Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Fear and the Fragility of Myths
- 2 Playing Games with Heritage
- 3 Drama Writing and Audiences as Affective Superaddressee
- 4 Producing Art, Producing Difference
- 5 Making Reality TV: The Pleasures of Disciplining in a Control Society
- Reflections
- References
- Index
2 - Playing Games with Heritage
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 January 2023
- Frontmatter
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Fear and the Fragility of Myths
- 2 Playing Games with Heritage
- 3 Drama Writing and Audiences as Affective Superaddressee
- 4 Producing Art, Producing Difference
- 5 Making Reality TV: The Pleasures of Disciplining in a Control Society
- Reflections
- References
- Index
Summary
Abstract
Beginning with one of the most-made genres in Singaporean television, Chapter Two uses two state-funded game shows about heritage to examine the well-oiled practices and the mundane everyday work that goes into making infotainment in an illiberal capitalist democracy. Through the chapter, I show how these practices enable an ideological construction of audiences that continually condemn the Singaporean subject as a work in progress, and sustain a vicious cycle of perpetual to-be-upgraded-ness by denying and disarticulating the underlying antagonisms of Singapore society.
Keywords: Game shows; Heritage; Infotainment; Antagonisms; Status quo; Meritocracy
If the most idiotic television game shows are so successful, it's because they express the corporate situation with great precision […] the corporation constantly presents the brashest rivalry as a healthy form of emulation, an excellent motivational force that opposes individuals against one another and runs through each, dividing each within (Deleuze 1992: 4–5).
Throughout my fieldwork and subsequent visits to my field sites, I observed first-hand how the forces of capital and state power impacted on different producers differently. I was reminded of this again during a recent visit when I was invited to a lunch party at one of my fieldwork companies to celebrate the Lunar New Year. As I chatted with some of my informants while waiting for the feast to begin, I noticed how the producers who were in charge of variety and infotainment programmes continued typing away on their computers without participating in the festivities. After the main activity of the celebration, the lo hei, those producers collected their plates of buffet food and quietly returned to their workstations to eat while continuing their work. I stood with the majority of the other producers who ate while chatting with each other informally. When I asked one of the producers about whether the variety and infotainment department was very busy, she commented in a half-joking manner, ‘no choice, they have to earn the money to support the whole company’. I often heard comments like that – told either as a joke or a complaint – during my fieldwork. After lunch, I walked over to the desk of one of the variety producers when I noticed he had a moment of respite. He informed me that he was juggling four projects at one go and had worked throughout the Lunar New Year holidays.
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- Performing Fear in Television ProductionPractices of an Illiberal Democracy, pp. 63 - 84Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2022