Jollibee in Glee, Ewoks speak Tagalog

By now, almost every Pinoy on the planet must have heard about or seen Jollibee's facade accidentally (or maybe not) providing a background to a dance number in Glee, the U.S. pseudo-musical series that is a virtual spin-off of High School Musical.

Reminds me of other - and grimmer - scenes when a Filipino was caught accidentally or betaryed his nationality unintentionally (and sometimes weirdly) in other U.S. shows.

Probably the most recent one is Constantine, the Keanu Reeve vehicle of a demon-fighter who has a beef against both Heaven and Hell.  In the first few minutes into the movie, the title character walks into a shack to portray an exorcism on a brown-skinned illegal alien.  Turns out - as the poor possesed lady was able to spurt out a few words of her own - that the demonic prey is a Filipino. The Tagalog words that came out of her mouth which Constantine couldn't understand was proof enough. 

Then there's an episode in Banged Abroad, National Geographic's re-enactment of true-to-life stories of First World citizens spending years in the harshest prisons in other countries either because they were framed or were caught in doing something illegal.  In one episode, one such Aussie was framed and had to spend a decade in a Mexican American jail.  The locals and actual prison looked convincing enough - until the main character had to be rushed out of his cell and into the clinic as he was suffering critical wounds from an assault.  Then you hear the other characters - the nurses, the doctors, the other prisoners - yelling in Tagalog (not Mexican) to either run for help, clear the way, or pray for the dying man.

True enough, when the end credits rolled, acknowledgment was given to a certain prison located in Rizal.  The prison scenes were obviously shot in the Philippines, not Mexico - and nobody bothered to check that the real-life prison personnel who were doubling as actors should speak in Mexican, not Tagalog.

Then there's the now classic story of a few Ewoks (remember them?) muttering Tagalog complaints in Return of the Jedi. First time I saw this as a college student in a movie house in the 1980s, my friends and I froze.  Imagine underneath all that murmuring, a few clear Tagalog sentences came out - no, they weren't mistakes that were mumbles, they were Tagalog spoken consciously and clearly:  "Ayun, puno daw ito!"  "Ay, ang ganda!'   Translation:  "Hey, this is supposed to be a tree!" "It's cute!"

Methinks there were a couple of Pinoy extras cast in Lucasland.

Check this out: