“Be My Guest, Be My Baby,” a feature film based on true stories, breaks stereotypes about Filipino women working as bar hostesses in Japan.
The film centers around Shota, a graduate student studying the exploitation of Filipino hostesses.
He meets hostess Mika and learns that she is in a fake marriage created through the intermediation of a yakuza organization. She earns 60,000 yen ($400) a month and lives in a room under surveillance.
Shota finds himself comforted by the tough-minded Filipino woman and ends up becoming her pimp.
“There are many movies that portray violence and sex in a two-category system, like showing Filipino women as victims and Japanese men as abusers,” director Mitsuhito Shiraha, 59, said. “I wanted to make a movie that serves as an antithesis to such stereotypes.”
The story is based on real-life experiences of Kosho Nakashima, 35, who wrote a book about his sociological research on Filipino hostesses.
Many of them came to Japan under entertainer visas from the 1980s through 2005, when immigration laws were revised.
“Filipino bars are essential when it comes to talking about the history of Filipinos living in Japan,” Nakashima said.
The character of Mika is based on Nakashima’s wife. The couple are expecting their third child this year.
“We must see others as they are, and it has nothing to do with whether they are Filipino or Japanese, whether they have disabilities or not, or whether they are male or female,” the writer said. “It’s OK to keep a distance if you don’t get along with them, and if you do get along, make friends with them.”
