Can the Subaltern Sing, and in a Power Ballad? Arnel Pineda and Ramona Diaz’s Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey

Ramona Diaz’s latest documentary, Don’t Stop Believin’ (2012), chronicles the discovery of Arnel Pineda by legendary American rock band Journey and his “evolution as a star.” While his story can be read as a Cinderella tale of transnational stardom, I argue that much more is going on in this story and in the specific way it is being told. Through documentary, not only do the subalterns speak English, but he can sing and she can make movies. These voices and their respective media tell us about subalternity and global media today. Specifically, the documentary form is used to cross distances of geography and structural location. It confronts new global realities and shows audiences the different and unequal ways in which we relate to each other. In other words, the documentary film by and about Filipina/os in the diaspora explores what bonds are possible in today’s new social encounters as they are enabled by new media. In attending to the manifold voice that emerges from the film, I focus on the possibilities not only of empathy for the subaltern condition that Arnel Pineda’s performances enable, but of the de-centering of the West by Ramona Diaz the filmmaker. By evaluating how and of what they speak, I reflect on what today’s transnational Asian Pacific/American documentary cinema is capable of doing: not only presenting new subjectivities and songs, but also setting the stage for new empathetic relations across difference.