The Macho Machine: Male Sexual Commodification in Philippine Realist Film Reuben Ramas Cañete Introduction The ilmic depictions of labor commodiication due to the structural dislo- cations within the Philippine political economy since the 1980s have often emphasized the traumas associated in separating (often women) migrant workers from family members, resulting in both social crisis and domestic economic dependency on these laborers’ foreign exchange earnings. The Flor Contemplacion Story 1 is one such case. Little attention, on the other hand, is paid to equally ilmic depictions of male labor commodiication within the domestic sphere of consumption as a result of a migrant labor economy and the material empowerment of politically minoritized groups within Philip- pine society. It is in this area that this study shall attempt, through a read- ing of Philippine realist ilms of the 1980s and 1990s, to locate the political economy of what it calls “the Macho Machine” through a transformed post- colonial and postmodern position within cultural theory. positions 19:2 doi 10.1215/10679847-1331751 Copyright 2011 by Duke University Press