exotic woman.”

De Leon said she will be part of two films in the US this year, where she will play a homophobic aunt from a Filipino migrant family and a mean stepmom. The goal for actors like her who have subverted stifling standards is to get as many diverse roles as possible, to dismantle tokenism, to be crucial parts of stories and win roles that often go to the “beautiful people.” In rewriting the narrative, being a captain is just the beginning.