Talking Cock

As Colin Goh rambled on about censorship, Singapore politics and identity in that little Q & A session after the screening of Talking Cock at the National Musuem, I couldn't help but wonder about the great divide in our Singapore society. Here are these ang moh Singaporeans based in New York or 'fill in any major city' feeling a sense of identity crisis in foreign land, coming back making films about the heartlands, reflecting on what it means to be a Singaporean, give authorties a piece of their mind about parliamentary decisions and challenging the system. The intellectual minority, I like to put it, is neccessary but useless to make a significant change to our society dominated by nonchalant and apathetic citizens, which a large part of them, consists of heartlanders.

It is ironic that people like Eric Khoo, born and bred in an ang moh house with nannys and maids taking care of them, are the people that make movies like 12 storeys that reflects the heartlands. It is equally ironic that the rich, smart and vocal minority are the ones questioning the lack of free speech or press freedom when they are already well-off and successful in their own right. They are defending the people who are not complaining. The people they are defending do not want to be defended. They are also exactly the people that the heartlanders want to attack.

So why talk so much cock, complain this, complain that. They are all fighting a losing cause. A losing cause against status quo. So this is the Catch-22, our society is. This whole damm world is.