Module 2 - J. Villahermosa

“Imelda”

The film “Imelda” is an interesting, entertaining, and unique film. The film is a documentary of Imelda Marcos, who was the first lady of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines. It shows how she went from a local beauty queen in her small town village in the Philippines to a glamorous first lady who tries to suppress the poor of her country by “beauty”. It is an appalling and humorous film because of her strange techniques in solving problems in the Philippines.
Imelda believes strongly in beauty. Her thinking, ideas, philosophy revolves around beauty and is about beauty. At the time she was first lady of the Philippines, the country was going through poverty and the human rights violations of the Marcos regime. Imelda tried to solve the problems of the country through, in my opinion, irrational and silly ways. Her main strategy of answering the problems is by “beauty”.
I think of Imelda as being strange for being so absorbed by beauty. A clip in the movie made me think of her as being crazy. In one part of the film, Imelda was giving a speech at an event. At this event someone tried to kill her with a bolo knife. She talks about this tragic event in the film. She complains about how her near death experience was done an ugly knife. She carps on the beauty of the knife and wishes that it was a more beautiful weapon that tried to assassinate her. I thought that was an idiotic and foolish remark to whine about the attractiveness of a weapon. This made me judge her more as being an eccentric and ridiculous first lady.
To solve these problems, Imelda tried to set an example for the Philippine country by being “beautiful”. She thought that by being beautiful, the people of the Philippines would live through her and would want to change their ways and model her. In the film, she said that she specifically gave herself more time to get ready when she was going out to the provinces than going to a party or special meeting. She needed to give herself time to pamper and beautify herself. I thought that it was impractical of her to think that being beautiful would help or benefit the people in the provinces. I feel that she should take action in helping the poverty in other suitable ways besides beautifying herself.
Another one of her crazy and bizarre ways is the construction of ineffective buildings. In the film, Imelda built many centers and buildings. She built lung and kidney centers which did help the Philippine community but the other buildings she developed, I find had no significant use. One of the centers she built was in her hometown. This building was more like a shrine to her. In this building, there were art that showcased her work she has done as first lady in the Philippines. The building also contained many glamorous and elegant items. It was more like a building to boast her accomplishments and of beauty. This center did not do anything to help her hometown of the poverty in the Philippines. I don’t understand why she would be such a luxurious building in her building that would only honor herself. She perplexes me. I think she could’ve use that money to build that center to actually help the people in her hometown instead pampering herself.
Another construction she created was a film center. She rushed the workers to build this magnificent building and did not take into account of how building such an extravagant building takes time. Because of the quickness of the construction, the success of building did not go well. Workers kept on building higher and did not allow the concrete to have sufficient time to settle in. Therefore, the top part of the building collapsed causing many workers to be buried in the concrete. I believe that Imelda shouldn’t have rushed the process. When she wants something, she gets it done but not in an appropriate way. I thought it was unintelligent of her to rush a delicate process like that. She should have known better.
In my perspective, I think of Imelda as being a ludicrous and weird woman. She is self-centered in my view because most of her decisions were based on her needs and wants. Additionally, she is self-centered because of her obsession with her beauty. Although she did try to execute a common good in the Philippines, she did it in a way that would fulfill her ideas instead of the people of the Philippines.
The question of common good is an important ethical question because people have different views and perspective on what is common good. Common good is inconsistent if people differ in their ideas. Like in the film “Imelda”, Imelda thought that the common good of the Philippines was through beauty. She made herself beautiful by glamorous jewels, clothing, and shoes and the Philippines beautiful by inadequate buildings. She thought that “beauty” was the common good for the Philippines but the people of the Philippines did not think of Imelda’s concept of beauty as being the common good. By knowing the critical differences of the views and definitions of common good between various people, working towards and establishing a common good will be accomplished.
I thought of the film “Imelda” as being an appealing and amusing film. The film showed a lot of interesting footage in the Philippines when Imelda was first lady. From the building of lavish and useless centers and the odd remarks and stories Imelda voiced. It entertained me because of her odd ways and her passion with beauty. I thought that she took the importance of beauty out of proportion. “Imelda” is a film that truly beguiled me.