Censorship and Singapore

Tue, 11 Mar 2008
2 min read
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From: K**
Sent: Wednesday, March 5, 2008 2:37:15 PM
Subject: MDA update

Hi C** and E**

As sms-ed to you, MDA is not giving the go-ahead for The Last Political Animal. It is politically sensitive and should not be staged as it is (sic) as the connections are obvious.

…

Swear words like “Jesus fucking Christ” uttered by one character in The Last Political Animal are definitely offensive and for plays licensed by MDA, they do not allow this.

Please revert by today what you intend to do about The Last Political Animal. Meanwhile, the entire event will carry a R18 rating…

I think what a lot of people don’t realise is that in Singapore, the more you try and prevent something from happening, the reverse usually happens.

I don’t mean to say that the organisers are going to ignore the restrictions and proceed with staging the play; the Ideological State Apparatuses, among other ISAs, have been too far ingrained in most people for them to know when not to throw caution to the wind.

What I mean to say is that the irony in the situation now is that because of the censorship, more people are interested in actually finding out what the play’s about!

So it simply goes to show that human nature is as such – the more authority tries to impose its will upon the liberties of the masses, the more resistance there is to it.