Cinema-going in the 1970s and its role in shaping Singapore’s modernity

In the 1970s, Singapore was on the cusp of modernity. The first five-year plan since its independence had just completed, and the economy was growing tremendously. To embrace their new status as denizens of a first world country, the people of Singapore then sought ways to emulate their counterparts in the already developed countries. One such medium through which this was carried out was films, shown in cinemas that would eventually become a popular culture among teenagers and young adults. The interview conducted with my mother corroborates this piece of contextual knowledge, and drawing further comparisons, I will show how pivotal a role the cinema played in the development of Singapore in the years following its inception as a republic. In 1961, Kuat Winnie was born to a family of five other daughters, whose place of residence was a one-room flat in Balestier. Due to the financial status of the family, a television was not a viable option, and they did not have a communal one like in the Kampongs, so my mother naturally turned to the cinema to satiate her cravings for entertainment during her teens. My mother remarked that many of her peers from similar backgrounds such as hers also chose the cinema over the television or radio because the latter two, while offering free programmes, had to be purchased for a high cost before the media could be enjoyed. Entry to cinemas in the form of a movie ticket, on the other hand, cost significantly less as opposed to the purchase of a television or radio. It was a more viable form of popular culture that she could afford and gain access to which did not take a toll on her family’s finances. Though her frequency of going to the cinemas was constrained by her family’s economic background, she was not socially excluded from all forms of popular culture and could afford to engage in one which she enjoyed tremendously. This could be the reason why the cinema was so popular, paving the way for ideals, in particular, those from the west, to permeate into the lives of the audience from a different continent. The establishment of cinemas provided the masses with opportunities of intercultural contact in an environment that emphasized on modernity and technology. My mother reminisced about her earliest memories of going to the cinemas to catch a movie where she first came to know about cinemas by word of mouth through her elder sisters. Modernity in the form of the freedom to choose a movie of one’s choice to catch in the cinemas created an illusion of novelty, diversity and choice for audience-consumers. Thus, it was appealing to the masses, in particular teenagers, who were seeking to establish their identity (Chua 2006, 3). At 16, my mother caught her first movie and was intrigued by the appeal of technology which could connect with and stimulate the imagination of audiences. Technology adopted by cinemas increased proximity between audiences and movie stars in cinemas through a collapse of time and space. For my mother, it was almost amazing for her to be able to watch artistes of a different nationality and in a different country in such close proximity on the screens of cinemas. The introduction of films since pre-war Singapore challenged the way people thought about the nature of consumption of entertainment and leisure being made exclusive to only certain groups of people as well as the social status of women, who were thought to be subordinate to men. In post-war Singapore, cinema-going had become more widely accepted to be all inclusive; it was no longer gender and age segregated (Chua 2006, 5). Teenagers and females such as my mother who went to cinemas were no longer frowned upon by society. This can be accounted for by the omnipresence of Western culture, in particular American culture, through the screening of films. The significance of these films laid in shaping modernity in Singapore, offering novel perspectives in terms of mindset and culture. American films served as inspirations and empowerment for young women like my mother (Chua 2006, 6). It encouraged the removal of the social ghetto, striving towards the attainment of gender equality. The impact of American productions on my mother was evident when she listed her favourite movies of all time to be “Grease” and “Saturday Night Fever”. Cinemas served as cultural spaces, exposing audiences to American pop culture via the dominant images of ‘otherness’ in films. These films introduced modernity in the form of material lifestyles and new attitudes towards love and romance which defied the norms of conservative Asian mindsets and traditions. It was no surprise that my mother was attracted to and desired the promise of a different life and future advocated by the Western culture. These movies aroused its audiences’ interest in Western culture. The popularity of Western films paved the way for change such that the ‘rightful’ place of women was no longer bounded to the domestic sphere in the 1970s. This is further supported by my mother being allowed to work during her late teens, an indication that the hegemonic gender ideology that women’s rightful place were at home in pre-war Singapore was slowly being eradicated. Coincidentally, her job experience as a waitress in a Western cuisine restaurant in Holiday Inn, a four-star hotel which provided opportunities for interaction with Caucasians resulted in her being further enticed by the West. The influence of Western culture from my mother’s teenage years has resulted in her being bold in the way she dresses and her choice of music as well which has lingered till today. She frequently plays songs of Lobo, Air Supply and ABBA when she drives and credits her discovery of these bands to the movies she caught in the cinemas when she was a teen, showing how long-lasting the impacts of Western influence can be. The popularity of cinema-going in the 1970s catalyzed Singapore’s modernization progress and gave rise to the workings of a capitalist economy. Kampongs were diminishing, making way for the development of a city scape such as Housing and Development Blocks (HDB) and cinemas. Urban clusters entailed higher accessibility to cinemas in terms of convenience, which was one of the reasons raised by my mother for her choice in cinema-going. Following its independence, society of post-war Singapore had been reshaped significantly (Millet 2006, 23) which led to changes in terms of lifestyle and taste. The tastes of audience changed because more were going to schools, colleges and universities. There was a demand to watch English Language films by the better-educated (Lim 1991, 152). My mother who went to English-medium schools, despite coming from a family with a strong dialect tradition of Hokkien, was one of those who welcomed the screening of English Language films. Profit-motivated cinema operators capitalized on the new tastes and preferences of cinema-audiences of films by only screening types of movies well-received by consumers. The 1970s cinemas were dominated by Hollywood and Taiwanese productions (Udhe and Ng 2006, 71). Therefore, the start of the stoppage of Malay-language films produced in Singapore after its golden eras in the 1950s and 1960s (Sa’at 2012, 33) can be attributed to the change in audience preferences and population demographics hence, the popularity of imported films. Cinema-goers such as my mother preferred watching imported films in colour as opposed to films shot locally in black and white as she considered them to be inferior due to a lack of visual impact and enjoyment. The population of Singapore in the 1970s was predominantly Chinese and the proportion of Chinese had increased over the past few decades, constituting more than 70% of the total population then thus, the demand for Chinese movies in Singapore did not come as a surprise to the cinema operators such as Shaw and Cathay (Lim 1991, 54). Free market principles of demand and supply and uniform pricing of movie seats were adopted by cinema operators in a bid to rake in greater profits, eradicating the pre-war Singapore model of price differentiation in terms of seats at varying prices (Chua 2006, 1). Therefore, the way films were screened and consumed had shaped and aided in the maturation of a capitalist market economy in Singapore. In conclusion, my mother’s oral history account has provided new insights of cinema-going from the viewpoint of a consumer-audience in the 1970s, as compared to the existing literature which were written from a political and commercial perspective. Her account has offered a perspective of time and context of the role of cinema-going in shaping post-war Singapore and is fairly consistent with existing literature. It is important to note that her account, being one with a personal touch, only provides a glimpse of cinema-going in the 1970s through her ‘lens’ hence, there may be information that have been omitted by her such as media censorship which was imposed by the government on popular culture which came under constitutive attack to be ‘yellow culture’ (Udhe and Ng, 78). However, one must recognize the inherent value of such oral history interviews as in time to come; they may no longer be present anymore. References Chua Ai Lin. “Singapore’s Cinema-Age’ of the 1930s: Hollywood and the Shaping of Singapore Modernity”. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies (forthcoming), National University of Singapore, 2006. Lim Kay Tong. Cathay: 55 Years of Cinema. Singapore: Landmark Books for Meileen Choo, 1991. Millet, Raphael. Singapore Cinema. Singapore: Star Standard, 2006. Sa’at, Alfian Bin. “Hinterland, Heartland, Home”. In Southeast Asian Independent Cinema, edited by Tilman Baungirtel, 33-45. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012. Uhde, Jan and Yvonne Ng Uhde. “Singapore: Developments, Challenges and Projections”. In Contemporary Asian Cinema: popular culture in a global frame, edited by Anne Tereska Ciecko, 71-82. Oxford: Berg, 2006.