A Singaporean In Australia

Not too long ago, Michelle Chong has been banned from playing the TV characters that she made famous by Mediacorpse. [link] On top of that, Mediacockup will not be selling the 'license' of the characters to anyone else, effectively retiring the characters for good. Many Noose fanboys will be disappointed no doubt, but surprised? I don't think so. You seen that coming. In fact, I have been surprised that took so long. Really, we don't need an explanation for this kind of thing. The harder they try, the lamer it sounds. This time the reason given was that Mediapoop "owns the characters." Trust me, if anyone feels like wasting money, they can get Jack Neo to put on boobs for your company DnD and play that auntie dressed in green made famous by him in the 90s.

There will not be "license issues" for Jack Neo. Neither will Auntie Lucy, who will be free to spam him/herself in the Matrix to burn our eyes and ears. Until they start poking fun at the government that is. Simple as. But no one has the balls to say it. That's what makes the Singapore culture stinks. Hypocrisy, double standards, self serving shit and lies. The repackaged term for these crap is political correctness.

Writers, film makers, actors and sports people will never make it big in Singapore. When I say big, I'm not talking about the Zoe Tay or Fann Wong standard. There are probably more people in the world who has heard of Sim Wong Hoo that either of them. That's the minimum standard. It was documented that Sim received little or no support from the government (as compared to the likes of Olivia Lum) but at least he wasn't restricted to go big. There was no reason to, unless the government decided that Sim's causes Singaporeans to be anti-government via a specially programmed sound hypnotism code in his products. Writers, film makers, actors and sports people are a different breed that requires a tight rein. For this group can appeal to the mass. Should Singapore groom a superstar (think Lionel Messi), the government will have no control over what they say in their regularly 'live' interviews or tweets. It is safer to invest the millions in some China drones who do nothing but hit ping pong balls at each other. This way, we get results (and pay raise for some) and suffer little repercussion. There isn't a need to elaborate about writers and film makers. These are professions that require plenty of room to excel. But no, Singapore can not afford these luxuries. We continue to be culturally impoverished. So we turn to chasing Hello Kitty products.

I don't blame writers in the Shit Times for being the dogs that they are. I can fully understand their situations. If I were to go into that line, I would be one of them. Some of us do not work for their dreams. We do not have lofty ideals and just wanted to 混口饭吃 and hope one day we can our lives better by exploiting the cheap labour in Singapore or get out of jail and ship ourselves somewhere.