Teddy bare

Teddy Boy Locsin was on a rampage last week. First he dissed homeless gay people. Then he disparaged three respected designers, essentially belittling their accomplishments.Then he went on to bash poor people some more.All in the name of, according to his supporters, humour.Call it irony, call it satire.For him and his fanbase, it was just a plain harmless attempt to lighten things up.

I speak of Locsin’s televised spiel in Teditorial, a segment on a news show where, in that dead-pan manner of his that makes you wonder whether he is droning the news or merely half-heartedly rehearsing lines, he tackles the international airport controversy and advises the trio of designers that is Kenneth Cobonpue, Budji Layug and Royal Pineda that they had no authority to redesign the airport.In doing so, he takes to task their achievements as well as what they still have to offer the nation.

Teddy Boy isn’t content with that: he also takes a swipe at detractors of the airport, belittling their complaints and noting that, for wealthy travellers like his friend(?) ‘mining magnate Ronnie Zamora,’ who have just checked out from a Four Seasons hotel, the airport just doesn’t register in their consciousness.These fatcats are whisked away to the next luxury spot, anyway.As for poor people who can only afford economy seats, they would have had no stomach to linger in the creaking wreck that is our airport after enduring cramped seats and smelly toilets.

I wonder at how he can defend his piece.If we take his statements at face value, what comes across is that the views of homeless gay people are worthless because they are that: gay and homeless. But wait, that’s not really what he means to say: apparently, this is just sarcasm at its funniest.So we’re not supposed to take offense, because he’s not really critiquing the views they hold.It’s not what they’re saying, but rather, who they are!What he’s doing is just bringing to people’s attention the humorous fact that the organization that voted our airport as the world’s worst is composed of gay homeless people.

Apparently, this is now our cue to laugh.Er, excuse me?

I wonder at this kind of humour that allows people to laugh at other human beings because they are poor, or because they are gay, and more so because they are a combination of both.Did I just miss something there?Is his thesis something like, these are the guys need to get physical succour from those with similar equipment, and they also do it in the privacy of the streets where they live, or (shudder) inside women’s toilets at the airport, and therefore, we can and should laugh at them?

Teddy Boy Locsin also makes allusions to a lack of kneepads in airport bathrooms.More of the humour poked at those randy gay men who simply must indulge in the terminal?Such a laugh, their incredible knee-bending hormones.

Since he already started on that poisonous vein, Teddy steamrollers on and skewers the trio of designers.He says “Layug pioneered postmodern furniture.Cobonpue designed Angelina Jolie’s baby’s bassinet.Pineda has his admirers.”Quite an exercise in reductionism, I must say.In three simple sentences, Locsin reduced the global fame these men have achieved, and allowed his listeners to easily dismiss their pro-bono services as worthless.

Call me too sensitive, but I detect a homophobe here.This is one elitist tirade in the guise of telejournalism, which allows fellow homophobes the opportunity to kick fun at the succinctly described “homeless gays.”If this discriminatory piece is meant to be satire, then it is a failed exercise.Sad to say, it elicited not a single laugh from me.

All that Teddy Boy Locsin has managed to accomplish in this piece, I’m afraid to say, is laid bare his inherent bias against gay men and poor people.