Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Is censorship doing our society more bad than good? In an increasingly liberal Singapore, what constitutes pornography and what constitutes art?
Engage in a Live webchat with director Loretta Chen about the controversial themes of her new play, 251, inspired by the infamous story of Annabel Chong, who burst into history in 1994 in a world-record 10-hour gangbang with 251 men.
Log on to www.thestudios.com.sg on 28 Feb 07 (Wed), 8pm and join in the chat.
This discussion will be moderated by Audrey Wong, Co-Artistic Director of The Substation.
251 is presented by Toy Factory Productions in collaboration with Esplanade as part of The Studios.
For more goofy pics of us, click here.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
This was my winning entry:
“Thanks, Singapore – the experiment ends now.”
Others that I sent in include:
Singapore colonises Britain. Speak good Singlish.
LKY Clones himself. Global domination!
Actually, Soon Juan, You’re the Messiah
Fuzzy logic air-conditioners take revenge!
“I loved you, Kuan Yew. Goodbye.” [my favourite]
Bomoh creates zombie army: no NS!
Haw flake ingredient: soylent green.
They said I was gifted, once.
Huh? You mean I’m a robot?
Astronomy’s a hoax: green cheese, anyone?
“Guess whose cock you sucked, Papa!”
Don’t be silly, pontianaks don’t exi-
Lesbian pontianak! Quick, throw your tampons!
Sentosa’s independent! (Led by waxwork LKY)
I know, it really was a case of data-bombing. So sue me. Actually, sue them. It's been almost two weeks since they uploaded the results and they still haven't e-mailed me - nor did they print my name in the report. (shrug)
UPDATE: They've made the updates and sent me my $50 Books Actually voucher. Hooray! (Apparently they wrote and dated the article about a week before uploading it, so their sin of forgetfulness is not quite so grievous.)
In other news, I watched Game Play and Secret Love in Peach Blossom Garden at the Esplanade today. Both very good Chinese plays with less than comely titles. Of course, I'm not going to review either of them because I didn't get a press ticket, but I am pasting a first impression of the ETCeteras' Game Play on the Flying Inkpot.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Seriously. My blog went from 21 reads on Tuesday to 564 on Wednesday. And that was for a badly formatted post with no pictures, mostly plagiarised from Alf. Scared already!!!
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
But of course, I had to fill in everything that happened in 2005 and 2006. And WOW. In 2006, us artists and activists really got shafted. And this isn't even counting minor developments like how the Singapore Biennale discouraged Zai Kuning from doing his exhibit on the criticism of Lee Kuan Yew, or how SIA made Brian Gothong Tan slap an explanatory note on his work to show he wasn't defaming Singapore Girl stewardesses.
Just take a look:
Just take a look:
UPDATED: 12 February 2010. Updating the years 1969, 1970 and 2009. I am currently very confused about whether to include prosecutions of sedition based on religious hate speech.
UPDATED: 12 February 2010. Updating the years 1969, 1970 and 2009. I am currently very confused about whether to include prosecutions of sedition based on religious hate speech.
- 2009: Blogger, humorist and correspondent Mr Brown writes an article on SingTel portal inSing.com, criticising the government's response to heavy flooding in Bukit Timah. After criticism from the Ministry of Environment, See here.
- 2009: Freelance British journalist Ben Bland applies to renew his employment visa but is unexpectedly rejected after a year of work as a foreign correspondent in Singapore. The government s to disclose its reasons despite repeated requests and an appeal from the British High Commission. The Committee to Protect Journalists claims that it "shows the Singapore government's intolerance of independent and critical reporting", and that Bland is just "the latest on a long list of foreign journalists who have been targeted by the government for their news coverage". Bland himself notes: "Although I reported on some sensitive issues such as rising crime, the ageing population and business links with Burma, I did not break any of the taboos that normally lead to a government reprisal – namely criticising Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's founding father, or his son, the prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong." See here.
- 2009: Poet/playwright Ng Yi-Sheng is dropped from the Creative Arts Programme mentorship scheme under puzzling circumstances. See here.
- 2009: The Singapore International Film Festival has two films banned and four films withdrawn after cuts. Respectively, they are Auraeus Solito's "Boy" (for normalising "homosexuality"), Natalie Assouline's "Shahida (Brides of Allah)" (for its "pro-terrorism" stance), Kan Lume's "Females Games", Edwin's "Blind Pig Who Wants To Fly", Lav Diaz's "Melancholia" and Patrik Eriksson's "An Extraordinary Study of Human Degradation". See here.
- 2008: After opposition politician Dr Chee Soon Juan visits Nanyang Technological University to hand out flyers, student journalists at The Nanyang Chronicle write a news article on the unexpected visit. NTU President Su Guaning pulls the article a day before publication. A video news segment on the visit by The Nanyang Spectrum is also pulled off the air by the university's corporate communications department after only three days of being available online. Students respond to the censorship with a protest at Speakers' Corner. See here and here.
- 2008: Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts Lee Boon Yang says that the Films Act will be amended, thus allowing for the screening of certain political films. See here. The first films to be passed under the amended act are six short documentaries by Ho Choon Hiong. Still off-limits are the making or distribution of party political films, including ads by parties or other political organizations or footage distorted to create a slanted impression. See here.
- 2008: MDA officers and plainclothes police attempt to interrupt a private screening of Seelan Palay's documentary "One Nation Under Lee", held at the Tulip Room at the Peninsular Excelsior Hotel. They are only granted access after the 45-minute film has finished airing, whereupon they seize the film on the grounds that it has not been submitted for classifcation. The documentary in question is a criticism of Lee Kuan Yew's administration of Singapore as Prime Minister. See here.
- 2008: Starhub Cable Vision is fined S$10,000 after its Mandarin MTV channel airs a commercial for the song "Silly Child" by Taiwanese pop star Olivia Yan. The commercial, aired on 26 and 28 November, features a kiss between two women, which the MDA sees as condoning homosexuality. See here. Similarly, Mediacorp gets a $15,ooo fine for airing an episode of the American home improvement reality show "Find and Design", in which a gay male couple are shown searching for furniture in a garage sale with their adopted son. See here.
- 2008: Four documentaries are banned from the Singapore Film Festival. Two are claimed to "portray terrorist organizations in a positive light": Bassam Haddad’s "Arabs and Terrorism", about opposing views on political terror, and Mano Khalil’s "David the Tolhildan", which follows the son of a former Swiss Federal Supreme Court president who joined the Kurdish armed independence movement PKK. The other two are Ryuichi Hiroki’s "Bakushi", a portrayal of Japanese rope bondage, and Parvez Sharma’s "A Jihad for Love" (above), in which a gay Muslim filmmaker talks to openly gay and lesbian Muslims in 12 countries. See here.
- 2008: The Complaints Choir Project is invited to Singapore as part of the M1 Fringe Festival. The Finnish group goes from country to country asking the public to submit random complaints about their lives, then combines the text of the complaints into playful songs. In Singapore, the MDA passes the text of the songs without cuts - complaints range from irritation at neighbours' overuse of karaoke to mild jibes at CPF. However, police inform the organisers a few days before the show that no foreigners will be allowed to perform - a big problem, since the conductor is Malaysian, and the organisers and several other singers are foreign. The group decides to cancel the free public shows and stage a private, invitation-only performance at the Arts House, then uploads the video onto Youtube. Blogger Choo Zheng Xi, 22, who attends one of the private performances, notesthe irony of the MDA’s move: "They didn’t want foreigners to discuss domestic matters, and now this will be broadcast to the world."
See here, here, here and here for video of Arts House performance.
- 2007: At the Singapore Design Festival's 20/20 exhibition at the National Library, Brian Gothong Tan's video installation is pulled on opening night. Among the video art works and TV advertisements he had directed, Tan had included a mockup trailer for his planned feature film Invisible Children, which includes a shots of a girl playing a Singapore Airlines stewardess smoking cigarettes and snorting cocaine. SIA is famously protective of the image of the "Singapore Girl" and members of its board are also involved with Design Festival management.
- 2007: The MDA's Board of Film Censors announces that it will ban the soon-to-be-released Xbox video game Mass Effect II due to the presence of a scene of lesbian intimacy (specifically, one in which a female spaceship commander makes out with a female alien). Amidst media coverage, the decision is reversed, but reports note that two other video games have been banned earlier in the year: "God of War II" for nudity and "The Darkness" for excessive violence and religiously offensive expletives.
- 2007: Two minutes of material are cut from Ekachai Uekrongtham's Pleasure Factory, a feature film set in Singapore's red-light district of Geylang. These include a homosexual sex sequence, a scene where a character masturbates in the nude to prepare himself for sex, and a scene where a girl performs oral sex on a customer - these actions still clearly occur, but their content is toned down by the removal of the most graphic material. Uekrongtham is not perturbed by this: he had feared that the film would actually be completely banned. See here.
- 2007: Taiwanese director Lee Ang releases his critically acclaimed film Lust, Caution. Aware of our reputation for sexual prudishness, distributors Buena Vista International submit a censored version to the MDA: the same version screened in China and Malaysia, with nine minutes of sexually explicit scenes cut. This version of the film is rated NC (16) and receives no cuts from the Board of Censors. However, Singapore filmgoers raise an outcry over the fact that they are unable to view the original film: many boycott the censored version. In the midst of this, the Straits Times clarifies that many films are pre-emptively censored by distributors before hitting the Singapore market. Buena Vista International eventually agrees to release the uncensored version of the film, one month after the initial release of the cut version. This version is passed with no cuts by the MDA and rated RA(21). See here.
- 2007: The National Arts Council drops an essay by Jason Wee from the catalogue of Raised, an exhibition on foreign workers, featured as part of the biannual Singapore Art Show. The essay made reference to Operation Spectrum, a series of mass arrests of religious workers and activists in 1987. NAC says the article "was inappropriate in the context of the project theme and the rest of the catalogue contents", and that it "is helping Jason Wee to explore a more suitable platform to publish his article." To date, the article has not been published. See here and here.
- 2007: The MDA bans Cut Sleeve Boys, a London film on gay British-Chinese men, starring Singapore-born actor (and blogger) Steven Lim. See here.
- 2007: At the IndigNation Pride Festival, ten items are banned by the MDA and police authorities: 1) Alex Au's "Kissing", a photographic series of same-sex couples kissing; 2) a pencil drawing of copulating lesbians by Genevieve Chua at the Idiosyncrasies art exhibition; 3) a reading of my short story "Lee Low Tar"; 4) a film screening of "Paper Dolls"; 5) a film screening of "The Laramie Project"; 6) "In the Pink", a picnic at Botanical Gardens (banned by National Parks Board); 7) "The Pink Run", a 5km run/walk at Botanical Gardens organised by ADLUS; 8) a treasure hunt by ADLUS; 9) a talk by law professor Dr Douglas Sanders on homosexuality and Asian law; and 10) an autobiographical talk by gay Christian leader Troy Perry. Several events continue in an altered capacity: Alex Au gives several slideshow presentations on the ban of his display; the picnic and ADLUS events occur in a non-organised unofficial manner; Troy Perry attends his event as an audience member as a Singaporean speaker reads aloud from his book and I distribute copies of my short story, dress up as an MDA official and invite audience members to flog me.
- 2007: The MDA officially bans Martyn See's Said Zahari's 17 Years, a short documentary on the imprisonment of Said Zahari, a former editor of the newspaper Utusan Melayu and long-term political detainee of Singapore. Strangely, MDA had previously officially rated the film PG and passed it without cuts for the 19th Singapore Film Festival in April 2006, but the screening was cancelled mysteriously four days before release. The Asian Film Archive made a second application to screen the film as part of The Substation’s 6th Asian Film Symposium in September. Once again, the film was passed clean with a PG rating, but in a closed-door meeting, the MDA advised representatives of both The Substation and the Asian Film Archive that screening of the film might lead to defamatory lawsuits. The ban would only be confirmed a year later, following a third application for an exhibition licence by See himself. On 10 April 2007, the film was officially banned by MICA under Section 35(1) of the Films Act, which grants the Minister unilateral power to ‘prohibit the possession or distribution of any film contrary to public interest’. See was required to surrender all copies of the film in his possession before the ban took effect on 12 April. By this time, however, the film had been shown at several public screenings abroad and an unknown third party had uploaded a bootleg copy of the film onto the Internet. See here.
- 2007: The MDA bans Solos from the Singapore Film Festival. Directed by Kan Lume and Loo Zihan, the movie deals with a man and a boy and his mother as they struggle with their feelings and desire for each other. The Board of Film Censors takes issue with the “prolonged and explicit homosexual lovemaking scenes including scenes of oral sex and threesome sex”. It is set to premiere at the Busan Film Festival, two years after its filming. See here.
- 2007: SooBin Art Gallery opens a month-long exhibition showcasing the oil paintings of female Beijing artist Chen Xi. The centrepiece was to have been Fly Onto Clouds, a 4-metre high image of a nude woman covered with soapsuds, standing against a black backdrop with a parrot flying over her head, but the painting is deemed too sexually provocative by MDA, which bars the gallery from displaying the work in full public view at the gallery’s location at the ground-floor atrium of the MICA Building. Gallery owner Chua Soo Bin was able to display the work in the atrium for only a few hours during its reception, after which it is turned around to face the wall, then kept in the gallery office viewable upon request by prospective buyers. The painting was eventually sold to an unnamed Singaporean purchaser for S$92,000 (approximately US$60,000).
bans the DVD of Madonna's The Confessions Tour: Live from London, as it features the singer performing the ballad Live To Tell while suspended from a giant mirrored cross, on grounds that it is religiously insulting to Christians. The MDA
- 2006: The MDA bans SuperStar, a book of Asian celebrity photographs by internationally-acclaimed Singapore-born photographer Leslie Kee. The rationale given is that the book features full frontal male nudity, revealing genitals and pubic hair. Approximately 10% of the 640-page book is comprised of nudes (including Aaron Kwok, Daniel Wu and Roy Chiu); other portraits (such as those of Zhang Ziyi, Shu Qi, Faye Wong and Tony Jaa) are clothed. Sales of the book (at $400 apiece) were aimed at raising money for tsunami relief.
For more information, click here and here.
- 2006: MDA imposes a fine of $10,000 on Singapore's only cable television operator, Starhub Cable Vision (SCV), for airing scenes of lesbian sex and bondage in the American reality TV show Cheater, which documents private investigations of people who are in relationships. This particular episode had featured a woman who cheats on her boyfriend with another woman and aired at midnight from 22 to 26 May and again on 29 August with explicit scenes pixellated. MDA not only complained that ‘the visuals were deemed to be sexually suggestive and offensive to good taste and decency’, but also found that ‘the programme also promotes lesbianism as a lifestyle, which breaches the Programme Code’, as the woman is able to persuade her boyfriend to accept her lifestyle and engage in threesomes. SCV representatives communicated that they were disappointed with MDA's decision, and noted that no problems had arisen when the episode was aired in China, India and Indonesia.
- 2006: The Far Eastern Economic Review publishes a sympathetic interview with opposition party leader Chee Soon Juan. MM Lee Kuan Yew and PM Lee Hsien Loong sue FEER for defamation, claiming the Review had alleged they were corrupt. Despite the fact that the Review is a foreign Hong Kong-based journal with no assets in Singapore, the government demands that FEER appoint a legal representative within the Singapore and pay a S$200,000 security bond. After FEER refuses to comply with these regulations, the government bans the sale and distribution of the journal criminalises the act of subscribing to the journal. The editor responds in October by publishing a special edition of FEER, focussing on the shortcomings of
's socioeconomic success, announcing their willingness to defend themselves in court. Singapore
For more information, click here.
- 2006: The IMF and World Bank Meetings are held in
. Due to local law, for the first time in the history of the meetings, outdoor demonstrations are banned. Indoor demonstrations are only allowed within an area in Singapore spanning 14m by 8m. 27 accredited protesters are denied entry to Suntec City and are forced to leave the country as police claim they have been involved in violent demonstrations; when WB/IMF officials object, 22 of these 27 are eventually permitted to enter the country. As IMF and WB traditionally seek to engage with civil society organisations to address issues of global justice, IMF President Paul Wolfowitz condemns Singapore's actions as authoritarian, saying they are "going back on an explicit agreement", making their organisation look bad, and that these actions will have an impact on future decisions over whether to hold conferences in Singapore. Singapore
- 2006: At the time of the IMF meetings, three local activists, including the 20 year-old guitarist Seelan Palay, are detained for two days and have their computers seized for planning to distribute anti-globalisation flyers. They are investigated under the Printing and Processing Materials Act, which states that those in posession of materials that contain "any incitement to violence or counselling disobedience to the law" could be jailed up to 3 years, fined, or both. Police also confiscate flyers from opposition politician Chee Soon Juan and his sister Chee Siok Chin, who were distributing them to advertise an Empower Singaporeans Rally and March.
Also see Palay's 400 Frowns website, sometimes mistakenly identified as the reason for his detention.
- 2006: Political podcasting and videocasting is banned during the election period. All bloggers who desire to "persistently propagate, promote or circulate political issues relating to
" are required to register with the MDA. Nonetheless, the Internet becomes a strong force for political discussion during this period, and no penalties are suffered when the "Persistently non-political podcast" of the mrbrown show satirises the PAP's treatment of opposition candidate James Gomez. Singapore
- 2006: Smegma, an English-language play by Agni Kootthu (Theatre of Fire) is denied performance in a strange sequence of events. Despite the issuance of the licence on 1 August, the licence is suddenly annulled the MDA on 5 August, the day of performance. Their letter states: "After careful consideration, we find that the play undermines the values underpinning
's multi-racial, multi-religious society, and may negatively impact upon our bilateral relations with our neighbours. The play portrays Muslims in a negative light. Two playlets featuring Muslim terrorists are also provocative in view of the increased tension in the Singapore Middle East. In view of this, MDA has decided not to let the play be staged."
- 2006: On 30 June, blogger mrbrown writes an article, titled "S'poreans are fed, up with progress!", for his weekly opinion column in Today newspaper concerning the rising costs of living in Singapore. An official from MICA publishes a response letter on the same newspaper calling mrbrown a "partisan player" whose views "distort the truth". On July 6, the newspaper suspends mrbrown's column. To express protest, 30 people gather in
wearing brown in a "flashmob" demonstration orchestrated via SMS. Although this is in contravention of the Unlawful Assemblies Act, no-one is charged. Raffles City
- 2006: Filmmakers Colin Goh and Woo Yen Yen are forced to remove trailers of Singapore Dreaming from television due to their heavy use of Singlish. The Board of Censors also requires the filmmakers to dub over all Hokkien vulgarities from the film. Goh points out to the Board that
films with English vulgarities are often left uncut. When he asks, "How come I can swear in English, and I can’t swear in a local dialect?", he is told "Because then people might relate to your film better." Singapore
An interview here.
- 2006: At the annual IndigNation festival on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues, two artworks are censored by the MDA. Poet Koh Jee Leong is prevented from reading aloud a poem entitled "Come On, Straight Boy", on the grounds that it encourages gay sex. Samuel Woo and Alecia Neo's Shitlosophy: Everybody Shits, an installation work of Polaroid photographs portraying wide array of Singaporeans posing as if defecating on the toilet. Despite the absence of pornographic features from the work, the MDA places an R(A) rating on the exhibition and removes four photographs, including one of a policeman on the toilet, a woman wearing a school pinafore on the toilet, a basketballer wearing Chinese High PE clothes on the toilet, and two women in the same toilet cubicle.
For more information, click here.
- 2005: Singaporean director Martyn See is forced to remove his debut documentary film Singapore Rebel from the 2005 Singapore International Film Festival due to his violation of the Films Act section pertaining o political films. The film is a portrait of Chee Soon Juan and his acts of civil disobedience. See withdraws the film because he faces a $100,000 fine and a two-year jail sentence imposed by the Singapore Board of Censors.
- 2005: MDA withholds the license for the play Human Lefts by the Fun Stage until the group rewrites portions of their script; specifically, references to the death penalty. The play was originally written about the hanging of Shanmugam Murugesu and was to have been staged one day after the controversial execution of Australian national Nguyen Tuong Van.
- 2005: Hung at Dawn, a Substation concert in commemoration of former national athlete Shanmugam 'Sam' Murugesu, who was executed for marijuana dealing on Friday May 13. Police ban the use of Sam's face on publicity materials, as this would be tantamount to "glorifying" an "ex-convict" and "executed person". The Think Centre remarks, "This marks a new development in [the] Singapore history of censorship - that someone's image is censored because the person looks too nice."
Click here for more information.
- 2005: Chen Jianhao, a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is made to apologise and shut down his blog containing criticisms on government agency A*STAR, after its Chairman Philip Yeo threatens to sue for defamation. Also, three bloggers are arrested and charged under the Sedition Act for posting racist comments on the Internet; two are sentenced to imprisonment. The Teachers'
Unionannounces that it is offering legal assistance to teachers who want to take legal action against students who defame them on their blogs, after five students from SAJC were suspended for three days for allegedly "flaming" two teachers and a vice-principal on their blogs.
- 2005: The gay website www.fluffboy.com is banned in October. Another gay website, sgboy.com, is fined $5,000 by the MDA and forced to remove "offensive" content. Fluffboy was, according to some sources "a strong arm of the sgboy forum Eros and Orges", although a direct connection between the two sites was never proven. Fluffboy focussed on casual sex contacts, erotica, picture-sharing and commercial erotic photography, some of which involved underage boys, according to the MDA. It was impossible to fine this site as it was based on an overseas server.
Click here for more information.
- 2004: The Economist magazine pays US$230,000 in damages to PM Lee Hsien Loong and his father MM Lee Kuan Yew, and apologises "unreservedly" for an August article that noted "a whiff of nepotism" in the appointment of Lee's wife, Ho Ching, as chief executive of a government investment company.
- 2004: A new series of anti-gay initiatives ultimately culminates in the banning of the "Snowball" and "Nation" gay parties. Manazine, a gay-oriented magazine, is told to "tone down" its "overtly homosexual content" and subsequently ceases production. A forum called "The Lovers' Lecture Series" organized by The Fun Stage in conjunction with their gay play "Lovers' Words" is denied a license. The gay Taiwanese movie Formula 17 is banned.
- 2003: Royston Tan's short film 15, on teenage gangsters in
, suffers from 27 cuts from the Board of Censors. Among the objections raised are that scenes depict gangsterism, truancy, self-mutilation, delinquency, Hokkien rap and the Esplanade. T he film is eventually released with an R(A) rating. Tan's response is to create a short film, Cut (2004), parodying the MDA's policies cutting films. This is screened at the Film Festival, but is subsequently also banned. A low-resolution version may be seen at the following site; a higher-res version here. Singapore
- 2003 : Following a report in Today newspaper on the trauma of SM Lee Kuan Yew in
after his wife had suffered a stroke, an advisor to Mr Lee reprimands Today editor Mano Sabnani for allowing the report to be published. The young journalist who wrote the story, Val Chua, reportedly has her press card suspended. London
2003 : The police reject three applications by a White Ribbon Campaign group to stage outdoor events to mark the International Day Against Violence Against Women. Police first deny the group a permit for a march - and later turn down its application to hold a children's drama presentation - because such events may threaten "law and order." The group then apply to hold an outdoor children's choir performance, but that is also rejected.
2002: Spell #7's Kinda Hot is denied a licence. The play is planned as a guided tour through Little India, with actors leading small audience groups through the area. Phone conversations with the police reveal that there is concern that it breaches the rule against audiences "mingling" with the performers, which is usually applied for concert performances for fear of physical harm to either party. Phone conversations with the police reveal only that the work is seen as "very weird", and they have never heard of such a show before. The police decline to come down to watch rehearsals. Writer/performer Kaylene Tan adapts the work into the audiotour Desire Paths, while performer Ben Slater goes on to use the title for his book about the movie Saint Jack.
2002: Causeway, a Malay language play by Teater Ekamatra is censored by NAC, which expresses concern over a scene where a Malaysian character has the final say on a debate with a Singaporean character over the tudung issue, and also a scene where a boy remarks that his elderly relative "smells like a cow". In the case of the latter, the playwright Alfian Sa'at is asked whether such an act of insolence by an 8-year old character would "upset the Malay community". In fact, in Islam, it not cows but pigs which are taboo.
- 2002: A documentary on opposition politician J. B. Jeyaretnam, called A Vision of Persistence, is withdrawn from Singapore International Film Festival. Lecturers and students from Ngee Ann Polytechnic, who made the video, are warned that the Political Videos Act could be used against them. The film-makers make the decision not to be so persistent about screening the film.
- 2002: Escape from Paradise, a bestselling book by John and May Chu Harding, is withdrawn from bookstores and libraries. Enquiries reveal that the book was removed due to threats of legal action by Helen Yeo, a Singapore lawyer and wife of former Cabinet Minister Yeo Cheow Tong, as her firm had been mentioned in conjunction with an illegal house sale. The book describes May Chu's escape from an arranged marriage in Singapore and never mentions Helen Yeo directly. The Hardings respond by setting up vicious websites to destroy the credibility of Helen Yeo and her husband. Yeo never makes good on her threats to sue the Hardings. The book remains a top-seller for Singaporeans on Amazon.com.
Click here for more information.
2002 : UnionWorks' Mandarin radio station is fined $15,000 for adding "injections of personal remarks and observations by the newsreader, which were unwarranted in normal news bulletins," said the Singapore Broadcasting Authority (SBA).
2002: The zany Hollywood comedy Zoolander is banned in both Singapore and Malaysia for its fictional depiction of Malaysia as impoverished and dependent on sweatshops. The ban is lifted in 2006.
2001: Sintercom, a non-partisan Internet website set up by Tan Chong Kee, closes in response to the Singapore Broadcasting Authority demanding that the site be gazetted as a political website that "engages in the propagation, promotion and discussion of political issues relating to Singapore." Sintercom had been one of the first websites where Singaporeans could exchange political opinions.
- 2001 : Police arrest internet critic Robert Ho Chong at his home after being charged with an offence punishable by up to three years in jail. The 51-year-old former journalist posted articles before the general elections urging opposition candidates to enter polling stations, as did the PAP leaders in the 1997 elections. The police classified Ho's article as an attempt to incite violence or disobedience to the law that was likely to lead to a breach of peace.From here.
- 2000: Agni Koothu's English-language run of playwright/director Elangovan's play Talaq is banned for its depiction of marital violence in the Indian-Muslim community, despite the play having been staged successfully in Tamil in Dec 1998 and Feb 1999, with a bilingual edition of the script published with funding from NAC. The Public Entertainment Licensing Unit (PELU) has no objections to manager S. Thenmoli seeking to document the rehearsal at the Drama Centre, where she had made a paid booking. However, on her arrival, the then Executive Director of NAC calls the police in for alleged trespassing, resulting in a four-hour standoff ending in S. Thenmoli's arrest. The furor over the ban ultimately leads to a reform of arts licensing.
- 2000: National Arts Council pulls out funding for a production of Drama Box's Mandarin play Vaginalogue, protesting against the use of the image of a vagina in the play. Director Kok Heng Leun claims that the image was taken from a health brochure readily accessible to the public. The play describes women's relationships with their vaginas in the manner of the Vagina Monologues.
- 2000: Speaker’s Corner opens at
. The Straits Times reports that "the Speakers' Corner at Hong Lim Park Hong Lim Parkis a place where citizens can speak freely in public without having to apply for a Public Entertainment License", although speakers must apply for a permit at the nearby police post first and are forbidden from discussing racially or religiously seditious issues. A year later, James Gomez, commemorating the Corner’s first year anniversary, says, "The only thing which has grown at Speaker's Corner is the grass." Singapore
- 2000 : A Radio Corporation Singapore (RCS) radio report on a Human Rights Day event at Speakers Corner was re-edited after the first report went on air containing comments by JB Jeyaretnam and a letter by Kofi Annan. Shortly after, a spokesperson for RCS said that the journalist Fauziah Ibrahim had "resigned."
- 1999: sex.violence.blood.gore by The Necessary Stage, receives 3 cuts to the script for being "racially/religiously inflammatory". The decision by PELU is delivered one day before the play opens. The play is eventually performed and the censored portions photocopied and distributed to audience members. A copy of the letter from PELU is read out in the middle of the performance in a matter-of-fact tone.
- 1999: In the heat of the moment, lead guitarist and vocalist of the Boredphucks, San Singer (aka Sanjeev Veloo), utters a Hokkien expletive during a performance at the Youthpark. He is consequently charged with offending the decency of women and violating the Public Entertainment Act. Although the charges are later dropped, Singer, along with Boredphuck's bassist, JBoss, and drummer, Wayne Thunder are suddenly not permitted to play live in Singapore. When the ban is lifted later in the year, the group releases a playful album entitled "Banned in Da Singapura" and later moves to Melbourne where they achieve success under their new name, the Suns.
- 1999: The title of Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me is seen as too sexually graphic, and it is suggested that it be changed to "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shioked Me"; this decision is ultimately overturned in favour of the original title, after realisations that this had served merely to highlight to Singaporeans the meaning of "shag", and tarnished the meaning of the word "shiok".
- 1998: An amendment is made to 1981 Films Act with an introduction of the Political Videos Act, approved overwhelmingly in Parliament. In part, the vague and sweeping legislation defines a party political film as one "made by any person and directed toward any political end in
" or one that contains "partisan or biased references on any political matter." The act is only amended in 2008. Singapore
- 1998: Hong Kong artist Zunzi Wang's artwork, a political cartoon featuring caricatures of then-SM Lee and PM Goh, is removed by officials from the Singapore Art Museum and destroyed just prior to the opening of ARX5. The artist is not informed until the opening.
1998 : The Undesirable Publications Act is amended to include CD-ROMS, sound recordings, pictures, and computer-generated drawings, and to raise the fine for distribution or possession of banned publications. The Government also publicises the list of banned English-language publications, which is made up primarily of sexually-oriented materials, but also includes some religious and political materials.
Broadcasting Authority issues Internet Code of Practice. Singapore
begins to regulate Internet usage, officially blocking a "symbolic" list of 100 sites, dealing with pornography, illegal drugs and extreme religion, including www.playboy.com, www.playgirl.com and www.cannabis.com. According to the Internet Code of Practice, prohibited content which ISPs must block includes "that which depicts nudity in a titillating fashion; promotes sexual violence; shows people engaged in explicit sexual activity; advocates homosexuality or lesbianism; shows sexual activity by a person who is or appears to be less than 16 years old; depicts incest, bestiality, pedophilia, or necrophilia; depicts extreme violence or cruelty; or "glorifies, incites or endorses ethnic, racial or religious hatred, strife or intolerance." Actual blocking is minimal. Singapore
Click here for more information.
- 1995: American Academic Dr Christopher Lingle's article in the International Herald Tribune, "Smoke over Parts of Asia Obscures Some Profound Concerns," states that an unnamed country uses a "compliant judiciary to bankrupt opposition politicians". SM Lee Kuan Yew files a civil libel suit. IHT pays S$213,000 in damages plus costs for the civil suit. Lingle is separately ordered by the courts in April to pay S$71,000 in damages, plus costs, to the Senior Minister.
- 1995: Theatreworks stages a successful run of A Language of Their Own in
New York, but is banned from staging it in as it involves a sympathetic portrayal of gay Asian relationships. Written by Chay Yew, a Singapore Singaporeplaywright who migrated to , the play has become a canonical text in Asian-American studies. It is finally performed in America in 2006 and is nominated for Best Script in the Life! Theatre Awards. Singapore
- 1994: Performance artists Josef Ng and Shannon Tham create artworks in protest against the arrest of twelve homosexual men through police entrapment. As part of their performances, Ng trims his pubic hair and Tham vomits into a bucket before an audience. The New Paper reports on this and brands the performances as vulgar and obscene; as a result, performance art without a licence is banned until 2003, and Ng and Tham are not to be given licences to exhibit art in
. (Ng works today in Singapore Bangkok, and has since then presented artwork on at least one occasion without reprisals in , in 2000.) Singapore
Click here for more information.
- 1994: The Straits Times publishes a report associating The Necessary Stage, a theatre group in
, with Marxism. One of their dramatic techniques is forum theatre, invented by Marxist theatre activist Augusto Boal, which allows audience members to intervene in plays to solve characters' problems. Although The Necessary Stage is cleared of suspicions of using forum theatre for Marxist purposes, forum theatre is banned together with performance art. The Ministry of Home Affairs announces that the government "is concerned that new art forms such as "performance art" and "forum theatre" which have no scipt and encourage spontaneous audience participation pose dangers to public order, security and decency, and much greater difficulty to the licensing authority." (Forum Theatre has been revived by The Necessary Stage since 2001, without repercussions.) Singapore
- 1994: PM Goh Chok Tong publicly castigates author Catherine Lim for writing two politically critical articles in the Straits Times. The PM argues that if she wants to voice her opinion on politics she should join a political party. His invocation of the concept of an invisible "out-of-bounds marker", aka OB marker, becomes a by-word among Singaporeans when discussing the problem of never knowing precisely how much free speech one has.
- 1994: Eric Khoo's short film Pain wins him the Best Director and Special Achievement Awards at the Singapore International Film Festival. It is banned from public viewing due to its graphic violence. It tells the story of a sado-masochistic young man obsessed with pain, who commits a crime involving brutality and torture. Khoo goes on to find official recognition as a cinematic auteur; the ban on "Pain" is finally lifted at the 1998 Singapore Film Festival.
- 1994: All written materials published by the International Bible Students Association and the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society are banned. Both are publishing arms of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Although ownership of Bibles published by both groups has not been outlawed, in practice Bibles have been confiscated, e.g. in 2004, when eleven individuals were detained for attempting to bring JW publications into the country from Malaysia. In such cases, no charges were filed.
Click here for more information.
- 1993: Shortly before staging, the Ministry of Health withdraws its funding from Off Centre, a play by The Necessary Stage on mental illness. MOH claims that the play misrepresents the insane. TNS stages the play with its own funding, to critical acclaim. The play is now recognised as a landmark play in Singapore theatre and will be an O-level literature text from 2007 onwards.
- 1992: Four plays for Theatreworks's Theatre Carnival On The Hill are censored: Desmond Sim's Blood and Snow has 14 pages cut; Theresa [last name not given]'s Bra Sizes has all references to "breasts" cut; Robin Loon's Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder has its few "fucks" cut. Gung Ho Theatre's "Too Glam One", a commentary on the 1992 survey on morals, is banned for "crude and vulgar language". The Censorship Review Committee publishes a report on 18 October stating that plays need not be vetted if they are by "established" theatre groups. R(A) ratings for plays are also instituted, allowing for greater freedom of drama in front of a mature audience. During this period, Tan Tarn How's political satire The Lady of Soul and the Ultimate S-Machine is a subject of contention between Theatreworks and MITA/PELU - these government bodies object to the reference to Asian dragons in the prologue, the notion that Singapore is a nation without a soul, the apparent promotion of sex and Communism, the mockery of past committees as inefficient, the unfavourable portrayal of ministers and civil servants and their overseas trips, and the idea that politicians are more interested in winning votes than delivering on their promises. Approximately 1/20th of the plays is scheduled to be cut. However, on review by the Censorship Appeals Committee, the play is ultimately passed in its entirety.
- 1989: Singapore bans Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses for its "blasphemous" depiction of the prophet Muhammad. Singapore is not alone: India is the first country to ban the book in 1988, and the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issues a fatwa in 1989 commanding all Muslims to execute those involved in the writing and publishing of the book. The Japanese translator of the book is fatally stabbed; the Italian translator and the Norwegian publisher survive assassination attempts. Rushdie himself is forced to go into hiding.
- 1988: Lest the Demons Get to Me, a play by Russell Heng, is to be staged by Theatreworks for the Arts Festival Fringe, but its licence is not approved by the Ministry of Community Development, as "perhaps the theme of transvestism and transsexuality was not suitable for the event". It is a monologue from the perspective of an intellectual transvestite at the time of the destruction of the transgender bazaar culture. The play is given an uncut staged reading in 1992.
- 1986: Authorities close the Rainbow Lounge at Ming Arcade, Singapore’s first disco and live music venue, on the grounds that a member of the house band, Speedway, had made a risqué remark in Hokkien while onstage. The founder, Dr Goh Poh Seng, goes into self-exile in Canada, “disillusioned and hounded by authorities” for his efforts to push the boundaries of culture in conservative society. He does not visit Singapore again until Writers Festival 2007, where he is lauded for his legacy as the creator of Singapore’s first English-language novel. (See The Sunday Times, December 16, 2007, L6.)
- 1984: Japanese New Age musician Kitaro is barred from entry to Changi Airport because of his long hair; officials insist that in order to perform, he must first cut his hair (in keeping with a Singapore campaign from the 70s against long hair in men). Kitaro refuses and cancels his concert in Singapore.
- 1983: In the wake of the 1979 Speak Mandarin Campaign, local radio stations are barred from airing shows in Chinese dialect from 1 January onwards, destroying the culture of dialect storytellers such as Lee Dai Soh. (Television shows in dialect had been banned a year earlier; even Hong Kong Cantonese serials had to be dubbed in Mandarin before airing.) While the ban remains largely in place today, a brief news programme conducted in different dialects has been permitted for the benefit of the elderly.
- 1982: Cosmopolitan magazine is banned for "promoting sexual permissiveness". In 2004, the ban is lifted by the MDA, with the stipulation that the magazine must not contain exploitative sex or nudity, and must be shrink-wrapped with a label on its cover reading "unsuitable for children".
- 1982: Ten years prior to the ban on chewing gum, S Dhanabalan complains that HDB spent $75, 000 a year removing chewing gum wads from walls and floors in housing estates. Consequently, TV commercials for chewing gum are banned.
- 1981: In June, the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation screens the pilot episode of the award-winning American TV series Hill Street Blues. Minister of Culture S. Dhanabalan is shocked by the levels of violence and has the show taken off the air. See Straits Times, Feb 15, 1984, p1.
- 1980: The Hollywood film Saint Jack is banned. Based on Paul Theroux's novel of the same name on the sex trade in Singapore, the movie was filmed locally by director Peter Bogdanovich in 1978. It is eventually given a single late-night screening at the Singapore Film Festival, on grounds of its historical value, in 1997. The ban is lifted in 2006.
- 1976: Theatre director Kuo Pao Kun is stripped of his citizenship and detained without trial for alleged Communist activities in a sweeping anti-leftist purge. Over his 4 1/2 years of incarceration, Kuo studies Malay and reads Shakespeare. He is released in 1980 and re-emerges as a powerful force in Singapore drama, winning the Cultural Medallion in 1990.
- 1973: Despite the dwindling of the Singapore film industry following separation from Malaysia, Tony Yeow and James Sebastian direct Ring of Fury, a gripping kung fu action tale set in Singapore. The film is banned locally for its depiction of a gangsterism in Singapore, but gets screenings in Australia, Hong Kong and even Africa. Its first public screening in Singapore is in 2005. See here.
1971: A succession of crackdowns on newspapers. On May 2, four editors of the Nanyang Siang Pau, a reputed Mandarin newspaper, are arrested and imprisoned on charges of "fanning Chinese Chauvinism", "glamourising Communism" and for being involved in a "black operation". The newspaper will eventually cease to exist when merged with the Sin Chew Jit Poh on March 16, 1983 to form the current Lianhe Zaobao. On May 16, seven editorial staff resign from the Eastern Sun, an English-language newspaper, after Lee Kuan Yew alleges that "a certain English newspaper" is involved with black operations and is funded with loans from Communist China. On May 28, he Singapore Herald, an English-language tabloid newspaper, has its publishing license suspended by the government. The government accuses the paper of being involved in "black operations", of being funded by questionable foreign sources, of working up agitation against national policies and institutions, and of "taking on the government".
- 1970s: The poem My Country and My People by Lee Tzu Pheng is banned from performance on radio. Lee says the reason for the ban was never explained to her; the poem itself queries the idea of a unified national identity in favour of something more fragmented, and also calls Malay people "my gentle, brown-skinned neighbours". The work is published in her first collection of poetry, "Prospect of a Drowning". The text of the poem appears here.
- 1970: The Spark of Youth, a Mandarin play by Singapore Performing Arts School is banned. Selatan Arts Ensemble performs an adaptation of the play in 1970, also titled "The Spark of Youth".
- 1969: The Struggle (Zheng Zha), a Mandarin play by Singapore Performing Arts School is banned. It is replaced with "The Struggle: An Evening of Poems and Short Plays".
- 1968: The Equator Art Society opens an exhibition of paintings portraying Americans as morally degraded figures; this is interpreted as being a socialist protest against Singapore's endorsement of America in the Vietnam War. The exhibition is closed within a day of opening and the President of the Society is detained; members do not submit their names of board members to the Registrar of Societies in the following years, and the Society is forced to dissolve in 1974.
- 1965: On 30 September, less than two months after separation from Malaysia, the Managing Director of the Singapore-based Malay language newspaper Utusan Melayu is called to the Ministry of Culture to meet with the Minister and Prime Minister. He is shown a map of Malaya and is warned against reporting anything sensitive occurring below the Straits of Johor. Lee Kuan Yew presents the Director with a copy of the Sedition Act before his departure. The incident will be referred to again in 1967 when PAP MPs Rahamat bin Kenap and Othman Wok accuse the paper of printing "humiliatory articles" to cause political tension between Malaysia and Singapore. In the wake of this, Utusan Melayu shifts its Headquarters to Malaysia, where it remains, although it continues to circulate in Singapore until 1969.
- 1959: Shortly after PAP takeover, pinball machines and jukeboxes are banned in the crackdown on "yellow culture", the decadent culture of Western imperialists. Jukeboxes are only officially legalised again in 1991. See here.
Hope it helps people to have all this googlable.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
1. last boy, my first book of poetry, drawing on my sexual history in New York, coupled with some extremely passionate poetry readings.
2. My experimental drag in university.
3. Which I also engaged in at the opening of the Singapore Biennale Opening Party for the sake of celebrating the carnivalesque. Components: Japanese oni demon mask and green vintage dress found in an old closet in Columbia.
4. Coverage: A wearable art intervention performed Friday, 10 November at Encounters 34: Beginning Belief, LaSalle-SIA School of the Arts. Materials: Singapore Biennale badges (X 92), Singapore Biennale tote bag, black tights, blazer and marker pen inscriptions of local contemporary artists not included in the Biennale. Reprised Saturday 11 November at the official closing party for the Biennale. Amanda Heng said she liked it. :)
5. And more recently, a grumpy protest against the proposed retention of section 377A, the Penal Code article against gay male sex, at the SQ21 blog.
There are other slides, but I'll curb my sluttiness for now. :)
Saturday, February 10, 2007
My talk's entitled "last boy and other autopornographies". Below is the proper invite:
The presentation will also start earlier this time at 8pm and do come rest casually and comfortably :)
Due to the nature of our venue, there are a few things to note this time:
1. Please bring drinks to share for the ROJAK dingy. Previously, FARM always try our best to refill the drinks during ROJAK. But as this venue is far from any possible replenishment, we requested that all audience to bring something to share with the rest. It's the least you can do with all the sharing going around on ROJAK night.
2. The owner has requested that there is absolutely no smoking within the space, no sitting on the balcony ledge (which is 37th floor! yikes!!) and please do not touch the antique mirrors hung in the kitchen as they are quite reactive to water and stains (but yes, stare into yourself with them)
3. This is a private event. Please subscribe to FARM FEED for the invites and instructions on how to get to the venue (through the security).
See you soon.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
But when you come home, it's still there. And it gets into bed with you and buggers you silly.
And you don't know why the hell it's come knocking. Oh, okay, maybe there's some direct influences (say an actor called you up to criticise you directly for aspects of your writing you can't control, or none of the young men who purport to be interested in you are ever actually available on a Saturday night, suggesting that they were never that into you to begin with).
But even when the majority of things in your life are going right - even when you've got every other reason to clap your hands and say hallelujah - it's there. And you would very much like to politely step out of its way and die.
I've become obsessed with the miracle fruit. Have you heard of it? It's a West African berry that contains an active glycoprotein molecule that masks your tongue's sour taste buds. Which means that within half an hour of eating it, ever sour thing you eat tastes great. An account online says that it makes limes taste like lime candy. Every time I've seen a lime, or any other citrus fruit since then, I think lime candy.
I was at the Jendela gallery at the Esplanade today - caught Tim Etchells' short films which were part of the M1 Fringe Festival, final showing - and I ended up pouring out my woes to the beautiful young volunteer gallery sitter there, an IT kid between jobs, pale blue T-shirt and white scarf and retro specs and floppy hair. I realised I didn't have anything to lose, and I asked him if he might be free to watch a play sometime if I had comps - which I've been doing with all my friends lately, being such a review-maniac. The kid said sure, we exchanged numbers.
His handphone had his girlfriend's face on it. So much for my dar. His name was Zahir, anyway - being the Borgesian boy that I am, I should've smelt trouble.
I really am fantastically lonely these days. I thought I'd weaned myself off my desperate days of unrequited love in university, but despair just resurfaces, fuck it. I like my body but I know it's not as attractive as it used to be, and I still don't know the first thing about dating and having relationships.
I don't hate my life, but I do hate how I'm such a slave to random self-generated chemicals in my bloodstream. Eventually it'll all go away. Till then, maybe Xanax?
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Thursday, February 01, 2007
I hope the French feminists are happy, 'cos I had to invent a whole new category for them.
*POETRY* *DRAMA* *NON-FICTION* *GRAPHIC TEXTS* *PERFORMANCE*
+"Li Sao and Other Poems of Qu Yuan"
Paul Celan's "Romanian Poems"
+Yukio Mishima's "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea"
+R. K. Narayan's "The Abduction of Sita"
+C. S. Lewis's "The Magician's Nephew" [reread]
Marguerite Duras's "Écrire"
+Hélène Cixous's "The Book of Promethea"
+Dario Fo's "The Accidental Death of an Anarchist"
Nicole Quinn and Nina Shengold's "War at Home"
Eng Wee Ling's "Confessions of Three Unmarried Women and Other Selected Plays"
Benny Lim's "Existence"
+Verena Tay's "In the Company of Women"
Richard Appignanesi and Oscar Zarate's "Introducing Freud"
+ Maggie Hyde and Michael McGuinness's "Introducing Jung"
"The Da Vinci Notebooks"
+Hakim Bey's "TAZ: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism"
+Timothy Greenfield-Sanders's "XXX: 30 Porn-Star Portraits"
+ David Wojnarowicz's "Memories That Smell Like Gasoline"
Buds Youth Theatre's "From Scratch"
+STAGES's "Forbidden Chestnuts: Portrait of a Brokeback Geisha"
+Action Theatre's "Everything But the Brain"
Cake Theatre's "Survivor
+"Stranger Than Fiction"
Zhang Yimou's "The Curse of the Golden Flower"
+Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth"
Larry Charles's "Borat"
*EXHIBITIONS* [new category!]
Brian Gothong Tan's "Omens, Relics and Signs of Faith"
Tang Ling Nah's "Send Me an Angel"
Chen Wen Hsi's "Centennial Exhibition"
Daniel Libeskind's "Reflections and Key Works: 1989-2014"
+National Museum's "Singapore History Gallery"
National Museum's "Maria Theresia: Mother Empress of the Habsburg Empire
Singapore Art Museum's "Art of Our Time Part II" including "Chua Ek Kay and Srihadi Soedarsono"
P.S. I'm a little sour 'cos I thought I could do 20 books this week. Gah. But at least I've also finished my third draft for 251. Phew.