First off I’ve got to say I was stoked to see Rufio, back on the silver screen. Even if he wasn’t sporting the double Mohawk, like he did in Hook, playing one of Pan’s Lost Boys. I still gave him the “Rufiooooooooooooo” cheer when he punched a guy in the nose for being a jerk towards the end of the movie. You will forever be a part of my life Rufio, and you did a pretty good job in this Filipino American coming of age film.
We follow Ben through the end of his high school career as he is about to head out on his own, making a life as an artist. Much to his families distaste, Ben is deciding to not follow his grandfather and Uncles footsteps into the drab world of medicine. But rather he is following his dreams and going into the world of art. We first meet Ben as he is selling off his prized comic book collection, which many artist hold their comic book collections up to the weight of the bible in their worlds. Ben sell’s his to get the last of the money he needs to pay for his first year away at art school. Ben know how pissed his parents are going to be with hi, so he decides to hold this news from them till after his sisters upcoming birthday party.
Like Donald in the Donald Duk reading, Ben is friends with the white kids. He isn’t very proud of his Filipino roots and is ashamed or rather embarrassed of his family. Ben’s best friends have never been to his house, Ben is really reluctant to let his friends come in his house. He is worried what his friends will say about the smell of the food they are cooking, and also doesn’t want his parents to see he has white friends. His mom is excited to meet his friends, and asks if they are new friends because she has never met them. He is a senior in high school, these are his old friends. He has kept the two live seperate for a reason and really isn’t happy that they are meeting. He tries to rush his friends out the door making any excuse he can as to not let his mom feed them, even though is customary to feed your guest Ben get’s them out the door. One of Ben’s buddies, finds a wooden fertility statue on the mantel and get a real kick out of the exaggerated penis that emerges as you pull the barrel down. Boing!! hahaha I got a kick out of it too, but yes I am a silly teenager at heart as well.
Family is super important to the Filipinos, and you can see that with the amount of family around preparing for his older sisters Debutante Ball. They are cooking a lavish meal for that evenings party, but Ben has other plans. He is planning on ditching his sisters party to go to a party with his school buddies. He digs a white girl, and is hoping to spend some time with her at the party. She is his crush and you can see that he is willing to break tradition for a chance to hangout with her.
Ben and his sister are super close, they have a heated game of one on one basket ball in the back yard. They are playing for the use of their parents car that night. The subject of school comes up, Ben finally tells his sister that he is going to the art school. She doesn’t believe he will go against their parents wishes, but then Ben drops the bomb on her. He tells her he drained his savings account, and sold his comic collection and that he has payed for his first year at the art school. She is in awe and you can tell she is really proud of him for following that dream. But she also is bumming cause she knows he doesn’t want to go to the party and is gonna skip it for the party with his friends.
The kid is an amazing artist, he is way comic book worthy. His father who gave up all his dreams to support his family is pissed he “wastes” his time drawing. Dad calls his art a hobby, which we latter learn his father had probably told him. His Dad is a postmaster, he works his ass off to provide for his family, and to give his kids a chance at a life he didn’t get. He is in no way gonna let his son be an artist, in his eyes the only thing Ben is gonna do in the fall is go to Medical School.
At his sisters party you get a taste of a Filipino Debutante Ball, the whole family comes. All their friends and everyones kids are there. There is tons of food and a dj for the dance. It looks like a blast. It reminds me of the Puetro Rican version, a Quinceañera, which is a fifteen year old girls coming of age party. Which was a blast for me, I got to go to one when I visited my Grandfather in 2010. The whole town was there, and I got to meet people in my family I never knew but had known about me through my Grandfather being the patriarch of our family. Ben hated the attention, and those horrible auntie kisses and dance. Yeah, I had to suffer through some of those too. I also didn’t speak much Spanish, so I connected with him on the level of not speaking his native tongue as well and not understanding what they were saying about my grandfathers white grandson.
The dancing scene was off the hook. The dance his sisters friends put together for her was awesome and you could see that Ben was also amazed by it. It was like in Donald Duk, when Donald started to have pride in his families past. When his dreams began to bring him closer to his culture. Ben’s friends showed up to take Ben to the party, and ended up making Ben stay and watch the dance. Ben wasn’t part of the dance, and he knew he should of been. He feels he let his sister down. Ben’s Dad and his friends sing his sister Rose and their mother a song. It was touching and Ben got to see a side of his father he hadn’t known before. Ben’s uncle tells they guys about how Ben’s dad gave up his dream of being a singer to be a Dad and that hit home with Ben. After the song, Ben gets up and give a little speech to his sister saying he knows he could be better and he is sorry for that. Ben’s father is not proud of the speech he gave, and you can see he is upset with Ben.
Ben’s mom see’s his two friends and swoops them off to feed them before Ben can get them to leave. She is so happy to get the chance to feed them. They loved the food and were stoked to see a side of their friend that he had never let him into. The forced Ben to stay and be a part of the party, they talked to his family and their guest more than Ben did.
Ben ended up interpreting Gusto and Annabelle fighting and got her away from the situation by telling her that his sister was looking for her. Gusto and Ben used to be best friends when they were younger, but they chose different paths. Gusto was a stereotypical gangster, baggy pants talking slang and hiding from his culture in his own way. Ben and him had bad blood, and Gusto wasn’t gonna let him forget it. He made fun of Ben calling him a “Coconut”, which means brown on the outside and white on the inside. Gusto was mimicking the looks of the African America gun toting gangster rapper, and he thought Ben was a traitor for choosing to go to school and that he hung out with white cats. They were both running in their own rights.
Annabelle oh Annabelle, sparks flew over this girl. One of Ben’s sisters friends, she was instantly on Ben’s mind. He watched he during the dance like a hawk, you could see the hearts popping around Ben’s head like an old cartoon! He couldn’t understand what she saw in a jerk like Gusto, and Gusto wasn’t gonna give up easy.
There was scene where Gusto was showing of his “gat” to impress the guys, and the whole time I was having flash backs to Better Luck Tomorrow. Thinking of Virgil and the accident they had with the gun. I was sure one of the guys was gonna get shot, but rather they show a guy with a super heavy accent handling the gun. He is amazed by the gun, and the image it has in the hip hop world. Gusto’s buddies make fun of the way heavy accented cat say “Porty Pive”, and quickly take the gun from him. Thanks goodness, I thought we were gonna have another kid buried in a flowerbed grave!! It was a view of how fresh into the country or “Fresh of the Boat” this kid was and yet he was made fun of by his peers. They other guys where to cool to have one of their own talking so thick and had to be little him for it.
Eventually there is a 3 on 3 game, Ben and his friends take on Gusto and his crew. Gusto is full of slurs towards Ben, and talks street the who game. He knows Annabelle is interested in Ben and tries hard to embarrass him in front of her. They almost get the win, but Gusto and his goons get the “W”. They make sure to let him know how white he is and flex at him as much as they can. Ben is over it and he finally gets his friends to leave.
The keg party ends up being a disaster. Ben gets a chance to hangout with the white girl from school for a bit, but after a horrid game of “I never”(a game where you try to give hints of something someone in the group has or hasn’t done by saying ‘I never…’, and the people who have done the topic drink and the people who haven’t don’t drink) ends up wanting to leave. One of the girls they are playing with, doesn’t like Ben’s jab over her sex life. She decides to make a couple tasteless “I never” about eating cat or dog, and Ben helps her spill her drink on herself. In disgust, she calls Ben a “chink”. His friends stick up for him and they end up going back to his sisters party. Ben has an “ahh ha” moment and wants to be around his family and knows he never should have left in the first place. He is also thinking about his new love interest. I thought it was really cool his friends left with him and supported him in the situation as best they could.
When they get back to the party, Ben catches Gusto pushing Annabelle around again. Gusto in his gangster roll talks a bunch of smack to Ben, and pushes him to the edge. Ben pops Gusto in the mouth, Rufioooooooooooo, and they tussle around on the ground. Gusto’s boy is kicking Ben, when everyone starts to show up. Ben’s Dad braeks them up, and Gusto’s gun falls out. Ben’s Dad freaks out and it causes a huge argument. Gusto’s mom tries to say that gun isn’t Gusto’s, acting like he is an angle, but eventually she comes around and smacks the shit out of him in front of everyone. As all this happens, grandpa is showing down the hallway and he is livid. He takes this out on Ben’s father. Telling him he is a disgrace and how it’s his fault. You get an idea of how tough it was to be his son and why Ben’s Dad is so distant with Ben. In turn Ben’s father takes it out on Ben, like he was the bad guy. What an end to a party, everyone on edge and the family’s internal fight comes front stage.
On the bright side, Ben and Annabelle get a few moments alone. And Ben gets a goodnight kiss and she tells him to get in touch with her.
The movie ends with Ben drawing a picture of his father, grandfather and himself. He finally shows his father his portfolio that CalArts excepted him on, and shows him the portrait he did that morning of the three of them. You can see his fathers change of heart, and how without saying he supports his dream. The fact that they didn’t fight over it, shows Ben his support. He tells Ben he will talk to his mother about it. Maybe his own path of giving his dreams to be a singer and how his father treated him the night before, opened a new chapter for him Maybe he felt it was time to support his sons love for art, that he finally looked at his art in a new light. That he could see this wasn’t just a hobby for Ben, and that if he was willing to go broke and do this on his own without help from him. That it was Ben’s true passion and that he is good enough to really make it.
We get to see Ben show pride in his family, and like Donald Duk. He becomes proud of himself as a member of there culture.
If you’ve gotten this far in this Blog post, I hope you aren’t to sleepy and I hope you have a good day. Be proud of who you are, who your people are and please follow your dreams. Be that person you know you can be and love yourself. Live long and prosper my fellow Greeners!