Lino
Brocka’s Macho Dancer (1989), banned in the
Philippines, exposed the reason why nongay men sold their
bodies to gay customers -- poverty. Midnight Dancers
(1995), a follow-up directed by Brocka’s onetime assistant
Mel Chionglo, provided no new insight. Now comes Burlesk
King (1999), also directed by Chionglo, with the same
message and a few new plot twists. The film debuted in Los
Angeles for a week in mid-October 2000. To start chronologically,
Harry as a child had an abusive American father, who doubtless
married a prostitute in Olangapo. When Harry’s mother was
beaten almost to death, Harry fled and grew up into a strapping
lad with a mission to kill his father. Harry (as a young adult
played by Rodel Velayo) and his best friend James (played
by Leonardo Litton) clean up and are dealers at a gambling
house. When a gang tries to use muscle to take over the racket,
both Harry and James defend their boss but decide that their
lives are in danger, so they flee to Manila. James’s sister
lives with a younger Lesbian, but both boys are welcome as
members of the household. James, already a male prostitute
beforehand, then leads Harry to a macho dancer nightclub run
by the same Charlie Catalla who was featured in Macho
Dancer. One of his rules is that no macho dancer is
allowed to be gay, thereby maintaining distance and mystery
with clients. Harry, however, prefers to service female clients,
and we see that pimps prefer male over female prostitutes
because they can have clients of both sexes. Harry falls in
love with Brenda (played by Nini Jacinto), a prostitute, a
self-proclaimed Mother Teresa of the city's red-light district
(for giving small change and food bites to street urchins)
with a much sweeter disposition than the paramour of the lead
in Macho Dancer, but the two are incompatible
when they live together. James, similar to his counterpart
in Macho Dancer, is killed by a gang, but this
time the gang is from Olangapo. Harry, lonely for a family,
searches for his mother, but wants to gun down his father.
When he finds his mother, she has returned to prostitution.
When he finds his father, he has AIDS and is living with an
older Filipino gay, so he abandons patricide. When Burlesk
King ends, Harry and Brenda reunite with Harry’s mother
and father, a much happier ending than we might expect for
a macho dancer, although Harry sheds many tears before achieving
reuniting with his family, receives an award as Burlesk King
of the gay bar where he plies his trade, and is informed by
Brenda that she is carrying his child. Lino Brocka’s message
that Philippine poverty is due to misrule in the Marcos era,
thus, has been transformed into a thesis that redemption is
possible even for prostitutes amid the continuing gap between
rich and poor in the Estrada era. MH
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