Dear Melissa, my new friend :)

Hi Melissa, I was actually in quite a bad mood when I rolled out of bed around 2 pm today - damn bloody New Year celebrations in the streets, there was so much noise out there till 5 am and I had a restless night trying to get some sleep. But whadaya know, your blog post has well and truly cheered me up this morning. Allow me to respond to the following points you have raised in your post for me. 

Firstly, on the issue of free speech - allow me to compare this to the situation in the UK. There are plenty of British idiots who do call into radio stations and say a lot of ignorant, misinformed bullshit - to the point where I can have that "cue palm to forehead" moment and say, "I thought this was BBC radio 4, I thought this was a station for well informed, well educated people, not stupid idiots like that who usually listen to LBC."

In the UK now, we're having a big debate about gay marriage - we currently have civil partnerships for same sex couples which are the same marriages (except in name and where you can have a same-sex ceremony). The other day, some religious bigot called up and spouted some really nasty anti-gay rhetoric and my first instinct was, "I am so offended, how dare they let such a bigot go on air and say such offensive bullshit?! I am going to complain!" Then the radio presenter promptly challenged the bigot and exposed his very flimsy argument which was based on nothing more than hatred, bigotry and prejudice and within a few minutes I thought, woah - that radio presenter handled that really well. She allowed that bigot to air his views, but then promptly went on to rip him to shreds. That actually was an intense, uncomfortable but very revealing few minutes of radio. Woah.

You see, for me, I would probably have preferred to censor that religious bigot - but I can see how that radio presenter took a stance much like yours Melissa, ie. "if you dare to speak up in public, then I am going to hold you to account and challenge your views and you should be prepared to defend your opinion." I can see how your approach can have its merits but I do feel that it is necessary to follow through with the whole process. Imagine if the radio presenter merely said, "Thank you for your call and sharing your views. Time for our next caller..." That would have left me hopping mad and looking for ways to complain to the programme! But can we ever challenge every single person who says something like that about us?

Earlier in December, my post about the Rohingya refugees went viral - I received so much hate mail and it was all on Facebook. Who would've thought that a pro-refugee post showing compassion for refugees could trigger off such hateful, angry reactions from Singaporeans? But there you go, I was attacked left, right and centre for speaking up for refugees who have nothing. And it was not the kind of, "dear Limpeh, I would like to challenge your stance on refugees" kind of attack. It was the kind of, "fuck you chao cheeby go suck angmor cock lah motherfucker kum lan cocksucker etc" kind of attack.  I then went on a Xiaxue-style name & shame rampage, It was Limpeh on the warpath mode - then I totally fell out with my mother and went all Amnesty International on her when she had the audacity to defend the PAP.

I am in two minds Melissa. On one hand, I totally respect and see your point about how these people are exposing their own ignorance and stupidity the moment they open their mouths (or have verbal diarrhoea on the internet) - but on the other hand, I do feel that each time someone does that, I need a level-headed BBC radio 4 radio presenter to rip each bigot to shreds and make them feel sorry that they ever opened their mouths in the first place. Allowing them to speak up without ripping them to shreds seems ... unsatisfactory. Yet we both know that we don't have the time, energy nor inclination to take on every misinformed idiot in Singapore (I usually start with my own mother) when it comes to the PAP. Should we try to undo the fallacies, misconceptions and misinformation in the Singaporean mindset? Or is that a Pandora's box that should be left shut?

Do you want to open Pandora's box?

There is of course, a bit of glee on my part when I get to censor/delete a comment that some hateful bastard has obviously spent time composing and I can go, "hahahaha, that's never gonna see the light of day the moment I click 'delete'. So long sucker." It may not further the conversation or lead to anything constructive, but often I am not prepared to engage with the person. Like you said, it's not like 100% are pro-PAP and utterly brainwashed (like my mother). It's 60-40 at the moment and I'm afraid it's like watching paint dry Melissa - we're waiting for people of my mother's generation to die off (sorry if that sounds morbid).

As for film making, allow me to speak as someone who has worked in the industry since 2004 - censorship is but a part of the challenge. I know plenty of film makers in Europe who struggle to make ends meet because they have made films that weren't commercially viable. I remember back in 2006, I got roped into a low-budget gangster film as a fight co-ordinator and I had a role in it as well on a profit-share basis - ie. I had a contract which said, "if the film makes any money, I'll get 1% of total profits, but any revenue will go to cover costs first." I said yes because there was a celebrity in the cast and I was really starstruck - I was like, OMFG I must've seen him in concert over 10 times years ago in the period 1997-2001 now I get to hang out with him on set and teach him how to fight. That totally swung it for me.

Yes it's an ethnic stereotype but yes I know kungfu. 

Anyway, the film never broke even despite having won a few awards - why? Such is the nature of the film industry - film makers struggle in such a crowded market that's getting more and more crowded year by year. Independent projects like that struggle against the odds and for what it was worth, I take my hat off to the film maker/director who managed to get a number of celebrities on board but even that wasn't enough to make it a commercial success. I never made a penny from the film but it was two weeks of my life to do something extremely fun with some celebrities - now if only the final product was a little bit more polished...

There were no problems with censorship with the film - not in the UK anyway - but that was the least of the director's worries. She needed to make something that was commercially successful and unfortunately, she didn't succeed despite one of the stars of the films being involved in an extremely high profile "kiss & tell" scandal at that time. Oh boy. Yeah there was a buzz about it but the sales figures were still miserable because the cinema going public still always picked Hollywood blockbusters with big names over smaller independent films.

Making a profit from an independent film was difficult.

After that, I told my agent, "that was fun, but from now on, I'd prefer to do projects which are well funded and I will get paid for my time." I have thankfully had my share of working on well paid projects since (most notably on The Midnight Beast and Numberjacks) - but it was always like, "I am paying you good money, so here's the script and here's your instructions." That meant very little (or no) creative input from me and that was frustrating - that's why I took to making my own short films where I have complete control over the creative output. They don't make me any money but they are an outlet for my creative energies - and yeah, I have a lot of fun making them.

I actually got a lot of hate mail from my last short film and okay, I'd rather get hate mail than be totally ignored. Nothing more sad than uploading a short film onto youtube only for it to be ignored and only get 50 hits after 6 months - thus when I provoke people enough to send me hate mail, that's when I know I've gotten under their skin. Here it is:

In any case, Melissa, I'm off to Belgium this Sunday to do a week's filming for a a French production company - again, I'm not impressed with the script but hey, they have a huge budget and are paying me well. I'd never say no to a chance like that anyway, I've been to Belgium as a tourist and I've done shoots all over Europe but never in Belgium, so why not, especially since French is my second language. I do know someone who is a film financier and is currently looking to fund Asian film projects in 2013 - so if you have anything in the pipeline Melissa, perhaps I can play cupid by putting you in touch with him? It's the least I can do for you - but be warned that already he has a big stack of Asian films awaiting consideration on his desk and all I can do is add you to that big stack (and put a good word in for you so I nudge you to the top of that stack). Let me know if you're interested and how he can get in touch with you please.

What say you Melissa? Sending you festive new year wishes from London.
PS. December 2012 was my best month yet in blogging!