Manazine manacled

Manazine had pages and pages of visuals, mostly depicting the clones – you know, the 20-something, buffed-body type. Where a page had text – and it took some searching – it was either unbearably pretentious or unreadably trite. 

The advertisers were mostly selling things I wouldn’t buy, like underwear five times more expensive than anything that ever graced my crotch.

The full-colour magazine was given out free. Gosh, how much must the advertisers pay to support this thing? And how is it going to have enough of a market when it’s so insubstantial? Sure, the copy I received had 96 heavy-grammage pages, but in terms of substance, we’d have to speak in nanograms. 

But whoever said the magazine was for people like me? 

That’s the point of a liberal, democratic society – there’d be stuff for all tastes. There’d be stuff saying things you don’t agree with. There may even be pamphlets saying the earth is flat. 

But Singapore is neither liberal nor democratic. While it is possible here to say that the earth is flat, it is not possible to say that homosexuals ought to be accepted. 

Here is a news scoop from the newspaper Streats:

Streats
27 Feb 2004 

Manazine told by MDA to tone down overtly homosexual content

Magazine gets a warning 

By Gregory Leow 

The government may be more open about hiring homosexuals in the civil service, but an overt discussion about homosexuals and displaying half-naked bodies is still a no-no to the Media Development Authority (MDA).

It has told local magazine Manazine – three issues old so far – to tone down its contents for its subsequent issues. 

Last week, it met with Xung Asia, the firm which publishes Manazine, and expressed its concern over the images used and the topics discussed. 

An MDA spokesman told Streats: “Manazine came to our attention as its content touches on homosexuality. 

“We have warned the publisher that the current state of the magazine, which features nudity and homosexual content, is unacceptable.” 

The result of the meeting was that most of the 10,000 copies of Manazine’s third issue were withdrawn from distribution. 

The free bi-monthly magazine, which was launched last October, is distributed in various outlets such as retail shop New Urban Male, fitness club Planet Fitness and clubs such as Taboo and Backstage. 

Its chief editor, Mr Arjan Nijen Twilhaar, 33, who is also the director of Xung Asia, a branding and communications company, said that MDA was also opposed to certain advertisements where male bodies were displayed  -- sometimes only in their underwear and sometimes with pubic hair showing. 

According to Mr Twilhaar, MDA felt that Manazine promoted a gay lifestyle. 

One of the issues had an article on the “pink dollar” and how retailers target the spending patterns of the affluent gay man. 

It also discussed whether integration with the rest of the community was possible for homosexuals. 

MDA brought up an article which was an interview with local actress Beatrice Chia, around the time that the gay play, Bent, was staged. 

It quoted her as saying that she objected to the government’s stance that gays should be tolerated. Homosexuality is something that should be accepted, she said. 

“It is the opinion of the interviewee, not the opinion of the magazine,” said Mr Twilhaar. 

Manazine will still be published, but not in its present form, although he promised that the magazine’s bold content will not be compromised. 

Nonetheless, certain controversial advertisements will be removed and Manazine is working with MDA on a compromise on the content permissible for public consumption. 

The MDA spokesman told Streats that it would “continue to monitor the situation and take appropriate action where necessary.” 

Mr Twilhaar told Streats that he does not feel that his magazine is pro-homosexual, saying that readers include married men and women. 

To him, the magazine just looks at how modern men lead their lives.  

* * * * *

 
On the left is a picture of the page in Streats where this article was placed, headlined “Magazine gets a warning”. 

It struck me that the article below it was given the header "Challenge the norm, says ex-police scholar". It sure sounded like an acidic rebuke. Was this pure coincidence, or a bit of editorial inspiration?

A few days later, People Like Us sent a letter to the editor of Streats: 

We refer to your story “Manazine gets a warning”, Streats 27 Feb 2004. 

People Like Us are concerned that the MDA is still intent on exercising censorship over sexuality. To make an issue of Beatrice Chia’s comment about how homosexuals should not merely be tolerated, but accepted, is to suppress a sincerely held opinion. 

To make an issue of visuals depicting minimal clothing only when a magazine has articles with a gay angle reveals an uneven regulatory hand. Our mainstream newspapers and women’s magazines have advertisements with models in the skimpiest underwear, occasionally less. One suspects that there is an underlying sexism: it is fine for women to be undressed and used as objects of commercial lust, but too threatening to have men in the same position.

The MDA is doing Singapore a disservice. The government tells Singaporeans that to survive, we must be plugged into global trends. We must be a cosmopolitan city, able to attract the best and brightest to live and work here. 

Yet here is another attempt to keep Singaporeans’ minds closed. 

No doubt, the MDA will resort to the familiar argument that Singapore is a conservative society and the people here are not ready for anything modern, least of all attitudes. Before they fall back on this excuse, the MDA should reflect on how their own censorship polices have kept Singaporeans as ostriches with heads in the sand, and how it would be intellectually dishonest to claim public opinion as justification for censorship, when it is their own censorship that has created that very same public opinion.

* * * * *

On the right are some photographs that I took of the December 2003 copy of Manazine, together with photographs of pages from other widely-distributed magazines in Singapore.

You can go to subsidiary pages with bigger pictures.

What's the difference?

© Yawning Bread 

Footnotes

None

Addenda

1. See also Manazine rapped (again)