My Husband’s Lover is a Philippine telenovela that has garnered critical and commercial success
(and along the way catapulting its two stars to A-list status), mainly due to a premise that heavily
mirrors Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain (2005) but that which is unique to generally
conservative Philippine society. Two high school best friends Eric Del Mundo (Dennis Trillo)
and Vincent Soriano (Tom Rodriguez) also happen to be high school sweethearts, with the
former leaving the latter.. Likewise, the latter’s family is the typical conservative Filipino family,
so he decided to conceal his homosexuality for fear of being disowned. The two reunite years
later, with Eric returning from the United States and learning that his former lover is engaged
and is expecting a child with Lally Agatep (Carla Abellana). The series details the continuation
of Vincent’s and Eric’s (still hidden) romance, and the former’s internal conflict, that between
his true feelings and his morals.
The dynamics of a love triangle peculiar to the average Filipino audience separate it from the
typical Filipino romantic plotline, the portrayal of homosexuality being another Philippine TV
trope that has been amply twisted so that it is “fresh.” Instead of the usual flamboyant gay best
friend, the homosexuals are not only far from flamboyant, but are also the main characters of the
series. Instead of being staples of beauty salons speaking in seeming code that is actually gay
lingo, the homosexuals are affluent and well-spoken.
The authors will buttress their textual analysis of all ten seasons of My Husband’s Lover with
literature on the bakla and the global gay. With queer theory as the framework of the study, with
emphasis on the theory’s element of performativity, the authors will also use several significant
instances throughout the ten seasons of the series as premises to one of queer theory’s
assumptions, that gender is fluid