Re: Keling Kia Angry That He's Not Keling Enough For Jack Neo's "NS" Franchise Movies
Ah beng bait (didn't she have surgery to make her nose more ang moh?):
https://www.facebook.com/Xiaxue.sg/posts/10155445481037431
Xiaxue
18 hrs
Not sure if you guys have seen this viral Fb post that's going around. Nowadays Singapore is too peaceful already so any accusations of racism get shared heatedly. Yay identity politics! So if you haven't read the article, go ahead and read it. It's about this Indian guy who was auditioning for a role in Ah Boys to Men 4 (oh god there are 4?!).
If you are too lazy to read it, I'll summarize it for you. The actor, Shrey, is Indian and is auditioning for an Indian role. After he did his casting speaking in the normal way Singaporeans speak + colloquial Singlish, he claims he was asked to make it sound MORE Indian, and to make it funny.
To which, Shrey, affronted and outraged, told the casting director that "Not all Indians in Singapore speak with a thick Indian accent". No shit Sherlock, you think we all have never heard Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam or Mr Davinder Singh deliver powerful speeches in their posh Queen's English? And guess what? They sound extremely smart and respectable, but put them in a comedy movie and it will feel jarringly out of place and a complete snoozefest. They just aren't FUNNY.
Shrey then continues by whining about how he feels reduced to his accent, a caricature of his race, blah blah. Then, wait for it... he says he has to play a stereotype so that the MAJORITY RACE (read: Chinese) can find it amusing.
He then did this really weird thing where he said even though he desperately wanted to lecture the casting director on how a Singlish accent will be more authentic for a Singaporean Indian character instead of a heavy Indian accent, he somehow didn't do it. He put on the 'fake' Indian accent, performed, and felt horrible and disgusted with himself afterwards. I don't know if he is drawing some odd parallel to the stereotype of desperate actresses who are pressured to give a blowjob on the casting couch and hate themselves afterwards, but it felt like that to me. Awww you poor thing, did they force a funny Indian accent on you? It must have destroyed your entire self esteem and your hymen!
Shrey then continued the entry by crying about how he is seen by his country (read: the Chinese I assume) as nothing more than the colour of his skin, boohoo, and the way they think he ought to speak (read: Chinese only accept comical Indian accents from Indians, we smack well spoken Indians when we meet them. How dare you be so pretentious!). And of course, that Singapore thrives on racist humour. Then begin the typical SJW tirade about how films are important in shaping social issues blahbitty blah blah, Singapore is NOT a Chinese country, we need to respect all races stop discrimination etc.
Very boring.
He then ends the post by saying he was asked if he is local the moment he stepped into the audition room. He assumes that it is because he is North Indian and therefore not as dark as the South Indians, plus he has a "regular international accent". Erm hello? Don't anyhow assume people asked if you are local just because of your skin colour or pompous accent ok? It could be a question they asked everybody for administrative issues, or to determine if you need explanation on how to pronounce some of the colloquial terms. Geez... Sensitive much?!
Oh and don't forget the melodramatic "I do not deserve to feel like a foreigner in my own country"... Thus ends his post.
..............................
OK WHERE DO I BEGIN?
First off, get the fuck off your fucking high horse. You are an actor, or trying to be one anyway. Actors are hired to act in a fictional ROLE. Not as themselves, nor what their perception of the role should be like. Sometimes the roles are comical caricatures. You object? Good, go write your own movie and star in it.
Movies are chockful of stereotypes. So? If the story needs a stereotype it will have a stereotype. You think Christoph Waltz, an Austrian-German portraying a sociopathic Nazi, won the Academy Award by whining to the director about how he is very hurt that Germans are always portrayed as nazis in film, especially when modern Germany isn't filled with nazis anymore and this is a painful stereotype? No he didn't, because the story needed a stereotypical Nazi. So he did what actors do. ACT.
You think the nerdy actors in Big Bang Theory are whimpering about how physicists shouldn't be protrayed as socially awkward virgins because not all physicists are? Or that Melissa McCarthy is objecting to the roles she typically gets as a klutzy sassy lady because not all fat people are like this? Or perhaps Rachel McAdams flipping the table when she found out that yet another blonde cheerleader is typecast as a mean girl? Is Mike Myers supposed to be angry when asked to fart and burp because #notallogres are uncouth?! What? No movie can ever have a stereotype again?! Oh we better not have another romantic comedy with another heterosexual couple! That is SO stereotypical and insulting, are these actors nothing more than their XX and XY chromosomes?!
I'm sorry you are so easily triggered but exaggerated accents are FUNNY. This is true of EVERY accent, be it the affected French, the stuffy English, the over affectionate Italian, the cowboy Texan, the confused Asian, the villainous Russian. Jian Yang in Silicon Valley speaks in a typical exaggerated Chinese accent where rice turns to lice. It's hilarious. If Jack Neo is racist for asking an Indian person to speak in an Indian accent, then he must be the most self hating racist ever because he is Liang Si Mei, who is a typical uneducated and kiasu Chinese auntie, the sort you meet at wet markets.
God forbid any Indians are allowed to speak in a heavy Indian accent in any local film from now on. All of them must speak in a polished, respectable way because Shrey says so! Please get the stick out of your ass. It's COMEDY, where every character regardless of race is a funny caricature. It's not a propaganda film to promote Singaporean Indians in Singapore/overseas. You want propaganda go film it yourself.
Wait, but here's what I'm confused about. You are ok with a Singaporean Indian role speaking colloquial Singlish, but not ok with him speaking in a heavy Indian accent. Why is an Indian accent somehow considered more embarrassing than grammatically wrong English when both are protrayed as comical?
Singaporean Indians in movies should not speak in an Indian accent? What made you the supreme authority on how all Indians should be portrayed like? There are indeed Indians with thick Indian accents, why shouldn't they be represented in movies? Must they be made to feel ashamed of their accent just because YOU find it so disgraceful that you felt disgusted with yourself after speaking it? And what's a "regular international accent" anyway? Is it the accent uppity people have when they study overseas, think they are very worldly when they come back and suddenly develop a fake accent while finding their own farts smell really good? I think I know that one.
And then we go to the subtle passive aggressive attacks on the 'majority race', even though Shrey has left it unnamed. What's the deal here? What did Chinese people do?! Because we find Indian accents funny we are now racist, even though so many of us wish for Tharman to be the next PM (myself included)? Hello we also find Lulu funny, she speaks with a Cheena Chinese accent. Singaporeans, not just the 'majority race', find Irene Ang in Phua Chu Kang funny, and she's a caricature of a loudmouth Chinese auntie. Whether you like it or not, stereotype humour will always have an audience. It isn't racism because the characters are there for people to identify with, not to mock. Forrest Gump plays a low intelligence character but nobody is mocking him when they watch the show. There is a difference.
Stop saying bullshitty things like you are nothing more than the colour of your skin to your entire country just because in this ONE instance you were asked to speak in a comical exaggerated accent. Ridiculous. I suppose whenever someone asks me to sing Kill Bill I will break down because my only self worth is being a horse for entertainment.
And lastly... nobody made you feel like a foreigner in your own country. You are a Singaporean asked to play a Singaporean role in a Singaporean movie. I literally cannot think of anything that can make someone feel more Singaporean, except maybe when they are handed keys to their BTO or given a voting slip.
Stop being so hypersensitive and uptight ffs. The self importance masked as noble social justice is palpable. Through your post, you claim that ABTM is racist but all the exchange showed is that they find the accent funny and think the movie audience will like it. You, on the other hand, find the accent embarrassing and disgraceful, and think you are one of the Singaporean Indians who are better than those who speak like that. I'll leave this here to let people decide which is worse.
P/s: After your blatant name calling for a non issue, I wonder if anyone dares to audition you for anything else in future in case you go off on a tirade about accents again and tell everyone how racist the film is. "How dare you make me speak Legalese for this role!!!! Not all Indians are lawyers you know!"
Edit: WTF!! Link to Shrey's post in the comments because somehow, if I add it to this post and people share the post it will not share what I wrote but only his post. Get your shit together Facebook!