Thoughts on Joseph Chia’s letter on “If There’re Seasons…”

About 2 weeks ago, I read Chim Kang's piece on Zao Bao ( a Chinese daily, dated 28 Aug 2007 IIRC) about his conversation with a middle-aged female teacher. They had just finished watching the musical "If There're Seasons...", and the teacher remarked that it was such a good show that she wanted to bring her students to watch it. Chim Kang pointed out that there were some parts of the musical which touched on the subject of homosexuality. She dismissed such a view as ancient, noting that there are much more liberal views on the Net that the young were exposed to. "What are you going to do when parents complain about the musical having 'objectionable content'?" It was then that she realised the possible repercussions she might face.

As it happens in real life

And just a few days later, we see a concerned parent writing to the Straits Times forum about the subject. Letter reproduced below.

Sep 1, 2007

'Gay' musical should have come with rating

RECENTLY, my family and I attended the Chinese musical, If There're Seasons..., by The Theatre Practice at the Drama Centre. By and large, it was a good production featuring various familiar songs written by local composer Liang Wern Fook.

While it was a good production, I was very disturbed by part of the story. One of the characters, Ah Qiang played by Sebastian Tan, turned out to have been jilted by his boyfriend in a homosexual relationship. His boyfriend then came back to woo Ah Qiang with love songs pledging his unending love, and even gave up his heterosexual marriage and his relationship with his parents, in order to be with Ah Qiang again.

Given that Ah Qiang was not the main character, and that the homosexual relationship was not even the main story, I wonder if it was necessary for them to be included.

I was even more disturbed because there were many schoolchildren, perhaps on an excursion trip, and families with young children among the audience. The children may not have the maturity to understand the implications of such a controversial subject.

When I checked the musical's website, as well as ticket-seller Sistic's website, there was no rating or information to warn audiences of the musical's content. No wonder there were so many children and families in the audience.

Perhaps this is an area the Censorship Board needs to look into.



Joseph Chia Yoong Leong

First, we should keep in mind that the Joseph probably did not come up with the title to the letter. The branding of "If There're Seasons..." as a "gay musical" is quite likely to be the idea of the editors, just to grab the reader's attention. Moving on, take a look at what are some of the comments to Joseph's letter. Morality, human rights, religion, biology, theology are all mentioned, you know, the mind-numbing, heavy-duty subjects that you don't discuss over dinner. There's quite a lot of strong reactions being triggered here, so you can tell that Joseph's letter and the reader's comments actually touched a raw nerve in some people.

Portrayal of gays is common, so what's the issue?

While society is still divided on the issue of gay rights, we are not short of portrayals of gays in the mainstream media. I mean, we see depictions, caricatures or distortions of gays in a lot of TV programs or movies that we watch. Now I haven't watched the musical so I'm not sure what kind of homosexual scenes we are talking about, whether it's explicit or sensual or what not. But I'm going to assume that it is not something that is different from similar scenes shown during normal prime-time TV as one, the musical was not slapped with a PG or R rating, and two, I haven't heard a people emphasizing the gay scenes. What then is the problem?

Exploration of homosexual love and expectations of standardised ratings

I'm not sure, but I reckon it's due to 2 factors. First, the portrayal of homosexuals on TV are usually in comic roles or some secondary role. And these roles may delve into the conflict with the traditional concept of family but they do not explore the love and relationship between them. In this sense, the roles in "If There're Seasons..." are a significant departure from the usual ones we seen on TV. Can't remember any show shown on national TV with regards to this. In the case of movies, it'll usually be rated PG or NC-16 and above I think.

Second, assuming that a TV show or movie will be tagged as PG and above, then it is interesting to note that "If There're Seasons..." is not given a rating at all. Does this mean that this topic is not as taboo as it seems, and that the censors feel that it doesn't need a rating? But then, "Spider Lilies", which dealt with some aspects of lesbianism, was given a R21. Even "Evan Almighty" is PG. Is this a case of double standards?