Sophia Marie D.

Verdeflor BSAc2 October 22, 2019

1943 GSELF 5:00-6:30 PM TTh Ms. Angelica Marie G. Peralta

Be a woman who not just glow from her skin, but also radiates self-love into this world

(A Reflection Paper on the movie “Die Beautiful”)

Undoubtedly, the Filipino film entitled “Die Beautiful” directed by Jun Robles Lana, taught its

viewers a lot of things most especially redirecting the stereotypes about the LGBT community through

the character of Trisha Echevarria played by Paolo Ballesteros, who portrayed an honest, compassionate

and a dignified kind of person.

But what really took my attention was the line of her adopted daughter, Shirley Mae, and if I

may quote: “You only like him because you thought no one was going to love you.”

This clearly tells us that in some instances, we just like a person not because we truly love them

but because we thought and we are afraid that no one will ever show us some love anymore but this is

just a nonsense kind of thinking because little did we know that the love that we are seeking from other

people is just in front of us, literally just within us, within ourselves.

I must say that this talks a lot particularly about self-love and self-acceptance and I could also

somehow relate with what she said because I admit that sometimes I tend to seek acceptance from

other people around me but I could not even manage to show myself some love, and this, I think is what

should transpire in our community today, it is about having self-love.

You have to love yourself first before you can ever truly love anyone else because if you don’t

love yourself, how can you expect others to love you, and if you don’t love yourself, you might accept a
type of love that is less than what you deserve, thus, loving yourself is not a selfish act, but it is a

fundamental skill to generate the strength needed to love others.

Loving yourself would come into reality if we manage to reward ourselves once in a while most

especially in times when we most need it which I believe we truly deserve and it is just right to say that

falling in love with yourself first doesn’t make you vain or selfish, rather it makes you indestructible and

that is how Trisha was able to overcome the struggles and challenges in life, he loved and accepted

himself first as who he really is, a member of LGBT community and later on, he was able to give some

love to other people especially his best friend and his adopted daughter.

Just like in the movie, during the question and answer portion of the beauty contest, when

Trisha was asked that if she would be given a chance to live again, what it would be, and then she

answered that she would choose to live again as no other than as herself and I also love how the last day

of her wake ended where even if from the past six days of her wake, she looked like some celebrities, in

all fairness, during the last day, she was shown to the public as none other than, herself, as Trisha

Echevarria.

To sum it all up, we may all be different in terms of gender, appearances, culture, age, and

whatever diversities we may have, but what we should always remember is that there is always beauty

in diversity and that beauty comes from the love that we give to ourselves and that I believe, is what

makes us all uniquely beautiful.