Stolen star shines an unflattering light

About 3 weeks ago, Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports, Vivian Balakrishnan, told a roomful of students that the internet will inescapably be part of politics in the years to come. 

"We will get into the YouTube style of politics -- which means it's multimedia," he said, as reported by Today newspaper. "It's no longer enough just to talk, you must have moving images, sound, music. If it's true but boring, without multimedia, no one's going to watch it."

Exactly what he intended by repeating the obvious is not yet clear, though the hopeful ones among us may believe that he was signalling the repeal of Section 33 of the Films Act which bans political films and which has proven to be completely ineffective.

A reporter from Today asked me what I thought of the ruling People's Action Party's (PAP's) efforts to go online. Were they just jumping on the bandwagon without real thought to effect?

But nothing I could have said about the the internet being more pitfall than opportunity for the PAP would have provided as cutting an answer as what has been happening over the last few days. Tham Chen Munn might have been the first person to notice something odd about the music video for Singapore's 2008 National Day song "Shine on Singapore" on or before 12 July 2008, writing about it in his blog The Amoeba's Compendium to The Evolution of Munn at the Thirty Second.

He followed it with a letter to the Straits Times, which was published on 15 July after some editing.

15 July 2008
Straits Times Print Forum

N-Day song's music concept video a copycat?

I was proud of Singapore when I first read the lyrics to this year's National Day theme song Shine For Singapore.

The song made me reminisce about songs of past National Day Parades.

All of them, whenever sung or hummed in the head, invoke pride and belonging.

Our usual complaints of fare hikes and increase in Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) gantry prices are overshadowed by the fact that our pragmatic Government has boldly moved forward to be one of the best in the world in many aspects, including prosperity, security and technology.

The songs make us feel that we're part of the nation's progress.

But here's the glitch. The music video concept popularising Shine doesn't seem original. It mimics one that was aired by the Japan Ad Council, about two years ago, which, ironically had a tagline that said: 'How to encourage your child? Use your imagination.'

The uncanny similarities between Shine and the Japanese ad, can be viewed on the Internet's YouTube, titled Imagination Whale.

I hope it's coincidental. If it isn't, what does it say about our imagination and creativity? How do I call Shine my Singapore song if the music video copied its Japanese predecessor?

Tham Chen Munn 

 
Here is the Japanese ad that Tham referred to:

It's a powerful ad that reminds us how imaginative genius can easily be mistaken for madness and be dismissed, or worse, suppressed. In its short span, it has a narrative arc and even builds dramatic tension to a climactic discovery.

On the other hand, here is Singapore's 2008 National Day song, composed by Benny Wong, melody-wise treacly and message-wise, rather confused. There are two versions, the Chinese one sung by Joi Chua and the English version by Hady Mirza.

No doubt, the production of the music video would have been outsourced, but ultimately, it is the government who approved both the song for use and the music video for distribution. While almost certainly, they didn't realise the possible plagiarism in the music video (but see the last line of Addendum 1), I most surely hold them responsible for dumbing down Singaporeans' minds with lyrics like these:

Shine for Singapore
This is our song
Reach out for the sky
Far and beyond
As one we'll stand
We're Singapore
It's here that we belong
Nowhere I'd rather be
This is home to me
This star shines strong and free

Every year, as National Day comes around, we are inflicted with these patriotic songs. Don't be fooled by the sugary melody. The cringe-inducing lyrics are on par with what North Korea produces. 

It's a bad joke that that last word is "free". Will somebody please tell the government that singing "free" doesn't make us so. 

In fact, our lack of freedom is there for all to see in that very same music video. It's like this: Far from convincing people about anything that Singapore can be proud of, it has quite unexpectedly shone a spotlight on the way we have systematically stifled originality through curbs on freedom of expression. Too many Singaporeans have learnt to play safe. All we can do is copy the tried and tested. We treat anyone with unconventional ideas exactly the way the Japanese ad warns us against.

It's a schadenfreude moment: Just weeks after Vivian suggested that the PAP is ready for the YouTube age of politics, it is through YouTube that the first goal is scored -- an own goal.

© Yawning Bread 

Footnotes

None

Addenda

1. In a story (YouTube raises the bar) dated 25 July 2008, Straits Times columnist Clarissa Oon reported that:
    
   QUOTE
   After blogger Tham Chen Munn wrote about the similarities last week in The Straits Times Forum page, the producer of the National Day video admitted to The New Paper that hers was a 'remake of that idea'.
   
   Ms Gloria Chee's video has scenes of a little girl using a red crayon and colouring over sheet after sheet of paper - to the bafflement of her parents and teachers - with the idea of putting together the pieces to form a giant red star to represent the stars on the Singapore flag. It echoes the Japanese commercial in which a little boy does the same, using a black crayon and producing a giant whale instead.
   
   Ms Chee's defence was that she was localising an inspirational idea and had 'never thought of it as copying'. She added that she produced the video in only three days and received a modest honorarium for it.
   
   This further incensed some netizens. One advertising industry professional, Mr Liew Shih How, juxtaposed images from the two videos on his blog to show how Ms Chee had reproduced almost frame-by-frame the original storyline of the Japanese video by advertising guru Akira Kagami. Writing in Mandarin, Mr Liew pointed out: 'Even if, as a creative professional, you admire another person's ideas, the least you could do is to make some changes or improve it because to be accused of plagiarism is a great embarrassment.' 
   
   As an unintentional ironic statement on the lack of originality here, the National Day video appears to have hit a nerve. But netizens are also wondering about the silence from the commissioning authorities.
   
   'What does that say about local culture, that it's a copycat culture where you fry up others' leftovers,' actor and Chinese newspaper columnist Danny Yeo mused in Mandarin on his blog. He also wondered why the National Day Parade (NDP) organisers had approved the video in the first place.
    
   Ms Chee has said the NDP committee knew that hers was a remake of an original.
   ENDQUOTE
    
   If true, the last line is a kicker.
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