People Like Us are disappointed, but not surprised, that the Board of Film Censors (BFC) has insisted on 3 cuts to the locally-made film ‘Solos’, before they would give it an R21 rating for the 20th Singapore International Film Festival. Since the film festival organisers have a policy of screening only uncut films, out of respect for film makers’ artistic integrity, they have thus announced that ‘Solos’ will be withdrawn from the festival programme.

‘Solos’ is a story of three individuals - a teacher, a junior-college student and his mother - as they struggle to deal with their feelings and desires for each other.

According to a report in the Straits Times, 21 April 2007, the BFC complained that the film contains “prolonged and explicit homosexual lovemaking scenes including scenes of oral sex and threesome sex”.

It is ridiculous that even as the government says they wish to promote a home-grown film industry as part of its plan to make Singapore a centre for the arts, they are also out to rape and savage works of talented young film makers such as Kan Lume and Loo Zihan, the ones behind ‘Solos’.

Such double-dealing is extremely discouraging to local talent. It is also economically inefficient. People put in time and money to produce works with no certainty how the censors will react towards it. Saying that producers and directors should know that to be safe they shouldn’t make controversial works is to misunderstand what art is about. The best art tends to be controversial, and the society that it holds a mirror up to benefits from confronting its reflection. We cannot want art while shying away from controversy.

More particularly, PLU is disappointed with the double standards practised by the censors. Other films with similar intimate scenes, albeit heterosexual, are passed without issue. The discriminatory standards of the BFC are laid bare.

The Singapore government often justifies censorship with reference to not causing offence to sections of a multi-racial, multi-religious country. This is empty rhetoric. Most large cities today with similar levels of development are multi-racial and multi-religious, yet many do very well without such nanny-state censorship. In any case, it is not as if ‘Solos’ is going to be screened at a public square confronting the unwary with bedroom scenes.

Film festival afficionados are typically well informed about what they are about to see. They would hardly be shocked that ‘Solos’ has a sexualised narrative. In fact, by purchasing tickets, they choose to see it. The rationalisation that censorship is there to curtail causing offence is pure nonsense.

Altogether, this incident is just another example of the homophobia, discrimination and illiberal authoritarianism often displayed by the government.