
@article {1678,
	title = {   Performing the Bakla in The Care Divas: Cross-Dressing, Affective Labor and the Glimpse of the Cosmopolitan   },
	journal = {Journal of Homosexuality},
	volume = {65},
	number = {11},
	year = {2015},
	pages = {1485-1511},
	abstract = {This essay is a close reading of\&nbsp;The Care Divas, a Filipino musical revolving around the struggle of five Filipino caregivers in Israel who also struggle with their sexual identities as\&nbsp;bakla\&nbsp;(Filipino homosexual). The analysis is both an affirmation and a critique of the performance. In the affirmation, the musical is argued to present a social reality that is intended for and in need of interrogation: the Filipino\&nbsp;bakla. The musical implicitly features the\&nbsp;bakla\&nbsp;as a cosmopolitan. At the outset, this cosmopolitan disposition comes from the fact that the characters are migrant workers (caregivers). But more importantly, the cosmopolitan character is from a responsibility toward the\&nbsp;other\&nbsp;anchored within a genuine caring as implicated in the affective labor of these caregiver characters. In the critique, the essay marks some problematic limitations in the treatment of the\&nbsp;bakla. In doing so, the musical, despite its attempt to present a social reality, is a problem play, a social drama touching social issues{\textemdash}realistic in approach, but the representation seems like an editorial. In the final analysis,\&nbsp;The Care Divas\&nbsp;is argued to seemingly fail because artists are not able to see the complexity of their chosen subject in a bigger picture.},
	url = {https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2015.1073031},
	author = {Tiatco, Sir Anril P.}
}
