Exam results are the most stressful thing in the world. A simple alphabet and a number determines [sic] what school you go to, what courses you can take, and what jobs you end up with later in life. It's a turning point you have no control over.Mui Ee (Melody Chen), "The Teenage Textbook Movie" (1998) … Continue reading “I Not Stupid” (2002)/ “Lion Mums” (2015-) – An Education Unsaid
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“Nobody” (2018): The Pontianak – A Figure of Disassembling Feminine Chaos
Content Warning: Misogyny, Sexual Violence “It is said that analyzing pleasure, or beauty, destroys it.”Laura Mulvey On Visual Pleasure Typically, the cinema is a playground for the fantasies of men. According to film theorist Laura Mulvey, women are overwhelmingly objectified on the Hollywood screen - they are visual objects for the consumption of their male … Continue reading “Nobody” (2018): The Pontianak – A Figure of Disassembling Feminine Chaos
“Phua Chu Kang”(1997-2007) and the Maleness of Singaporean National Identity
Content Warning: Homophobia Ask anyone who's lived through the nineties for the television series that best represents Singapore, and many might respond with Phua Chu Kang (1997-2007). Phua Chu Kang, a sitcom featuring its eponymous Singlish-slinging contractor (Gurmit Singh), is so deeply tied with this generation's idea of Singaporeanness that Chu Kang has become shorthand … Continue reading “Phua Chu Kang”(1997-2007) and the Maleness of Singaporean National Identity
“Have You Ever Wondered?” Stories, Belief and Identity in “23:59” (2011)
Content Warning: Death, Violence, Implied Homophobia/Transmisogyny What do a country and the army have in common? Both are held together by stories. When someone says that they feel like part of a larger body - say, the shared experience of National Service or a sense of Singaporeanness - their sense of insidership is produced through … Continue reading “Have You Ever Wondered?” Stories, Belief and Identity in “23:59” (2011)
Traumatic Ruptures: “Demons” by Daniel Hui (2018)
Content Warning: Sexual Violence, Trauma Something unspeakable lurks beneath the surface of Demons. Vicki (Vicki Yang), an aspiring actress, can't find the words to express herself during a recruitment interview with theatre director Daniel (Glen Goei). In the absence of speech, the camera focuses - in almost obscenely close detail - on the tremor in … Continue reading Traumatic Ruptures: “Demons” by Daniel Hui (2018)
On Cultural Identity
[C]ultural identity is not a fixed essence at all, lying unchanged outside history and culture. It is not some universal and transcendental spirit inside us on which history has made no fundamental mark. It is not once-and-for-all. It is not a fixed origin to which we can make some final and absolute Return. Of course, … Continue reading On Cultural Identity
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