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2003
Size really does matter! source: 'Today'
newspaper, Weekend edition,
Sat, 6 Sept 2003
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Unlike Singapore's Films Appeal Committee (FAC), I have never measured the
artistic merits of another man's genitalia.
Indeed, when I was a teenager growing up in England, we went out of our way to avoid seeing each other's "things". In secondary school, getting changed at the swimming baths was a nightmare. You wanted to look down at the guy next to you and be reminded that you're having baby carrots for dinner. No one wants jumbo German sausages on the menu. There was always someone in the class who was prodigiously well endowed - not just for a man, but for a woolly mammoth. Invariably, he would walk around the changing room stark naked and take longer to dry himself than anyone else because he insisted on using a towel the size of a handkerchief. "Neil," they'd shout. "Get a bloody bigger towel, will you?" That last line didn't sound convincing, did it? But those traumatic days at the public swimming baths have left me with no great desire to examine another man between the legs. So, I wouldn't be a suitable member of the FAC. In recent weeks, those guys have been busy watching Royston Tan's Singaporean movie 15. They have had to decide if the "edits" recommended by the Board of Film Censors are to be upheld. These edits included scenes of actors singing secret society songs and a three-second shot of male genitalia. Now, I don't know how many times that three-second shot had to be watched before a decision was made. But, after careful deliberation, all of the edits were upheld in the name of social cohesion. Apparently, there are numerous incidences where three-second shots of male genitalia have led to a life of crime. At a taped confession, a suspect told police in Toa Payoh recently: "Well, officer, when I was 22, I briefly saw another man's private parts when I was getting changed. So, I ran across the road and tried to rob the post office in my swimming trunks." Interestingly, 15 premiered UNCUT at the Singapore Film Festival in April. After the screening, there were no reports of deranged cinema-goers rampaging through the streets, shouting: "I've just seen a man's 'thing'. Down with the Government!" But then, the film was only shown uncut because the audience was predominantly intelligent, middle-class film buffs. Heartlanders (like myself and most Singaporeans) are primitive Neanderthals and we must therefore watch a watered-down version of 15 when it hits local cinemas in October. But there is a solution for my fellow heartlanders. If you want to see Tan's Singaporean movie uncut - go to Venice! At the on-going Venice Film Festival, 15 will be shown in its original form. Venetians can be trusted to watch a movie about Singaporean culture but Singaporeans can't. When will the bureaucrats learn? The world is watching, remember, and it's laughing. Just like it did with last year's Gosford Park, which was cut because of a man's bum and the ridiculous Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shioked Me in 1999.[1] Do you know that in western movie magazines, the latter still turns up in top 10 lists of "Most Stupid Movie Title Translations?" What's even more ludicrous is the REAL reason why the male genitalia scene was cut. The actor - now brace yourself for this - was too big! Yes, my sources tell me that one of the concerns was his size and Tan wasn't making Walking with Beasts, so the FAC didn't want a woolly mammoth on the screen. If that's true, the lucky actor shouldn't be cut; he should be praised. But it proves that film censors agree with women's magazines the world over - size really does matter after all. Just like it does for certain "big" Hollywood actresses who never seem to have their clothes ON in movies.
Yet, the films still bounce onto Singaporean screens with an R(A) rating.
If women can get away with full-frontal nudity, so should men. It's sexual
equality. It's tit for tat.
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