Legitimizing viewing publics through nostalgia: the mediated tropicality of Singapore’s ‘kampong spirit’

abstract

Using two recent films—Long Long Time Ago and Diam Diam Era—this article analyses how Jack Neo communicates a sanitized nostalgia for the “kampong spirit” through his films, which calibrates willing acceptance of the Singapore government’s authoritarian rule. In supporting the state’s presentist historiography, the films of Jack Neo induce a depoliticization of unpleasant memories arising from the ruling party’s unpopular housing and language policies of the past. The nostalgia mediated in both films is aligned towards an imaginary geography and mental map of a First World nation, which exhorts Singaporeans to disavow “the tropics” by nostalgizing the state’s modernization efforts. The cumulative thrust of an evidence-free and presentist nostalgia ostensible in both films, this work argues, satisfies the paternalistic state’s obsession with the public legitimation of its ruling mandate.

Keywords:

• Singapore
• nostalgia
• kampong spirit
• tropics
• authoritarian governance
• Chinese diaspora

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John Lowe

John Lowe is a researcher of gender, race, and ethnicity in Singapore and Hong Kong societies. His work appears in top-tier journals including Asian Studies Review, Gender, Place & Culture, Journal of Gender Studies, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, and Critical Asian Studies.

George Wong

George Wong is an adjunct lecturer at the Singapore Management University. His research is at the intersection of urban politics and governance, community development, and contemporary urban political experiences and identities in Asian cities. His current research project includes an eco-political analysis of sustainability regimes in Asian urban contexts. Beyond academia, he is a community organizer and town councilor.