“And the Breadwinner is... “ is mainly a movie of Vice Ganda. We don’t think her fans will stop themselves from watching it starting 25 December just because the practically confirmed lovers Maris Racal and Anthony Jennings are in the film. Almost surely, the young lovers’ roles would not be as major as that of Ganda. The lovers’ presence in the film is most likely just a garnishing, not the main narrative.
Viewers will swarm to the film mainly for its transgender star even if the roles given to Racal and Jennings had been assigned instead to the less known loveteam of Kaori Oinuma and Jeremiah Lisbo who are also ABS-CBN contract stars.
It’s okay if the hot young lovers would not be allowed to join promo events and interviews — because their sizzling reputation would make their presence eclipse even someone as limelight-sought and limelight-hogging as Vice Ganda.
You know, we even have the feeling that all those who have been bashing Racal and Jennings for allegedly cheating on content creator Jamela “Jam” Villanueva will all the more watch And the Bread Winner Is... so they can hate the lovers all the more. For bashers of well-exposed celebrities, the fun of life is ever-intensifying hatred. Bashing is less fun for their practitioners if it’s done only mildly. The bashing must be done always overboard, to the hilt, so to speak.
Once the bashers’ senseless hatred has reached a saturation point, they just move on to other warm celebrities and make them sizzle with their fiery contempt and bashing. Showbiz bashers, though, won’t bother with Sen. Riza Hontiveros or beleaguered Vice President Sara Duterte. Bashers keep to their turf. Thankfully, they are territorial.
What we’ve said about Racal and Jennings in relation to And The Breadwinner Is... we will also say to the executives in charge of promoting Daniel Padilla’s forthcoming series Incognito, which also stars “MaThon” (which is how the Maris-Anthony love is billed in Pinoy showbiz).
The forthcoming action series also has MaThon as some sort of added attraction. Its early press releases put the young lovers’ names the last on the list. Well, after all, Racal and Jennings are the non-action stars in the show’s very impressive supporting actors to Padilla whom ABS-CBN is now beginning to transition from a romantic lead to an action star.
Those supporting actors are Ian Veneracion, Richard Gutierrez and Baron Geisler (oh, well, he really is a superb drama actor who has once took on a role as a gay broadcast journalist in Cinemalaya’s Jay for which he won Best Actor).
People will watch Incognito even if MaThon is in its cast. The series’ main attraction will be Padilla, Veneracion, Gutierrez. (Kaila Estrada is also in the cast, and it is not known yet if she is the love interest of one of the boys, or hers is a fiercely independent character in the series.)
Incognito is directed by Lester Pimentel Ong who also directed the hit series Ironheart top-billed by Gutierrez. Ong’s being the director of the forthcoming series is one of the reasons people will watch Incognito (which means unknown in English). The word refers to Padilla’s character in the film.
Although Incognito is premiering in January next year yet, ABS-CBN has tendered a media conference for it, as if the series would be drowned by the unrelenting flood of captivating positive breakouts or contemptuously captivating occurances. Or overshadowed by the blitz promo and publicity these days for the entries in the forthcoming 2024 Metro Manila Film Festival.
Incognito producers took the MaThon loveteam to the taping to Italy about a month ago, and it seems to be in that romantic country that romance fully blossomed between Jennings and Racal who were espied there twinning in their rubber shoes! Only lovers, mother and daughter, father and son twin their outfits, reasoned out wags who suspected the loveteam from the ABS-CBN series Can’t Buy Me Love had become real. At that time, Racal had broken up with her old boyfriend, the rocker Rico Blanco. Around that time, too, Jennings began to refer to Villanueva as his ex-girlfriend after a seven-year relationship.
All these make us wonder why some people fell into hating MaThon just because Villanueva decided to expose the exchange of romantic and carnal messages between Racal and Jennings. Fans have long flexed them as lovers. Racal opened up about breaking up with Blanco. She once even implied she would have been more in love with Blanco of if he were younger — not 50 years old to her mid-20s.
And so what if it's Racal who sounded more aggressive, more passionate in her exchange of messages with the incredibly handsome Tisoy Jennings? Can’t women be aggressive and passionate?
Meanwhile, among the cast of Incognito, its only Veneracion who has been grilled by showbiz scribes about how he feels about Racal and Jennings having cheated on Villanueva as detailed by the ex-girlfriend in her Instagram?
Veneracion, 49, was more than sensible enough to say that the love affair between Racal and Jennings should not be a concern for the public and that he found them quite professional to work with.
Now let’s put it on the record that Racal is 27, Jennings, 24, and Villanueva, 26. Should it bother anyone that Jennings is a few years younger than the two women?
By the way, we’ll deal with Padilla and Incognito more substantially next week.