Singlish: By using Singlish in his films, Neo promotes it and reveals his disagreement with the government’s attempts to eradicate Singlish from Singaporeans’ vocabulary. Neo recognizes the importance of Singlish as the common language of communication between the different races in Singapore, a language which binds Singaporeans together. Hence, Singlish in many respects represents Singapore’s multi-cultural, multi-lingual society. Made interesting use of language in films: Neo acknowledges Singapore’s multicultural context, hence we see a variety of local languages used in his films. For example, I Not Stupid is primarily a Mandarin film, but there are smatterings of English, dialects (Hokkien) and even Malay. Film represents Singapore’s multi-racial makeup.
What does this all say? Neo seems to be criticizing the primary school streaming process, which categorizes students into 3 different streams (of decreasing intelligence) EM1, EM2, EM3. EM3 students are often stereotyped as stupid students who do not have much prospects, and who come from poorer family backgrounds (eg someone like Wenfu). EM1 students, on the other hand, are deemed as intelligent, with bright futures ahead of them. One of Neo’s criticism is with the ruthless education system, which results in a society that demands a very narrow type of success (i.e. academically) at whatever the cost (TIME magazine). Neo also criticizes the kiasuism of Singaporean parents, as exemplified by the mothers in the film, who are only concerned with their child’s academic success and who deem academic success as the most important thing (above other talents that the child might have, eg Guobin is good at art). The school is institutionalised as a prison for students like Terry (see the beginning of the clip), because it entraps them in a never-ending system/ chase for academic success.
This film made a huge impact on society, and forced the government to re-think their streaming policies after the public reacted strongly to the issue brought up by the film. While MOE’s decision to merge EM1 and EM2 streams, and to scrap EM3 stream altogether was not based solely on Neo’s film, it can be said that then film triggered off a series of questions in the public’s mind, and made people re-evaluate/ look at the education system in another one. Neo’s other films, like this film, often worked in a similar fashion – by bringing to the big screen sensitive or controversial issues that no one dares to raise, and therefore eliciting public discussion about it. For the case of I Not Stupid , many would agree that the changes to the streaming system was a change for the better, towards a less elitist education system.
This film is a good example of political satire, where the sensitive topic of the water war between Singapore and Malay was portrayed in a comical manner. However, the comedy did not detract from the main theme of the film, and this film was also the subject of much discussion when it was screened.
As the title suggests, this film is about gambling and Singaporean’s obsession with gambling (Toto, 4-D, horse racing, soccer,etc) and the strike-rich mentality. The impending completion of the IRs in Singapore lends new light to this film.
If anything, Singaporeans are known for their law-abiding ways. This comedy show how Singapore’s civil service is ridden with bureaucracy and red-tape, how everything must be stated in ‘black-and-white’, and how there are always many ‘layers’ to go through to get something done. Note the arrows in the film poster – the idea of ‘shooting arrows’ at somewhere (a metaphorical way of saying that we push jobs that we don’t want to do to other people). Note also the title, which can be punned as Just Follow Lor (Singlish).
One of Neo’s perennial concerns – Singaporeans’ obsession with money.
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