志异 Draft by Drama box July 2014 (english) | Page 27

Jack Neo and the Vicious Circle

Some days it doesn’t take very
much. An announcement that Jack
Neo is making a new movie is all it
takes for me to lose hope. It is proof,
once and again, that the people
in power – and I don’t just mean
political power, but also financial
and cultural power – are able to
force anything down our throats –
the worst things – and we would still
hunger for more, simply because
we are grateful to have been given
anything at all.

However, as is the case with so
many Singaporean artists, it didn’t
take long before the state co-opted
Neo’s power over the people.
Now, often funded by government
agencies and sponsored by
corporate money, Neo’s films are
thinly veiled propaganda pieces
for both the government and
big corporations. Of course, one
could argue that Neo’s films were
like this all along, that his social
commentary was just a pretext

Don’t get me wrong. I had nothing
against Jack Neo. In fact, I used
to really admire his films. Which
other Singaporean filmmaker
could command so much attention
from the very society he was
criticising? In his films, I saw a
genuine love for the people, for all
our flaws and idiosyncrasies. His
films discussed what were often
perceived as our trivialities – our
stinginess, greed, competitiveness,
etc. – as if they were grave political
matters. Neo explored the very
real fears of the people – losing
the means to support our family,
becoming addicted to materialism,
falling through the cracks of a
ruthless education system. He did
something the state never could –
he took the people seriously.

DANIEL
HUI
:
JACK NEO
& THE
VICIOUS
CIRCLE

for advertising. But the degree
of enthusiasm for state authority
displayed in his recent films – the
Ah Boys to Men films for example
– along with their ideology of the
total sublimation of self for the sake
of the state causes one to fall into
despair.
The most upsetting thing for me
is not Neo’s change of heart; it is,
rather, the audience who laughs
along with his sick jokes and
sycophancy. As disgusted as I was
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