Right on. Kinda late, but I was preparing some materials for this. Please do scroll down, allow the videos to buffer then come back here and start from the top so you won’t have to wait for the videos to buffer later on.
Right now, I’m all pissed at being denied entrance to Singapore Short Cuts because I couldn’t bluff my way through into the R21 screening. After all the begging, the furthest I got through was to being allowed in during the Q&A session, which left an even more sour taste in the mouth since I got to realised how much I missed out on.
After spending 15 minutes reasoning with the lady manning the counter, explaining to her I was a film student, the best reason she could really muster to deny me was not that I was under 21, but that “MDA people could do random spot checks.”
Whurt dreh fark.
Before I jump into the exciting bits of this post, let me briefly introduce the MDA – Media Development Authority, or also known as Morally Demented Assholes. Till date, their only significant contribution to the Singapore media scene would be this short video over here :
I cringed and all my hair stood up because I didn’t click on “pause” first enough. Do watch the entire video though, don’t miss the guy in a red underwear.
A quick online research on Wikipedia revealed some shocking truths to me – Of all the countries with theatres around the world, only 4 countries has a rating for audiences above 21, the three countries being Singapore, Thailand, Mexico and Poland.
Of all these three countries, two of them place restrictions for audiences above 21 only for pornographic films, one rarely applies it. No guessing which “conservative” country has other ideas.
Okay, if Singapore is a truly “conservative” society, there’s no need to ban YouPorn. “Conservative” people would naturally stay away. Oh, MDA sliced 45 seconds off Red Cliff due to the presence of an “evil” scene.
If anyone got turned on by that 91 seconds clip, you’re just deprieved.But that what’s our Morally Deprieved Assholes think anyway. For all you know, we movie goers might be tempted to go rape someone in the neighbourhood after that watching that 45 seconds scene if it was allowed to be shown in Singapore cinemas.
Honestly, why on earth do we need an organisation of old fogies way belonging to the era where policemen wore short pants to tell us what is immoral and unsuitable? Who are they even anyway? Fallen angels?
It’s ridiculous that here in Singapore, we place R21 ratings just for sexual themes, where we might not even see the actual act taking place. If anyone truly wanted porn, Youtube is full of soft porn, Google would get you porn, seasoned consumates would work with proxies and continue surfing YouPorn. Even Bittorrent works as well.
Frankly, if anyone wanted to get turned on, which insane citizen would pay 8 bucks to catch a R21 film in Singapore cinemas? Any 15 year old connected to the internet can get it for free.
Singapore honestly does not need a R21 rating. The highest rating we would probably need is to cap to audiences above 17 or 18. Even for the film Lust Caution, after doing through the sisscors of those old fogies so it would be suitable for “younger” audiences, all that was left was a history film. MDA probably thought it would corrupt young minds. *shrugs*
Time for a conclusion. What Singapore needs to do is to accept that we’re not as “conservative” as certain Men In White may think. We’re now in the era of globalisation, not rearing chickens in a kampung. The outstanding illogical thinking of MDA is a joke, cutting out scenes in movies they deem as unsuitable for Singaporean audiences (refer back to second youtube clip). I shan’t even get down to the antics they get down to as the online enforcement agency of the PAP.
I now thus conclude my post. And here’s a _|_ to MDA for denying me a birthday treat when all I really wanted to do was to learn from Singapore film-makers on the 2nd of August.
