Tribute to Priscilla,
and then a Pinoy Twist

In the Filipino gay lingo, beauty pageant candidates (or beauconeras, from participants of beauty contests) who do not make it as semi-finalists are called "backstage beauties", "clappers," or simply, "thank you girls.”  Pair that with these beauconeras’ fascination with joining as many pageants as they can (win or lose, they don’t care – they just join and join and join), and what you have is The Thank You Girls (TYG), Charliebebs Gohetia’s tribute to the beauconeras’ fighting spirit, more than anything else.

This is basically a roadtrip narrative – six “dysfunctional gay beauty pageant veterans” who keep on losing in beauty pageants in their hometown Davao City decided to head to Cagayan de Oro City, days away when travelled to by land.  Their travel, more importantly, allows them to know themselves more.

Yes, it is reminiscent of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, and of To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, From Julie Newmar, two largely popular (and critically acclaimed, too, especially the former) films about gays travelling towards somewhere, learning more things about themselves while doing so (incidentally, the latter film also ended in a beauty pageant).  But this, stresses Gohetia, is all the similarity there is, largely because of the contextualization of the story to the Philippines.

The contextualization, of course, may be TYG’s greatest strength – complete with the use of a Visayan language (delivered by unprofessional Visayan actors), the film, as Gohetia himself says, is a “breath of fresh air from the usual gay films released this year about tragedy and sex.”

"In TYG, crossdressing gays are not the subject of ridicule but are portrayed as intelligent, strong individuals who have dreams, aspirations and personal issues like anybody else.  This wonderful, colorful side of gayness is rarely explored in films and I hope that after watching TYG, the audience will be more understanding and more accepting of how diverse the world is," Gohetia says.

Of course, as is a tendency among TGs, too, the film is quite long-winded, while paying homage to Priscilla (e.g. That Imelda Marcos tribute of a shoe atop the pink bus in the middle of Australia is mimicked here, in the middle of nowhere in the Philippines).  But it’s the natural-ness of the characters that carries TYG.  So, among others, expect witticisms expected from beauconeras (e.g. “I may never be your mother… but for all you know, I can be your long lost father!”; and “Define darkness? If I were to define darkness, it’s sitting right beside me!”), making for a comical way of seeing TGs – and this time, viewers are not laughing at them, but with them.  That it’s in Visayan allows for the Visayan voice to be heard again (thankfully), only attempted recently by Cesar Montano’s Grade A film Panaghoy Sa Suba; so we see how the gay community is OUTSIDE of Metro Manila (goodbye pa-mhinta!).

Already an Asian Film Awards nominee, Gohetia may well be Mindanao’s response to the likes of Metro Manila’s Crisaldo Pablo.  But more than that, since we always see Metro Manila (or images of it), anyway, while forgetting Visayas and Mindanao, Gohetia’s achievements with TYG are quite, well, monumental.  Because now, finally, the thank you girls have come to be queens.

For more information, visit thethankyougirls.com.