Singapore Shiok ad makes Caucasian look like a schmuck

Posted on April 28, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Singapore Shiok, or just silly?’, 28 April 2013, article by Nicholas Yong, Sunday Times

First, Singapore was marketed as uniquely itself as a tourist destination. Then, it became yours. Now, it is “shiok” too. The Singapore Tourism Board’s (STB) latest marketing video on YouTube revolves around the Singlish expression – derived from the Malay word “syok”, which means nice – for extreme pleasure. Cold ice kacang on a hot day? Shiok. The adrenaline rush of sky-diving? Shiok! Being massaged at a posh spa? Shhh…iok.

…In the Singapore video, a Caucasian man struggling to pronounce “shiok” – defined helpfully on screen as “a Singaporean expression denoting extreme pleasure or the highest quality” – opens the clip. When he finally succeeds, his Singaporean friends applaud him…Branding expert Tim Clark, a Briton in his 60s, thinks “using the local language to help visitors to connect with a country is a good thing”.

…Professor Gemma Calvert, a British professor at NTU’s Institute for Asian Consumer Studies, agrees with Mr Clark that the video makes the featured foreigner struggling to pronounce “shiok” look “a bit of a shmuck“. She says: “The phrase isn’t particularly difficult to pronounce and therefore may come across as slightly patronising to outsiders. As a Caucasian myself, I admit I cringed to some extent at the representation portrayed by this particular individual.”

…Creative director Hanson Ho, in his 30s, of H55 studio also notes: “‘Shiok’ is sometimes expressed somewhat artificially in certain scenes, making it seem quite unnatural.” For instance, having a little boy whisper “shiok” at the sight of zoo animals at the Night Safari seemed to be stretching it a little.

…Lawyer Samantha Ong, 31, wonders if the video could have varied its local vocabulary a little. “There’s a serious overuse of the word ‘shiok’ that’s kind of cheesy and annoying,” she says of the yelled, purred and breathed incarnations in the video.

“Aren’t there other ‘uniquely Singapore’ words or ways to express pleasure, such as ‘sedap’ or ‘ho chiak’ (delicious in Malay and Hokkien)?”

Shiok

By attempting to globalise the word and sell it to visitors, ‘Shiok’ has become as problematic as ‘Lah’: Both also ‘ANYHOW use one’. If a kid exclaimed to me that watching animals in a zoo is ‘shiok!’ I would instantly correct him that he should have used the more generic ‘Wahh’ instead. I may even tolerate the Americanised ‘Awesome’ or ‘Whoa!’. Other scenes where the use of shiok is exaggerated and unnatural include Singaporeans showing off their shopping haul, ‘shioking’ at a club, or marvelling at the LV island in MBS. A simple ‘Wow’ or ‘Niiice’ wouldn’t stick as well, but these poor examples of shiok are as misplaced as getting locals to yell ‘Yahoo’ or ‘Yippee’ while exhibiting ‘extreme pleasure’, though ‘yahoo’ is something I often say in my head with an imaginary fist-pump whenever I manage to board an MRT train during peak hour.

Singaporeans also tend to be bad teachers of their own beloved lingo. When UK boyband The Wanted popped by to perform, fans cheered when they said ‘Singaporean girls are SHIOK’. Totally wrong and even demeaning in today’s context, but the fans don’t care, and this mistake will be perpetuated to every celebrity the world over, who’ll pepper their concerts with forced Singlish like ‘You’re such a SHIOK audience, LAH’. Ugh.

Screen Shot 2013-04-28 at 8.12.39 AM

When singer Demi Lovato was in town, DJ Divian Nair decided to teach her how to use shiok (like ‘awesome’) as a warm-up during an interview, with the superstar obliging with ‘I’m feeling shiok right now’. Lucky Divian. Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine says Singapore is ‘like, TOTALLY SHIOK’. Neither of these Caucasians has difficulty pronouncing the word, which is like replacing the C in Coke with Sh- (unless you want to be picky and insist that there should be a ‘-yee-ok’ sound). We seem to have an obsession with trying to get foreigners to speak Singlish with the same sadistic enthusiasm as teasing a kitten with a laser pointer. It may well be pride on our part to promote Singlish, but it does make a sporting goon out of non-Singaporeans when they mutilate it, be it shiok, lah or ‘Ho-Say’.

The worst abuse of shiok, however, comes from our Board of Censors. In 1999, when they found the use of ‘Shagged’ in the movie title Austin Powers:The Spy who Shagged Me objectionable, they proposed to replace the offensive word to the verb-form ‘SHIOKED’, as in The Spy who SHIOKED me, which would suggest to those unfamiliar with Singlish that shiok is a euphemism for the F-word. Thanks to our authorities, IMDB now thinks that shioked means ‘to be treated nicely’. If they had really pulled the title edit off, this ad, with the zoo kid whispering a potentially foul word into Daddy’s ear, wouldn’t exist. Max George from the Wanted would have said: ‘I’m here to Shiok some Singapore Girls’. To some cheers still.

Screen Shot 2013-04-28 at 10.20.59 AM

Yet, it’s not so simple defining when exactly shiok should be used. It’s like trying to teach someone when to use ‘lah’, ‘leh’ and ‘lor’. We have been known to use it in various contexts outside of food from which I believe it originally evolved (Humorist Paik Choo described ‘shiok’ mee rebus in a 1979 ST article). Enjoying rainy weather, lying on a hard cold floor on a blistering hot day or even sprawling out on a king-size bed in a hotel room may qualify as ‘shiok’ activities today. It’s often an interjection ejaculated reflexively, like the opposite of ‘Ouch’, and preceded by a period of anticipation or suffering, specific to a relatively quick, pleasurable stimulus. Nobody goes to a club and yells ‘SHIOK’ while dancing, nor experiences shiok-ness after staring at a fancy floating building for minutes. A massage after a long day? Shiok. A hot bath after a marathon? Lagi shiok! But saying ‘Singapore is SHIOK’? GET LOST LAH.

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Filed under: 1970s, 2013, Advertisements, Censors, Foul language, It Should Have Been.., Local food, Singlish/Broken english, Tourists | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Go Away MDA bypassing porn filters

Posted on March 1, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Web add-on bypasses porn censors’ filters’, 28 Feb 2013, article by Lim Yan Liang, ST

A WEB browser add-on that lets surfers bypass the Media Development Authority’s Internet filters to access pornography and other sites has been gaining popularity online. The free tool, for Google’s Chrome browser, has been downloaded more than 6,300 times since it was made available to the public in the browser’s Web store on Feb 16.

It lets users access sites that would normally be blocked in Singapore by masking their true location. The MDA maintains a list of 100 websites that Internet service providers have to block. The creator of the browser extension, a National University of Singapore (NUS) computer science graduate, said usage figures have been growing thanks mainly to word of mouth.

While he had dedicated the tool to users of the popular Eat-Drink- Man-Woman forum of the HardwareZone discussion portal, forum threads discussing his creation have since been deleted or locked.

“There is no need for the word to get out, I can barely manage the traffic as it is,” said the 26-year-old, without giving specifics on the amount of traffic. He does not want to be named, citing previous run-ins with the law. “And it’s running off a server that I’m paying for.”

He added that the tool was “merely a fun hobby project” he set up during Chinese New Year as he was learning about a set of Web development tools.

Soon to be a thing of the past

Soon to be a thing of the past

While your run-of-the-mill hacker defaces government websites and replaces them with porn, the creator of Go Away MDA (you can download the tool for free at http://getgom.com/) hands you the golden key to online forbidden fruit. If the MDA hadn’t themselves went on a limb to declare war on the 100 objectionable sites, there wouldn’t be a need to device a tool to smash their firewalls down, nor would we proceed to satisfy our natural curiosity to see if unlocking Playboy.com with this actually works (It does at time of writing). There are many hidden treasures yet to be picked up by MDA’s internet sniffer dogs which are far more gratuitous than the softcore goodies of the Playboy empire. The complete list remains a mystery, but the folks at MDA clearly missed out the nefarious CHURCH OF SATAN (google it) website. The horror!

Porno material is generated so effortlessly maintaining a ’100 banned sites’ list is like fencing up a grapevine to keep out the starving foxes but leaving the rest of the sprawling bush unscathed. They haven’t even got a list started on mobile sex apps yet. To many men who spent their formative cyber years journeying through erotic utopias, this is a godsend, like a reunion with an old flame which they’ll greet with an euphoric  ‘Come to PAPA!’. Some would laud this anonymous ‘hacktivist’ the equivalent of porno Wikileaks, tearing down the barriers to the revolutionary ideal that is ‘internet freedom’.

In 2005, two gay sites were clamped down by MDA. They banned one featuring explicit sex and photography while fining another gay dating site called ‘Meet Gay Singapore Friends’ (no longer exists). Three years later porno versions of Youtube were added to the list. When queried about the usefulness of keeping this blacklist when it’s near impossible to block out undesirables without killing the Internet completely, an MDA spokesperson replied that this ‘mass-impact’ censoring was a ‘SYMBOLIC statement of our CORE SOCIETAL VALUES’. In 2010, then acting Minister for Information and the Arts Lui Tuck Yew regurgitated the same reasoning, that the ban ‘serves as a reminder that there is a significant body of material on the Internet that is unsavoury and unedifying’. That’s as enlightening as telling people there are wild plants and mushrooms out there that you shouldn’t be putting in your mouth. It’s like a clueless puppy chasing its own tail; the hydra of porn is always leaps and bounds ahead of you. Nobody goes to Playboy for their fix anymore. A random amateur sex video from a couple of local students may score more hits than all 100 banned sites combined.

Now that the banned sites are being liberated by a tinkerer’s electronic Get out of Jail Card, this ‘symbol’ of all things good and moral about our society has come crashing down like the terminal stage of a badly played Candy Crush game, though our spate of sex scandals has made enough mockery of this surface gesture of moral policing. It’s like putting a helmet on a baby strapped with explosives in a bid to protect it from harm. The more likely reason that this ‘symbolic’ banned list still exists, even if you could find SEX.COM on it, is that it would be an admission of utter failure to take it back. If there’s one consolation for MDA, it’s that their eagerness to ban stuff has given rise to talented, enterprising, rebellious individuals with this inventive drive and mad skills to crack smutwalls, a skill that would make you a top draw for secret military projects, or for hacking into our Ministers’ accounts to see what they have been doing with their million-dollar salaries.

Victory for the high-priests of Internet activism, for Google Chrome, tech geeks and anyone who feels that MDA deserves to be embarrassed for its vile treatment of artists and filmmakers all this time. MDA, you got ‘pwned’. Big time.

Filed under: 2000s, 2013, Bureaucrats, Censors, Nudity, Sex | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

MDA banning Elangovan’s Stoma

Posted on January 9, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Media Development Authority bans Elangovan’s play Stoma’, 9 Jan 2013, article by Huang Lijie, ST

Singapore playwright Elangovan’s first play after a three-year hiatus will not be staged. The play, Stoma, which tells the story of a Catholic priest defrocked over sex abuse charges, was denied a performance licence yesterday.

It was originally slated to run at The Substation in Armenian Street from Jan 17 to 19. In a letter to Mr Elangovan, artistic director of theatre company Agni Kootthu (Theatre Of Fire), the Media Development Authority said a licence was not issued because the play contains “sexually explicit, blasphemous and offensive references and language which would be denigrating to the Catholic and the wider Christian community“.

This is the third time that a play by Elangovan has been denied licence to be staged here, after Talaq (2000), a play about a Muslim-Indian woman’s experiences of marital violence, and Smegma (2006), which comprises 10 mini plays that explore the control and exploitation of disadvantaged groups of people.

Elangovan’s earlier banned work Smegma sounds like a biography of a punk metal band or a sex-heavy meditation on puberty secretions, but it’s actually drama composed of 10 vignettes, including:

  • Three men in a prison cell making fun of  the Singapore flag
  • Kindergarten children calling their MP a PIG
  • Singaporeans sexual escapades with underaged girls (How prescient, this Elangovan)

But it was the Arts Consultative Panel’s fear that it would ‘create unhappiness and disaffection amongst Muslims’ that pulled the plug on Smegma. Interestingly, Smegma was initially granted a licence under a RA(18) rating, but got banned less than 30 HOURS before it was scheduled to play. 6 years later you would see MDA pulling the same last-minute stunt on a film that allegedly mocks Indians called Sex. Violence. Family Values. This followed a consultation with a similar panel of ‘experts’ AFTER MDA had made the more forthcoming decision of granting M18 instead.

The synopsis for Smegma contains the following line: “When the comfort zone is shattered, ugliness rears its head like SMELLY SMEGMA”, and so it is with MDA coming down hard on Stoma for its priest-sex associations, like a libido-killing, shameful splotch of spermy grime on a male porn stud’s scene-stealing manhood. What is the difference between Stoma and another similarly-themed production Doubt (performed here in 2006) anyway? Does Jesus Christ cameo in it totting a shotgun? Or perhaps it features sexy nuns showing more leg than habit?

The controversial Talaq (Divorce), which earned the playwright and even its lead actress Nargis Banu DEATH threats, was based on true stories of Indian-Muslim women getting battered and raped by their husbands.  The theatre company clashed with the National Arts Council (NAC) for inviting two deeply religious Muslim men from the South Indian Jamiathual Ulama (SIJU) on their panel, one of whom, Haji Marican, reportedly objecting to the play not so much that it depicts Muslim husbands as violent rapists, but that involuntary sex  should NOT be considered rape in the first place:

In Islamic law, a husband cannot rape his wife as long as the marriage continues. He need not ask permission from his wife for sexual relations each time he wants to have it. Even if she is angry or not in the mood, he has the right to it. In any event, a husband can have sex with his wife without her consent and that will not be rape

I’m no scholar on religious matters, but I wonder if these guys were intimidating the NAC into making an unfavourable decision not with choice religious words, but with wooden clubs that could beat off the most rabid sabre-toothed tiger. Elangovan’s wife (S Thenmoli) and president of his theatre group also got arrested for trespassing after holding a private rehearsal of Talaq in 2000. Maybe if I had threatened to nail Stephenie Meyer shut in a coffin and bury her alive, and MDA intervened accordingly, disgruntled boyfriends and husbands in Singapore would have been spared the torture of sitting through 5 soppy, draggy vampire movies which also promulgate bestial-pedophilia love between wolfmen and little girls. And all that got was a PG rating!

If there’s anything that should be banned, it’s this promo rap video below which MDA produced in 2007; for giving the arts-loving public the false impression that they’re cutting-edge and cool. I rather scrape dried smegma off a rapist’s corpse with my fingernails than listen to this. They just don’t stop, y’all.

Postscript: Barely a week after this ban, a sex scandal involving a pastor from an unnamed church and an underaged girl surfaced. Oh the irony. Elangovan’s fiction is eerily close to the inconvenient truth. Looks like the year of the Scandal is stretching past the Chinese New Year.

Filed under: 2000s, 2013, Art, Bureaucrats, Censors, Religion, Sex, Violence | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Sex Violence and Family Values NOT allowed for All Rating

Posted on October 9, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘S’pore film yanked from release over offensive racial remarks’, 9 Oct 2012, article by John Lui, ST

A LOCAL comedy that had originally been given an M18 film classification has had its release pulled by the Media Development Authority (MDA) over offensive racial remarks, just days before it is due to open in cinemas. Sex.Violence.FamilyValues, a compendium of three short films by first-time director Ken Kwek, was handed a Not Allowed For All Rating last evening, a rarely used classification. A film given such a rating is not allowed to be screened.

…Of the three shorts in Sex.Violence.FamilyValues, Porn Masala is the most controversial, revolving around the making of Singapore’s first “arthouse porno”. In a trailer released on the film’s website a few weeks ago, a boorish film director played by Adrian Pang and an Indian porn actor played by Vadi PVSS are seen trading racial insults, based on gross stereotypes.

…The MDA statement said: “An overwhelming majority of the panel members have expressed that the film should not be allowed for public exhibition in view of its overt racial references, which are demeaning and offensive to Indians.”

In the ‘dirty’ version of the movie trailer, Adrian Pang’s porn director makes reference to sex and alcohol in relation to  Vasantham actor Vadi PVSS’s race. This ‘unkindest cut of all’ comes fresh after Amy Cheong got sacked for posting remarks about Malay weddings on Facebook, except this time it’s another minority race bearing the insult. Lionel De Souza is probably drafting a police report against the cast and crew as we speak.

At this rate of heavy censures being handed out for any form of stereotyping, where you could fire an NTUC assistant director or pull someone’s movie off local cinemas, you wouldn’t expect anything less than sacking radio DJs for mocking Indian accents, dismissing ST writers referring to ‘often- drunk Sikh priests’, or closing down Breadtalk for selling bread named ‘Naan the Nay’. You might as well clamp down on Kumar’s comedy routine, or ban all Bollywood DnD theme parties. Now, even being ‘politically incorrect’ is hazardous to your mental health not to mention career. But as if losing your bread and butter isn’t enough, your former employers use blame-shifting phrases like ‘I DID what WE had to do’(Lim Swee Say), and then ask people to ‘spare a thought’ for you after what they did to you. That’s like pushing you off a cliff and then throwing a pillow down in the hope that it would somehow cushion your fall.

The ‘Not Allowed for All Rating’, or NAR, is slapped on films which MDA describes as follows according to their Film Classification Guidelines:

  • Themes that promote issues that denigrate any race or religion, or undermine national interest will not be allowed.
  • Themes that glorify undesirable fetishes or behaviour (e.g. paedophilia and bestiality) are not allowed.
  • Promotion or glamorisation of homosexual lifestyle.

Which puts Sex Violence in the same league as donkey porno. How did Sacha Baron Cohen’s films like Borat, Bruno and The Dictator get past the censors then? Did anyone miss the screaming Chinaman stereotype in films like the Hangover and Ted? Why wasn’t Mike Myers’ THE GURU banned? How about the discriminatory banter between Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker in the Rush Hour trilogy? Did MDA ignore all these elements because these were blockbusters and Ken Kwek’s film is a small indie movie, or did they all assume that some races are better at taking potshots than the others?

But it’s not just Hollywood movies that have the potential to fall into NAR territory. Even our local productions are full of disguised ‘racism’, with Chinese being overrepresented in dramatic roles. In National Day videos, you’ll invariably have singing Indian prata men, and nobody said anything about Alaric Tay’s portrayal of a ‘Mat Rocker’ in the Noose. The only reason why nobody considers making the latter into a full-length feature is because MDA may NAR it too, on the grounds of ‘overt racial references’. Hence the I Not Stupid sequels. I suppose it’s better to have horrible English than being, you know, RACIST.

Moving along. Under ‘Language’, you have:

  • Language that denigrates religion or is religiously profane (e.g. Jesus F**king Christ).

Fair enough. Except that in Ted, I believe there was a scene where the exact same wording as above was used, but the middle profanity was muted out. In the 25th hour, a good few minutes were sliced off Edward Norton’s ‘fuck the world’ rampage against the various ethnicities in New York City (for a R21 rating). Isn’t the NAR rating in this case like decapitating a patient who has a stye in the eye, firing a bazooka into a mouse hole, or using a samurai sword to peel a banana? Did someone lose the censors’ chopper and decided it was easier to ban it altogether? How about delaying Sex Violence’s slated release to talk to the producers about possible re-shoots? You know, a CONVERSATION perhaps? Maybe there could be two versions of the movie, an internationally acclaimed one called Sex Violence Family Values, and an edited PG 13 one for the domestic market that is ‘community-friendly’ called, well, FAMILY VALUES. Instead of Porn Masala, you could replace it with an episode of Jacintha’s ‘Mum’s not Cooking’.

Whether Sex Violence is considered satirical art is irrelevant. As with all banned videos, thousands of curious Singaporeans will be googling Porn Masala as we speak (Don’t do it at work, you’ll get ACTUAL PORN as the top search hit instead), but it’s unlikely that we’ll see the original version on Youtube, what used to be a trusted treasure trove of stuff that MDA’s censor panel can’t deal with after a century of co-mingling with other races (Well THANKS A LOT Innocence of Muslims!). At the expense of being annoyingly cordial to each other where any suggestion of discrimination has to be repressed, we’ve sadly lost the ability to laugh at ourselves, which is the way most developed countries deal with the idiosyncrasies of their racial melting pots. Forget the National Conversation. I want our national Humour back.

Yet, ironically, some good may come out of this. If Ken Kwek continues the run on the international circuit and ride on the publicity of the ban, Sex Violence will garner more attention than Sex:The Annabel Chong Story. And nothing will put the MDA to shame more than this movie picking up festival awards, or better still a selection for the Oscars Foreign Film nominations. By then, the best thing that could happen to local film is not that MDA passes it UNCUT, but that it BANS it altogether, like a Chinese film about the Nanjing massacre or tainted milk powder, covering up for ‘fault lines’ that exist no matter how you preach otherwise.

Postscript: While the producers are appealing the ban, MDA responded that they left the decision to a Films Consultative Panel, which consists of ‘volunteers of various professions, age groups, religions and races’. Of 24 members, 20 gave a thumbs down to the release, while 4 opted for the strictest rating possible R21. There have also been complaints of the depiction of a schoolgirl in a CHIJ uniform in Porn Masala, which could have been a cynical reference to convent girls being branded as sluts in need of a ‘one night stand’.

So, who’s in the FCP? My first impression was that this is a secret Oracle of know-it-alls who wear white hoods brandishing sceptres or a council of hologram Elders like those you see in the Superman movies, but they’re actually mortal human beings, according to details in the MDA website.

The Council of Elders says no to Porn Masala

Let’s look the kind of people you need to speak about morals and ethics on behalf of 5.3 million people. For starters, the CHAIRPERSON Vijay Chandran is INDIAN, and ironically belongs to a company called ELASTICITY Pte Ltd. Another striking feature is how a majority of these members hold high positions in society, directors, doctors, CEOs, lawyers and a couple of obligatory housemakers, entrepreneurs, artists and students. Would a panel vote objectively if the chair belongs to a race that is picked on in the movie? How representative is such a panel anyway, and why is it there’s not a single moral philosopher or sociologist in the team? Why on earth do you need a POLICEMAN on the panel (Steven Moorthi)? How ELSE would you expect a cop to vote on race issues?

It’s obvious by glancing at the composition of the panel that the FCP is not a one size fits all arbiter of moral values, whether it’s gratuitous sex and violence, religious, race or gay issues. The very presence of an Indian leading the team already suggests bias in decision-making. Sex Violence deserves a second opinion, and whatever the final outcome, I for one, will be begging to watch it.

Postscript 2: The film eventually got passed with cuts under a R(21) rating. Don’t rush to book your tics yet, though, you’d never know if the MDA may decide to pull the film again days before screening.

Filed under: 2012, Censors, Film, Foul language, Local actors, Racism, Religion, Sex | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

No Arts and Sports in reshuffled Ministries

Posted on August 3, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Keep Arts and Sports in ministries’ names’, 3 Aug 2012, ST Forum

(Ace Kindred Cheong): I AM saddened that “Sports” and the “Arts” have been omitted from the names of the new and restructured ministries (“No ‘sports’ in name sparks debate”; yesterday). The omissions will lead to doubts about whether the Government is still as committed to supporting the arts and sports.

It is also ironic that it happened in the middle of a historic Olympics in which Singapore won its first individual medal in 52 years, after the fantastic bronze medal achievement by our top women’s table tennis star Feng Tianwei. It would be more sensible for the Cabinet to retain the titles of the two ministries – the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, and the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts.

This will send a clear signal that sports and the arts have not been sidelined by the Government.

The new ministries have been named MCCY (Culture, Community, Youth), MSF (Social, Family Development) and MCI (Communications, Information).  It’s made more confusing than it already is and drives one MAD (Ministry of Arts Defunct) just trying to tell one other apart. Ministries of ‘social affairs’ tend to be rather wishy washy over what they’re supposed to take charge of historically. ‘Culture’ is a catch-all term that is itself archaic in its usage. Established in the late fifties, the job of then ‘Ministry of Culture’ was responsible for brainwashing people with film propaganda. They were also the state censors, precursors to our current Board of Censors and MDA, who glued objectionable pages of books together. They were more the Culture and thought POLICE than a ministry of any sort, and here we see ‘Culture’ coming back with a vengeance. Watch out Fifty Shades of Grey sequels. Incidentally, the top Google search for ‘Ministry of Culture’ yields a local company that promotes some sort of corporate motivational team-building. Wonder if there’ll be any suits filed for copyright infringement ala Subway.

In 1985, ‘Culture’, with its negative connotations as mind controllers, was taken out, and the MCD (Community Development) was formed. It’s only in 2000 when SPORTS was plopped in to form MCDS, and ‘Youth’ joined the fray in 2004 to the soon-to-be-defunct MCYS. It’s also ironic how the government needs to set up a ministry arm solely for YOUTH when we’re on the crest of a silver tsunami. If I had my way with government acronyms, I would have gone for McCOYS (Ministry of Culture, Community, Old people, Youth and Sports) which just about covers EVERYTHING. We’re also more likely to have an SCOG (Senior Citizens’ Olympic Games) than a YOG. At the rate these ministries are splitting, you’ll have a whole chunk of large Roman numerals instead of abbreviations. At least some people can still make out Roman numerals.

What did having a SPORTS ministry ever do to produce a sporting  nation? Our Olympic medal winners are foreign-born. We have some decent swimmers, sailors and shooters here and there. But our local footballers have been the same dismally inconsistent lot for the last 12 years that ‘Sports’ has been part of MCYS. Our best moments in the Game (Malaysia Cup) were in the 90′s, BEFORE sports got noticed as a government agenda. Today, we can’t get past mediocre ASEAN teams even with the government boosting our foreign import funds, which either means our sports officials are getting it all wrong, or we simply are a nation who are no longer interested. Mah Bow Tan’s expensive Goal 2010 fantasy turned out to be one as attainable as flying solar-powered cars (It may be argued that the state of football is worse off now than when this pipe dream was cast more than a decade ago). Obviously the tactic of pumping in money to buy talent (players or coaches) on the pretense of grooming a sporting nation just isn’t working.

‘Arts’ emerged in 1990 from a messy series of acronym spin-offs, from the Ministry of Culture to MCI (Communications, Information), MCD and then MITA (the ‘TA’ stands for THE ARTS, without the ‘T’ it would be ‘M.I.A’), a move lauded by struggling artists who needed government investment and support, until MITA began clamping down again on offensive material and recordings as its grandparent Ministry once did (A Janet Jackson album and the video game Half-Life). Sounding too close to ‘MATA’, MITA then rebranded itself as the effeminate MICA (Information, Communication, Arts) in 2001, and proceeded to get on the nerves of arty folk by banning gay concerts like ‘Affect 05′ in 2005. Unlike the short-lived Sports arm, Arts enjoyed a good run of over 2 decades despite the zealous snipping, keeping the scene vibrant and local performances afloat, though there are always critics complaining that they’re never doing enough. We also have an ‘Arts’ NMP Janice Koh in a government now castrated of an Arts body, someone credible to comment on Grandfather Road issues when the ministerial body itself has trouble defining what ART is. But I think the simpler reason is that having a ministry of ARTS gives ART a bad name. Film fans have already felt the effects of the omission of ARTS , with this year’s Film Fest pulled out due to lack of funds. I think there’s something more deeply entrenched in the Singaporean psyche that defies government intervention when it comes to sports and arts. We have been bred and raised with a very skewed bias towards a results-based ideal of personal achievement, one that doesn’t involve a paintbrush or kicking balls.

Our Malaysian neighbours have a cleaner dichotomy in the form of a ‘Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage’ and a ‘Ministry of Youth and Sports’, the former bringing to mind the image of a fuddy-duddy curator who knows his history and the latter that of an hip, vivacious, fun-loving official devoted to keeping the country relevant. Japan has the same idea as me when it comes to combining everything together, with its Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. The PM proposed 3-tier system with its bland categorisation sounds wan and jaded, with the MSF, or should I say Ministry of Procreation, as a disturbing personification of all the kaypoh aunties who ask when you’re getting married or when you’re having kids during Chinese New Year.

Filed under: 1950s, 1980s, 2000s, 2012, Art, Bureaucrats, Censors, Politicians, Sports | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

Fifty Shades of Grey banned from libraries

Posted on June 2, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Library’s shades of double standards’, 2 June 2012, ST Life!

(Dr Oh Jen Jen): While I understand the National Library Board’s reluctance to add the Fifty Shades trilogy to its catalogue, I cannot quite accept its practice of double standards (No Fifty Shades For Library, Life!, May 29).

I consider novels by Sidney Sheldon, Jackie Collins and Harold Robbins, available at public libraries here, equally, if not more, sexually explicit than E.L. James’ fluff. Another title I spotted on the shelf is Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho, which contains graphic violence and sexual content.

As already mentioned by another avid reader, Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty series is also easily available. Protecting young, impressionable minds from undesirable influences is important, but the above examples demonstrate the NLB’s inconsistency in its choices.

Young adult fiction is now dominated by the likes of Stephenie Meyer and Suzanne Collins. Meyer wrote Breaking Dawn, which features a childbirth scene that I found positively horrifying despite the nature of my job. Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy, on the other hand, describes a world where teenagers participate in government-sanctioned slaughter-fests, and the novel appears on the American Library Association’s list of frequently challenged books for 2010, citing ‘sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and violence’ as reasons.

And, yes, both authors’ series are found in the National Library’s catalogue. My parents never restricted my reading choices and I believe that open dialogue and guidance are far more beneficial than an outright ban.

Library in a knot over 50 Shades

As a hugely popular blockbuster series that started off as Twilight fan fiction, it is unlikely that ‘young impressionable minds’ will get their hands on 50 Shades without making reservations way in advance. If the kids can’t wait to read BDSM prose in a series that brings new meaning to ‘young ADULT fiction’, or if bored housewives long to fulfill their darkest desires vicariously through a tortured ‘heroine’, they can always try their luck at Kinokuniya for a quickie browse, if not download the e-version online.

If we need some sleazy teenage prose to save the book format , get people to read on the trains instead of playing with their phones, and keep our bookstores, but more importantly the entire paperback industry, alive, then so be it. In fact, in the original Life! article, a book publisher quipped that this ban is a ‘welcome shot in the arm for struggling bookstores’. So even if the library decides to put M18 warning labels or place 50 Shades so high up on the shelves that kids can’t reach it, you will have Ye Ol’ Bookshops shouting the promo poster  shamelessly behind stacks of this adolescent smut in display windows everywhere, at discounted prices if necessary, maybe bundled with some handcuffs or leather straps for good measure.

Here are other ‘classics’ which were deemed too ‘pornographic’ or offensive for our library collections:

1) Henry Miller’s Tropic of Capricorn (1938):  Banned in America for almost 30 years, Tropic is an autobiography of its very horny, misogynistic author and his sexcapades in New York City, where women are described by Miller as ‘supercunts’. Another novel, Plexus, was described by a blogger reviewer as containing ‘unapologetically group sex, drunken abuse of colleagues, scatological enterprise, what may amount to rape in the modern context..’

Horny Miller

2) DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928) : This literary romp-fest needs no introduction.

3) Nikos Kazantzakis’ The Last Temptation of Christ (1953 ): Adapted into a movie of the same name which was also banned for blasphemous depictions of the Lord Jesus Christ. Goes without saying that some sex is involved.

4) Judy Blume’s books: Accused of promoting underage dating and eventually sex, Judy Blume at first glance appears to be the most innocent of the lot, that is, until you read ‘Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret‘ where a tween prays to dance with the hottest boy in school ‘just once or twice’. She even has a book titled ‘Freckle Juice’, which could be mistaken for the title of a Barely Legal porn DVD series. If 50 Shades advocates hollow, brutal sex among consenting adults, then Blume’s puberty fantasies are baby steps towards ultimate debauchery.

5) Helen Bannerman’s The Story of Little Black Sambo (1899): A children’s picture book which was allowed for loan in our libraries (Book that raised storm abroad is popular in Singapore, 7 Jan 1991, ST) but, as the title suggests, slammed for racist depictions of dark-skinned people elsewhere. Do kids these days still read Noddy?

As social norms of what distinguishes ‘art’ from ‘porn’ evolve, what was once unacceptable (infidelity, multiple partners, inter-species sex) is now commonplace in ‘young adult fiction’, and it’s only a matter of time before voluntary degradation and humiliation that are the hallmarks of sadomasochism join the rest of the erotica bandwagon in toeing the line of public decency. If prestige is at stake, and if NLB insists on portraying itself as a responsible purveyor of wholesome literary entertainment, then banning a book like 50 shades makes sense, though one should question whether we should rely on librarians to decide for a bunch of uncontrollable, sex-crazy teens as to how far one should relent on graphic sex for the sake of ‘artistic merit’. By fuddy-duddily clamping down on such popular literature,  the library is not so much a place to cultivate the reading habit anymore, nevermind the rainbow murals and funky furniture. With reference materials available at the click of a mouse, what was once a nourishing wellspring of information and imagination has turned into a study centre, a lounge for uncles to read newspapers, or an internet cafe for schoolkids to log on to Facebook when their parents aren’t around.

Until the day when those dark smudges around fashionable young girls’ eyes are no longer vampire goth-inspired makeup but actual bruises, or if you no longer see bracelets around their wrists but rope burns , 50 shades and its torture-kiddy-porn  SM spinoffs are here to stay. We’re no longer in Sweet Valley High territory anymore.

Filed under: 1980s, 1960s, Sex, Censors, Violence, Racism, Public works, Kids, Art, Fun and games, 2012 | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Girl-on-girl kissing at Star Awards

Posted on May 4, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Girl on girl kiss to be censored in re-run of awards show’, 4 May 2012, article in asiaone.com

A kiss between female actresses Vivian Lai and Kate Pang has sparked a furore among Singaporeans. Actress-host Lai, 36, kissed actress Kate Pang, 29, on the lips for one second when she was announced as one of the Top 10 Most Popular Female Artistes during Sunday’s live telecast of the Star Awards Show 2.

Chinese daily Lianhe Wanbao reported that many viewers called its hotline to say they were offended by the kiss. They said that while some women may find kissing each other to be “trendy”, they were not used to it.

Some also said that it was strange to see female artistes dressed sexily and kissing each other. The Media Development Authority (MDA) said it will probe the incident to ascertain whether it has breached content guidelines of the free-to-air TV programme code.

A spokesperson for broadcaster MediaCorp told The New Paper that the “kiss” will be censored for this Sunday’s repeat telecast as some viewers may not be comfortable.

They should have won Most Favourite Couple

This will probably be the most useless snip in the history of television, regardless of what people think of two women kissing. Even if there were erotic undertones here beyond a ‘sisterly’ peck, it would have went unnoticed if the people obsessed with ‘lesbianism’ hadn’t cried foul over it. Perhaps cleavage just fails to shock anymore,  that there’s only a few ways to display one’s assets,  to the point that even the underboob has been milked dry. This Western glam concept of celebrity lip smooching has taken the attention away from boring speculations of boob jobs or waiting for wardrobe malfunctions to occur. The awards  have become secondary and our Mediacorp artistes are being ravaged on the red carpet for tasteless frocks, if not accused of aping the decadent West and turning viewers gay with their antics. People who’ve never seen a single Mediacorp drama the entire year would have at least heard of this event, but only for the wrong reasons. Soon no one will even remember or care about who won the Best Drama or Actress, nor male artistes who dress like hobos, and the Star Awards will be known just for two things: Ann Kok’s ample bosom and a hot girly kiss. Pity the former wasn’t involved in the latter, or you would have the prudes getting cardiac arrests before even writing in to complain about too much sex on TV.

This spontaneous couple seem to have taken a cue off Britney and Madonna, who locked lips on stage at the 2003 MTV awards, with a hint of tongue too. Nobody’s calling either a lesbian.

Our authorities have also banned the first hit single from Katy Perry titled ‘I Kissed a Girl’, which anyone can download off Youtube below, although no girls were actually kissing in the video. Katy went on to marry comedian Russell Brand in a rather short-lived romance, proof that she too wasn’t a lesbian.

Our censors also deleted scenes off critically acclaimed films like The Hours, and banned films like Shame altogether because of threesome scenes which I presume, would have some girly action as well. Kissing used to be a fun thing; experimental, playful and affectionate, and celebrities have the privilege of playing fast and loose with their PDA as they deem fit. Because they ARE celebrities.  Better that they engage in same-sex kissing than snort cocaine. These complainants are treating the act as if someone dropped a box full of forceps in the middle of a life-saving surgery.

Football players smooch each other all the time after scoring goals, yet no one talks about censoring matches because these contain ‘harmful’ scenes of sweaty men kissing, that boys who watch them may end up spending more time in the locker room than necessary. If two men kiss, it’s awkward or a prank, especially when presidents do it. If two ‘sexily dressed’ ladies kiss, however,  a ‘guideline’ has been breached and the innocent need to be protected.

One thing’s certain though; the kissing video would garner more hits than the  combined viewership of both live and rerun shows, even among people who have no idea who Joanne Peh is. Kate Pang may even score the Top 10 favourite artist list every year from now on, even if nobody has seen her act. Going near topless to boost a lacklustre career doesn’t work anymore, and it’s no longer peek-a-boo but ‘peck-a-(chio)bu’ that makes the Star Awards worth saving.

Filed under: 2012, Censors, Gay stuff, Local actors, Local TV shows, Sex | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

‘Shame’ banned over a threesome scene

Posted on April 23, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘What a Shame about no-show’, 21 April 2012, article by Annabeth Leow, Life!

…The critically acclaimed British film Shame, directed by Steve McQueen and starring Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan, will not play in Singapore cinemas – all because of a sex scene involving one man and two women. Cathay-Keris Films had tried to bring in the movie for local distribution.

The Media Development Authority’s (MDA) Board of Film Censors gave it an R21 rating and, additionally, asked for a group sex scene to be trimmed. Despite an appeal from Cathay, MDA remained firm on the snip needed. Since McQueen did not allow any changes to be made to his film, Cathay had no choice but to abort its distribution plans.

…In a statement, an MDA spokesman said: ‘After consulting the Films Consultative Panel on the film Shame, we are of the view that the prolonged and explicit threesome sex sequence has exceeded our classification guidelines.’

How everyone feels about the Shame ban

Despite relenting on films depicting gay marriage such as last year’s The Kids are Alright, the Board of Censors are still queasy when it comes to group sex and orgies. According to the guidelines, orgies are considered ‘deviant’ activities, along the lines of BDSM and bestiality. In 1999, Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut required a cut for an orgy scene which featured Hindu scripture chanting in the background. The opening scene in the 2008 Jason Statham vehicle The Bank Job was snipped as it featured a princess in a sweaty threesome. In ‘Watchmen’, a nude Dr Manhattan cloned himself to pleasure Silk Spectre, yet that scene was passed with an M18 rating. Apparently it’s not considered group sex if one partner is multiplied many times over.

Are orgies, which are probably as ancient as gay sex, deemed such ‘unnatural’ acts that they deserve to be banned from our cinemas? Is having sex with more than one person simultaneously more depraved than say,  violent anal sex (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo)? Isn’t a playful orgy less discomfiting to the viewer than a brutal gang rape (The Accused, Boys Don’t Cry)?  In ‘Shoot Em Up’, Monica Belluci’s character is a LACTATING prostitute and the movie was passed with an NC16/M18 rating. In Splice (NC16/M18), Adrian Brody’s scientist has sex with a mutant female species he created from animal/human DNA, which later  transforms into an aggressive male form that ends up  raping and inseminating his female partner. In the classic horror flick the Fly, a man-fly hybrid makes a normal female pregnant with his offspring. The list of ‘deviant’  abominations that defile the sacred union between one man and one woman is endless, whether it’s man-insect, man-alien, or man-pie intercourse.

Would screening images of a writhing mass of naked bodies in an erotic scrum trigger a wave of promiscuity and STDs among Singaporeans? Perhaps ‘group sex’, in the eyes of the censors, differentiates an ‘erotic’ movie from a ‘pornographic’ one, or has lurid suggestions of satanic cult behaviour based on the ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ experience. It’s been more than a dozen years of the censors slapping bans on such scenes, while we allow ultraviolence to fester to more extreme depths of depravity. If Singaporeans no longer shudder at the thought of pre-pubescent girls plying the flesh trade or even incest,  I doubt they would bat an eyelid at a menage a trois. In fact, seeing a bunch of kids slaughter each other in the Hunger Games is more chilling to me than them huddling naked in a bathtub and scrubbing each other suggestively with sponges.

In fact, groupies already exist, with or without MDA’s interventions. A China Daily report in 2006 exposed local swinger clubs which engage in partner swapping and group sex. The timing of this decision to ban Shame is worth scoffing at too, considering how we’ve been hit lately by a spate of sex scandals involving underaged prostitutes and women who sleep with high ranking officials, and here we are getting all worked up over a flesh sandwich when escorts here are paid according to specific, often demeaning, acts defined only by acronyms. I doubt the scene in Shame would be classified, in porn parlance, as a ‘gangbang’, and as expected this ban has intensified my interest in watching it, or at least trying to download the film online, something that everyone else who knows about the ban WILL do, and the same people who decimate great films like these talk about combating movie piracy…

But here’s the next best thing for the rest of us who refuse to download Shame because we value the film-maker’s work, even if our censors entice us to do so by blasting a cold shower on this steamy film: A banned poster of the movie itself.

I wonder who shot this

Filed under: 2000s, 2011, 2012, Censors, Film, Nudity, Sex, Violence | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

Cosplay Chapel party scandalous to the Church

Posted on April 7, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Chapel party at Chijmes called off’, 3 April 2012, article in asiaone.com

A controversial party to be held at Chijmes this Saturday has been called off.

…The party, which was to be held on Black Saturday, had raised eyebrows due to the provocative images used to promote it. In one image, two young women were dressed in skimpy nun-like habits. While habits normally cover the whole leg, the outfits the women wore were shorter than mid-thigh length.

It was posted on the Facebook page, with the caption “A sneak peek at what some of our girls will be wearing on the 7th of April.” The page also featured an event poster, with a woman also dressed in a habit-like outfit.

In an earlier my paper report, Archbishop Nicholas Chia of the Catholic Church in Singapore said that the event “is scandalous to the Church” and that “such events should not be held in a chapel”.

Chijmes, which was established in 1854, was previously the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus before a $100-million restoration project transformed it into a lifestyle destination in 1996.

According to the my paper report, Creative Insurgence’s director, Mr Aaghir Yadav, said they had taken down the images and apologised to the Catholic church.

He also said the women in the photos are friends of his in cosplay costumes. He denied that there was any religious symbolism in the photos. Mr Yadav also claimed that the party was named because of its location, Chijmes.

Chijmes’ management, however, has said that it strongly disapproves events held there that are ‘illegal and immoral in nature and/or disrespectful of religions, faiths and races’.

Cover art for Lady Gaga's next album

Blasphemy aside, cosplaying as a nun is almost as fun as dressing up as your school principal. Didn’t these theme party organisers learn from the related CHIJ school crest outrage some months back? Giving the excuse that there was no intended ‘religious symbolism’ in wearing a habit with thighs exposed is like putting on a Manchester United jersey and saying you’re ‘not really a fan of EPL’. Portraying a convent or nunnery as a sleazy boudoir where habits are fetishised to schoolgirl panty proportions is the stuff of porn, not a ‘costume party’. I’m no expert in cosplay, but I thought this meme was the realm of mythical, video game and manga characters, not mimicking St Teresa of Avila in various states of ecstasy. Today, you could go to any cosplay party dressed as an Indian chief and not be laughed at because fans are too young to remember the Village People. Well, I do.

The original Cosplayers

Yet, despite CHIJMES’ firm stance against such kinky sacrilege, the management has no qualms about sexy maid costumes at the COSAFE cafe currently residing in the ex-convent’s premises as we speak. Perhaps if the ‘Chapel party’ opted for lacy aprons and phallic, tickly pink feather-dusters instead of abusing religious attire they wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. And it looks far sexier than an undersized habit too.

Maid to order

Profane parties aside, depictions of nuns in pop culture have gotten diehard Catholics’ robes in a twist. In her music video for Alejandro, Lady Gaga wore a habit and little else, including what appears to be a red inverted cross near her crotch. They still play the song on radio, by the way.

Nun this way

Gaga was clearly inspired by Madonna, who started the ball rolling with ‘church erotica’ in her Like A Prayer video, where divine rapture was confused with a very earthly, dirty emotion that most of us who don’t wear habits or crucifixes are more familiar with: Desire. Mixing such elements have stirred controversy in films since the fifties, where nuns were depicted doing anything other than praying or staying celibate. A common theme was girls being submitted to the convent against their will, or joining for other awful reasons that have nothing to do with God; In ‘The Nun’s Story‘, Audrey Hepburn dons the habit after a failed love affair but changes her mind later, which prompted church leaders to condemn the film for depicting religious life as being ‘too gloomy’ (Whoopi Goldberg’s Sister Act and of course, the Sound of Music, would suggest the exact opposite).

In  La Religeuse (1966), a film based on a Denis Diderot novel, a nun was seduced by her Mother Superior and raped by a monk. 2003′s the Magdalene Sisters featured women forced into sisterhood by their parents for  ‘immoral’ behaviour.  God-fearing parents criticised the release of the 1985 film Agnes of God, which was accused of promoting violence, lesbianism and incest when it was mainly about a nun mysteriously giving birth. In 2006, 3 Needles was screened here on World Aids Day, a film about a desperate nun exchanging sex for favours to protect South Africans. In Spy Hard, comic legend Leslie Nielsen cross-dresses as a nun and peeks under habits to find lacy pantyhose. He also knocks out gun-totting Sisters in the clip below.

One can cite countless references, both tongue-in-cheek and sinister, of convent culture. But thanks to a self-righteous horde of Facebook-bred vigilantes, we have  somehow gotten the POLICE involved, when they  really should be out there catching thieves, murderers and gangsters instead of clamping down on mini-skirt habits and heretical orgies.  Our cops are supposed to handcuff violent criminals and solve crimes, not go round thumping sinners with biblical verse like the Inquisition. At this rate, I wonder if a police report would be made if men go to a ‘Temple Party’ dressed as topless hunk-monks, or women to a ‘Mosque party’ dressed as belly-dancing Princess Jasmines.

Filed under: 1980s, 2000s, 1960s, Film, 1950s, Nudity, Sex, Advertisements, Censors, Police officers, Racism, Nightspots, Religion, 2012 | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Brother Cane’s tofu-whipping and pubes-snipping

Posted on February 18, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Cane re-enactment draws debate’ 16 Dec 2012, article by Corrie Tan, Life! and ‘Why show Brother Cane again?’, 18 Feb 2012, Life! Mailbag,

…Artist and film-maker Loo Zihan, 28, is re-enacting Brother Cane, a 1993 performance by Josef Ng which protested the arrests of 12 men during an anti-gay operation in 1992. The performance involved Ng whipping pieces of tofu and packets of red liquid on tiles, burning himself with a cigarette and snipping his pubic hair with his back to the audience.

The original performance ignited a public debate over obscenity in performance art here, as well as a 10-year restriction of the licensing and funding of performance art in Singapore.

…Some questioned the purpose of the re-enactment and whether it was merely riding on the controversy sparked by the original work. There were also concerns about how a new audience might experience the work.

Singapore-based British artist James Holdsworth, 57, told Life!: ‘I think it’s a publicity stunt and I’m quite disturbed by it.’

…(Pek Li Sng): The Brother Cane re-enactment should not be allowed (Cane Re-enactment Draws Debate, Life!, Feb 16). Cutting pubic hair again? What is it trying to show?

There is absolutely no meaning in performing such an act. It is so silly, weird and crude. Performance should be something that one can enjoy and not cringe with embarrassment when watched.

Smashing Tofus

The original ‘Brother Cane’ in 1993 was showcased publicly at Parkway Parade and landed Josef Ng, an ex Navy sergeant, on an obscenity charge for exposing his buttocks. ‘Buttocks’ also happen to be a motif for Amanda Heng’s ‘SinGirl’ project which featured a montage of women’s bums back in 2010. You don’t even have to be a controversial artist to wiggle some flesh in public these days, what with a spate of unnecesary nudity hitting the country in the same year.  In the age of Youtube where anyone can film themselves making a booger salad for lunch or self-immolating and call it ‘protest-art’, snipping your pubic hair with or without clothes doesn’t seem very shocking anymore. And what a waste of perfectly edible tofu.

Erotica and art have been intertwined ever since early man constructed grossly exaggerated female figurines out of rocks and clay. Today, you can pay $250 just to take  photo with ‘nude artist’ T Venkenna. Cashing in on one’s buttocks is small change in comparison.

Sitting nude as art

Loo isn’t the first artist to replicate ‘Brother Cane’. In 2007, a play about homegrown pornstar Annabel Chong titled ’251′ featured actress Cynthia Lee Macquarrie paying ‘homage’ to Josef’s tofu-bashing. ’251′ is also the number of men that Annabel claimed to have non-stop sex with, which some, including the porn starlet herself, may label as a gritty no-holds-barred ‘performance’. Mimicry and ‘cannibalising’ the works of others, whether in the form of DJ sampling, hoax paintings, remixes, mash-ups,  ‘shot-for-shot’ movie remakes like Gus Van Sant’s version of ‘Psycho’,  have existed for as long as humans started copying and inspiring each other. Once upon a time someone decided to destroy a guitar at the finale of a rock concert, and this defiant ‘performance’ was subsequently replicated by band frontmen the world over. When it comes to brash punk/rock musicians, no one ever needs to ask WHY they do crazy stuff. Ozzy Osbourne once bit the head off a live bat. Rammstein lights their keyboards on fire. Artists, on the other hand, have some explaining to do, and I get the impression that some take their work so seriously that they deem re-enactments OK but parodies unacceptable. Speaking of parodies, this tofu-caning business reminds me remotely of the clip below.

Tofu or not tofu

Along with Josef in 1993, an artist named Shannon Tham self-induced vomitting and then poured his puke all over himself, which appears to be the stuff of freak porn, not to mention dangerous and unsanitary. It was actually a protest against ‘The New Paper’ for unfair reporting, a copy of which Shannon burnt and drank the ashes before a nauseous finale. You could at least see the point of what Shannon did, even if it seemed a bit drastic. Most people who don’t like what they read in the papers merely throw it away, spit on it, or use it for the cat litter box. The line between ‘performance’ in the traditional sense of ‘entertaining’ and creative ‘protest’ has been blurred; I could set up an act in town biting off my own armpit hair in protest of discrimination against hairy people, but without the label of ‘performance art’, it would just be seen as a silly gimmick.  Or viral advertising for hair removal cream. Some viewers may be concerned enough to report that a patient from IMH had escaped.

In 1992, Vincent Leow drank his own urine as part of a performance piece. According to his website, ‘the art gesture was later elaborated upon through the packing and sale of bottles of urine – epitomizing Leow’s artful handling of ‘underground, subversive’ practices with a savvy understanding of the mechanics of market consumption and its desire for and absorption of infamy, scandal and controversy‘.  Blah-blah. If you take away the fancy conceptualisation behind consuming your own excrement, or the ‘artist’ away from the ‘act’, it becomes not so much a ‘gesture’ or ‘statement’; but a wacky Jackass stunt or a ragging forfeit played  out by drunk campus kids. Those who flock to watch gory movies just to squirm in their seats are probably the same lot who’d be fascinated by artists squeezing unmentionables out of their orifices.  If an audience has been moved in some way by the artist’s antics, be it tears,  nostalgia, goosebumps or a grimace with reflex crossing of legs, then the artist has succeeded. Still, it’s all been done before, and the torture-art circle needs something fresh and unflinching to wow fans already attuned to mind-numbing degradation. Today it could be pube-snipping, tomorrow someone may neuter himself with a razor blade.

Some forms of performance art, if not known for vulgar display of bodies and bodily functions, are also steeped in violence and masochism. In last year’s ‘Future of Imagination 7′, Loo Zihan reenacted another Josef Ng work called ‘Don’t Go Swimming, It’s Not Safe’, in which he asked a random audience member to hit him with a violin. Loo then proceeded to hurl himself at walls, which is exactly what the folks at JackAss do. It appears that in order to succeed as a ‘performance artist’, you need to score some brutality points to bring the meaning of ‘tortured artist’ to a whole new level. Like how Jackie Chan collects broken bones, battle scars and concussions throughout his career as an international action star.

Walling is the new planking

In 2007, vegetarian artist Simon Birch showcased a multimedia art show which featured a scene of himself, dressed as a SAMURAI, killing a pig with a sword. A gruesome act which was ‘conceptually necessary’ to depict the theme of death. I just hope someone made a good meal of the poor creature.  You can also poke needles on butterfly wings and revolve an entire exhibition around it. I’m not sure how ‘conceptually necessary’ snipping your pubic hair is. I ‘get’ the tofu analogy (white and soft i.e innocent), but giving your naughty bits a trim defies explanation. Or as the swanky art elite would tell me: ‘Why don’t you just go home to your Michael Bay DVD collection, you unsophisticated pilgrim?’

Whatever.  Performances which involve artists maiming themselves with household appliances or intentionally falling down should come with a ‘Don’t try this at home’ warning and a standby medical squad.  If your motivation as an art-goer is to watch people do crazy stunts professionally for an audience, you can get your torture-fix from the comfort of home in front of the computer without spending a single cent. You’d just have to settle with the lack of ‘participation’, ‘immersion’,  ‘interpretation’ or ‘meaning’ that comes with ‘performance art’.

Filed under: 1990s, 2010, 2011, 2012, Art, Censors, Festivals, Justice system/Lawsuits, Sex, Violence | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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