Stardom, Film Couples and Love Teams in 1970s Philippine Cinema

This monograph addresses a subject in star studies that is still developing outside of (and even within) Hollywood and cinemas of the West - the film couple. Known as the ’love team’ in the Philippines, they are a transmedia phenomenon whose sheer ubiquity and variety make them an ideal case study to work towards an understanding of the film couple and how they contribute to the pleasure of watching films. Film couples move beyond understanding the star as an individual, particularly where a popular love team is a prerequisite early training ground for successful stardom in the studio system. I explore three different identities that construct film couples and offer a vocabulary to distinguish between these identities and consider how they are inflected by each other. I then trace how the couple is constructed at various stages by stars, studios, film and other cross-media appearances, their fandom and wider societal context.

Chrishandra Sebastiampillai is Lecturer in Film, Television and Screen Studies at Monash University Malaysia. Her research interests include film stardom and celebrity, representations of race and identity in cinema, Philippine cinema and Southeast Asian cinema.