Accented Style: On Namewee’s Sinophone Malaysian Film and Rap Songs

Abstract

Focusing on Namewee’s rap songs and his film, this essay uses Sinophone theory and accented cinema theory to explore how sound and image are used to perform Sinophone identity through journeys of deterritorialization and reterritorialization. The essay demonstrates that Namewee’s works are neither a national allegory nor an exilic/diasporic allegory, and therefore that neither the perspective of national discourse nor diaspora discourse can adequately frame his works. Sinophone Malaysian accented cinema is an appropriate one from which to approach Namewee’s films. In the theoretical framework of accented cinema, Namewee is a postcolonial ethnic and identity filmmaker; in the Malaysian context he is “not quite” equal to Malays, and neither is he accepted or trusted as a full citizen. The accented style of Namewee’s works is intimately linked to localization, diaspora and against-diaspora experiences, and Chinese–Malay relations. He has successfully updated the understanding that accented style can only be produced from exile/diaspora experience, demonstrating that against-diaspora experience and localization can also create an accented style. This essay analyzes the re-presentation of Sino-Malay relations in Namewee’s works and discovers that they refuse to rely on the standard ethnic framework. Rather, the accented style of these works gives play to the multiply mediated, multidirectional critical agency of Sinophone theory: the Sinification discourse of “authenticity” is criticized, while at the same time a performance of national identities is used to resist the presence of racism and expose the essentialized Malay mythologization of indigeneity.

• Accented style
• against-diaspora
• localization
• Namewee
• rap songs
• Sinophone Malaysian film

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of the essay for providing me with constructive suggestions. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Zi-Heng Zhou for proofreading assistance.

Notes on contributor

Wai-Siam Hee is Assistant Professor of Chinese and film at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He has written extensively on cinematic and gender issues, with articles in the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Journal of Chinese Cinemas and Queer Sinophone Cultures. He is the author of From Amorous Histories to Sexual Histories: Tongzhi Writings and the Construction of Masculinities in Late Qing and Modern China and Remapping the Sinophone: The Cultural Production of Chinese-Language Cinema in Singapore and Malaya before and during the Cold War. He has co-edited two books, including Transnational Chinese Cinema: Corporeality, Desire and The Ethics of Failure and Memorandum: A Reader of Singapore Chinese Short Stories.

Notes

1 Shih was describing the films of Hong Kong director Fruit Chan.

2 Many thanks to the reviewer for this insight.

3 According to the Malaysian constitution, Malays have “bumiputera privileges”, giving them a priority quota in state social welfare. After the 513 incident of ethnic violence, questioning of “ethnically sensitive” issues such as Malay special rights was prohibited, even within Parliament (Edmund and Jomo 1999, 22–3). For how the UMNO abused bumiputera privileges to gain business monopolies and enrich its upper ranks, see Edmund (1990, 9–179).

4 Many Malays believe they are the original inhabitants of Malaysia. However, the Malays moved from Indochina to the Malaysian peninsula at some point in the Neolithic age (Husin 1981, 10). Many Malays currently living in Malaysia migrated from other parts of Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia (Hwang 2003, 22). The true “indigenous people” of Malaysia are the Orang Asli in the Malay peninsula, the Dayaks of Sarawak, and the various ethnic groups in Sabah. However, these groups have been marginalized by the Malay-led ideology of “bumiputeraism” (Zawawi 2013, 294–307).

5 “One Malaysia” is a slogan introduced by Prime Minister Nazib Tun Razak in 2009 in support of ethnic unity. As the governing party lost its two-thirds majority in the 2008 general election, it needed to appeal to minority ethnic voters. The slogan is based on the idea that no ethnicity should be marginalized.

6 Bersih supporters of all ethnicities wear yellow clothes on their marches. The movement demands reform of the Malaysian electoral system.

7 Many thanks to the reviewer for this insight.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by HSS-Start Up Grant [M58100018: The Independent Chinese Film Culture in Singapore and Malaysia] and Tier 1 Grant [RG73/17: On anti-Communist films sponsored by the UK and US governments in Southeast Asia during the Cold War period].