Racism and Petra

I recently came across this hilarious tutorial video of youtube user ashleyslips teaching the internet how to dance in a club. She does this as one of her comedic characters named Petra Mahalimuyak who speaks English with an extremely exaggerated Filipino accent (or what we Filipino Americans would call in a rather derogatory way: a "FOB" accent). This is one of her most recent videos and is the only one to pass one million views (although it is not the only one featuring Petra). I would guess that this could probably be due to her decent dance moves, her general attractiveness, the hilarious things that come out of her mouth or some combination of the three.

Her video is absolutely silly and over-the-top. She replaces her F's with P's and her D's with J's and the whole time she speaks with an intentionally thick Filipino accent. As a Filipino American, I know that alot of us Fil Am's find this to be very humorous-- probably in a similar way to the Latino community laughing at mainstream comedians like George Lopez, Gabriel Iglesias and Carlos Mencia. And while she is indeed receiving lot's of positive feedback from most of her viewers, she also gets some negative feedback from (I am guessing) Filipinos who feel that by ashlyslips doing this character she is mocking the Filipino accent and some say even the Filipino race. Personally, I feel like I could go both for and against this argument. 

In any case, I think that one important factor to consider here is the fact that she is herself a Filipina and that entitles her to make fun of the Filipino race more so than a non-Filipino (in which case I would be more likely to say that they are mocking our race). I think that this is similar to the Latino comedians mentioned earlier who use exaggerated Mexican accents, black comedians who make fun of black culture, and even how homosexuals are allowed to call each other "faggot" in a lighthearted fashion (even though it is traditionally used as a very offensive and even hateful term). 

Also, there are other aspects of the video that are funny that are unrelated to her accent, such as her dance moves and their silly names-- like cleaning the window, folding the clothes and even putting them away. Also the fact that she is an attractive woman and a good dancer makes the video entertaining to watch. Although I have mentioned before that we should think critically about signs of racism in our media, I think that we should just be able to watch and enjoy this video without condemning it.