Many areas of media censorship in Singapore are redundant, such as political censorship, and the censorship of violence and sexual themes.
Violence and sexual themes have their unique entertainment and artistic value which people do appreciate. Being in a multi-faceted society, we experience the different social values from all over the world. The Chinese are traditionally more conservative, while the Caucasians are generally more open. Naturally, conflicting views may arise due to the great difference in their beliefs and levels of acceptance of certain sensitive areas. What may be artistic to a Caucasian might be deemed obscene by a conservative Chinese. Ultimately, we all have different wants for our entertainment.
In a well-educated society like Singapore, I believe we are individuals who can decide for ourselves what is right and what is wrong, when to start and when to stop. Why must the government impose on us their level and set of morality? Every one of us is unique, and we have the freedom to choose what to see, hear, and think about. Who are they to decide what entertainment is and what morals are? They assume every Singaporean is incapable of basic mental function to distinguish good and bad shows so they decide for us. Why destroy the entertainment scene for the people who actually want to watch shows in their full uncut glory? Let the people have the freedom to choose what they want to watch, please. This includes violent gory films and films with sexual content. I’ll even go on to talk about games and magazines. Mass Effect II from BioWare got banned because why? There’s ONE scene of lesbians making out. Magazines like PlayBoy and Penthouse, banned why? Government don’t think we have enough brain cells to decide whether we want to buy those magazines or not. Pleasure Factory (2007) got two minutes of explicit scenes cut out, Lust, Caution (2007) got a full nine minute cut…and so on. Websites like playboy, playgirl, cannibis.com are banned nationwide. Something actually closer to home, sarongpartygirl got banned by government proxies, namely organisations like CPF Board, LTA, SAF. How democratic is that? Banning a blog due to her self-posted photos and writings? Where have our rights gone to? So the police can now disrespect our privacy to post things online? Basically anything which might be even slightly religiously or racially offensive, anything to do with homosexuality or sex, confirm cut or banned.
Next topic, the political aspect: honestly, what is it with the Singapore government? Are they that tyrannical to ban all films or podcasts even which deal with political issues? Royston Tan’s 15 needed 20 over cuts before it was even suitable to be screened in Singapore. Mr Brown was warned about his ‘persistently non-political podcasts’ and even had his column taken down by Today Newspaper due to his views on the rising income gap and increasing costs of living. What, government scared that he’ll make people think about how they’re spending our money?
With the authority they possess, the government can always force their way through and impose full censorship of violence and sexual themes in Singapore. What they cannot stop is the people’s demand and desire for such themes. People will still buy VCDs and DVDs from neighboring countries for viewing.
Singapore claims to be a democracy. It deems itself a country where the people are free to choose the leaders they want, and the way the country progresses. Just as we are about to praise the beauty of such a system, we face a major issue – political censorship. This censorship simply refers to restricting our access to any information that may ‘affect the stability of our country’s governance’. We are consistently being blindfolded, and led in such a way that we are only familiar with one route of governance – the PAP. Surely we are free to choose the leaders we want, but what is the significance of such freedom when we are not well-informed of the viable options that we can have? We must not forget that the essence of democracy is to allow a society to reach upon the best decision through the power of the majority. The best choice however, is not one that is made through a myopic or oblivious perspective.
In conclusion, I believe that media censorship should be abolished in Singapore. After all, Singapore is a nation which upholds freedom of expression and choice. Looking back at past events, all government efforts to suppress freedom of press have never been applauded by the masses. In fact, it has given rise to more and more forms of defiance to the government’s control. Apart from that, Singaporeans are generally well educated people with strong adherence to Asian values. With that in mind, the detrimental effects of media are already minimised.
Weiliang, Ruisi, Bryan A., Serene from 09S06J
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