Chapter 4: The "Heartlander" Spectacle
Introduction
There was a significant paradigm shift in the Singapore culture towards the "heartlanders" at the turn of the millennium. The society began to appreciate and celebrate the "heartlander" identity. As the celebrations became more rampant, the "heartlander" identity began to be misrepresented in the media. As discussed in the previous chapter, the "heartlander" represents the subaltern Singapore who takes no part of Singapore’s global ambition. Their subaltern status set as the foundation in the film ‘12 Storeys’ by Eric Khoo in 1997. The film utilised the "heartlander" identity as a social response and a critical response to the government ideology. The film’s serious nature was juxtaposed in 1998 by Jack Neo’s comedic film ‘Money No Enough’. The latter film was satirical in nature that successfully dilutes the "heartlander" identity to a level of romanticizing it. The trend of romanticizing the "heartlander" continues as such it became a norm in various media. This chapter will analyse the different representations of the "heartlander" identity and how they are utilised in ‘12 Storeys’ and ‘Money No Enough’. The chapter will also analyse recurring spectacle of the "heartlanders" in the media.
1. Visual Culture: Beyond the Ordinary
“Modern life takes place onscreen.”
Visual culture theorist, Nicholas Mirzoeff, points out human experience is becoming more visual and more visualized such that it has become than a part of the everyday life, it is everyday life. The idea here is that images are able to represent life and are often accepted as reality. While there are avenues for images to be manipulated to bring forth a false front, which has been the line of suspicious by man...
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...of social segregation. This is clearly highlighted by the abovementioned scene between San San and Meng. The viewers should notice that the camera angle has placed the slide in the middle of the scene, separating the two characters. The irony is that the playground is in the foreground while the characters are the background. This would suggest that the characters were not physically separated by the playground, yet they are disconnected by their respective social spaces.
The myth of the romantic idea of the working class residing in the heartlands is forcefully rebutted and destroyed at the very early part of the film. The viewers were introduced to a young Chinese man jumping to his death and what followed were series of events oppose the cliché of the "heartlanders", a friendly neighbourhood community.
First was the immediate crowd
Fig 5: Innocent bystanders
A Not So 50:50 Nation Culture Wars? The Myth of a Polarized America: Book Review The book Culture Wars? The Myth of a Polarized America by Morris P. Fiorina, Samuel J. Abrams, and Jeremy C. Pope is a persuasive text regarding America and its division on political topics. In chapter one, Fiorina begins with a powerful quote from Pat Buchanan’s 1992 speech at the Republican National Convention, “There is a religious war…a cultural war as critical to the…nation…as the cold war…for this war is for the soul of America” (Fiorina et al. 1).
In society we are surrounded by images, immersed in a visual world with symbols and meaning created through traditional literary devices, but augmented with the influence of graphics, words, positioning and colour. The images of Peter Goldsworthy’s novel, Maestro (1989) move within these diameters and in many ways the visions of Ivan Sen’s film Beneath Clouds (2002) linger in the same way. Both these texts explore themes of appearance versus reality and influence of setting, by evoking emotion in the responder through their distinctively visual elements.
Chinatown is regarded by many as one of the best films ever created. In 2007, The American Film Institute named “Chinatown” as #21 on their list of 100 greatest films! Chinatown is a great film because it is able to show how far people are willing to go to obtain riches and how a detective is willing to go to great lengths to solve the mysteries in front of him. The movie has been talked about in abundance and has even been influenced by real life events from the water company in Los Angeles. It is closely related to corruption and the 1% which people still talk about till this day. In the movie “Chinatown” directed by Roman Polanski, a private detective hired to expose an adulterer finds that he is caught up in a web of deceit, corruption, and murder. Somewhat relating to this is the article “Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%” written by Joseph E. Stiglitz. In the article Stiglitz writes about how democracy in America is a mirage and that the rich
The film Matewan, written and directed by John Sayles, depicts the small rural townof 1920's Mingo County, West Virginia as a society undergoing complete social unrest, a result of clashing ideals and economic systems. The film is an illustration of how different social systems come to be so intertwined that they cannot be defined independently of one another. Unfortunately for the people of Matewan, the feudalistic economic system imposed on them by the Stone Mountain Coal Company has come to dominate every facet of their existence, including their political system, their cultural identities, and even the environment in which they live. In order to try and take back control of their lives, the citizens of Matewan look to break free of the feudal system that binds them to the company and introduce the freedoms of capitalism into their social vocabulary.
Though people can look into color and composition, others can still even look into the source of the art itself. Cole goes deeper, delving into the source of the art, looking in particular into the idea of cultural appropriation and the view a person can give others. Though it is good for people to be exposed to different opinions of a group or an object, sometimes people can find it difficult to tell the difference between the reality and the art itself. Sometimes art can be so powerful that its message stays and impacts its audience to the point where the viewer’s image of the subject of the art changes entirely. Cole brings up an important question about art, however. Art has become some kind of media for spreading awareness and even wisdom at times, but in reality, “there is also the question of what the photograph is for, what role it plays within the economic circulation of images” (973). Cole might even be implying that Nussbaum’s advertisement can sometimes be the point of some media, and that sometimes the different genres of art can just be to make someone with a particular interest happy. One more point that Cole makes is that “[a]rt is always difficult, but it is especially difficult when it comes to telling other people’s stories.” (974) Truthfully, awareness and other like-concepts are difficult to keep going when a person or a group is not directly involved.
In the film Gung Ho filmed in the year 1986, the story is told of the plight of the people working in the region known as the Rust Belt. The group that is the focal point of this story is the relation between Asian men in an American town and the differences they share are played out in this movie. The stereotypes enlisted in this movie are both that of a villainous nature and a comedic relief with some of the characters. Throughout the film it is how the clever, white working class people of this hard working town have to overcome the maniacal working environment these Asian men have. Common stereotypes of the Asian man lay throughout the entire course of the movie, stereotypes that have been portrayed by the film industry of Asian men since its inception.
... role in the process of critical thinking, how imagery whether through television, billboards, books or magazines has a profound impact on how we view the world and that we have been bombarded with images, whether positive or negative, to a point where we become oblivious to the underlying messages these images are conveying to us. They suggest that images define who we are and what we do, for example, a beautiful model wearing a designer pair of shoes in a magazine conveys to us that we too can be a beautiful, confident woman if only we had those shoes. Another example, on the negative slope of imagery is an advertisement for alcohol or cigarettes, these advertisements are designed to sell, and we are willing to buy. The editors make it clear that we need to be subjective when viewing these images, to go beyond the immediate and look for the underlying message.
John Mahtesian's photography offers a visual poetry of the human condition. It is a direct expression of his warmth, depth of spirit, and humanity. A true gentleman, extremely humble and unfailingly polite, he achieves an invisibility that is the success of his art. His patience and commitment to his vision allow him to capture moments others could not. If his subjects are aware of his presence, his gentle nature so enchants them that they are unguarded and their essence is revealed. So compelling are his images that we are truly convinced his insights are our own. They make us rejoice in the world around us, and in the nature of human existence.
The images that infiltrate our lives appear to focus on maintaining the status quo or the norms of society. They are designed to show what is expected in life. Berger states, "Images were made to conjure up the appearance of something that was absent"(107). Berger argues "images" are "conjured up" or imagined to represent what is "absent" or what the individual wants to see as reality. There used to be a tendency to over exemplify the way in which women were thought to be, but "today, that opposition no longer seems to hold quite as rigidly as it once did (women are indeed objectified more than ever, but, in this image-dominated culture, men increasingly are too)" (156). Regardless of so...
Chinatown builds upon the film noir tradition of exploiting expanding social taboos. Polanski added an entirely new dimension to classic film noir by linking up its darkness with the paranoid and depressed mood of post-Vietnam, post-Watergate America, thereby extending the noir sense of corruption beyond the mean urban streets and to high governmental and privileged economic places. Chinatown may be set in 1930’s L.A., but it embodies the 1970’s. The film stands as an indictment of both capitalism and patriarchy going out of control. It implies that we are powerless in the face of this evil corruption and abusive power that is capable of anything, including incest: one of the most horrible breaches of human decency and social morality imaginable.
My chosen methodology for analysis is semiology, Rose (2001) argues semiology confronts the problem of how images make meanings directly. It is not simply descriptive, as compositional interpretation does not appear to be, nor does it rely on quantitative estimations of significance, as content analysis at some level has to. Instead, semiology offers a wide range of analytical tools for depicting an image apart and tracing how it works in relation to broader systems of meaning. A semiological analysis entails the implementation of highly refined set of concepts, which construct detailed accounts of the particular ways the meanings of an image are produced through that image.
A popular contemporary graffiti artist, Banksy, creates intriguing and intricate designs for public display on regular and everyday streets. His rising popularity serves as a catalyst for the renowned importance of the attainability of visual literacy. Visual literacy is the ability to understand and interpret the message of a visual image or object, and having this skill is becoming increasingly important in todays culture. According to Zemliansky, the first crucial step towards developing visual literacy is to treat visual messages as text and arguments. Although the message of most visual images are ambiguous, it is still logical to surmise that different ideas can stem from one image because of our varying perception due to varying experiences,
Modernization in the 1980s paved the way for the Hong Kong New Wave, as the studio system set up in the 1950s was dismantled, the film industry experienced more freedom. Since decolonization was heavily present 75% of Hong Kong’s box office revenue were home grown movies, while the meager 15% was left for the foreign market. As one can see the political context of Ho...
It is evident the amount of work director David Fincher put into the creation of this masterpiece of a film, from the cast who seemed to almost be born for their roles to a brilliantly written screenplay and very fitting music. From the very beginning, the film is one which is easy to become completely enthralled in, exposing the numerous fallacies of modern day society. It is clear that the fundamental point of the film is to illustrate that consumerism is running rampant in our own society. Thus, this pernicious way of life has transformed masculinity into a brand and turned self-worth into a commodity which people believe can be strengthened through the acquisition of goods. Though much of this movie discusses the detriments of society, the film offers tangible ways to combat these incessant problems.
Chinatown, a 1970s film, is inspired by the Southern California water history (Valle). This film has many elements of film noir. Film noir, is a point-of-view, tone, mood, and style of a film created during World War II. It reflects the tensions and insecurities of a particular time period, usually showing the loss of innocence, bareness, and the paranoia of an event (“Film”). The criminal and greedy perspectives of the characters are clearly seen, like the character Noah Cross, reflecting society’s evils. Also there is no happy ending in Chinatown. For those viewers who don’t know the history of Southern California, this might just be another detective film, but it is more than that, it has numerous themes that can be dissected. The film constructs racial, gender, and class identities.