disneyland revisited: singapore as a poster-child for modernity and postmodernity?
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This paper examines the conditions of modernity and post-modernity using Singapore as the case study, with reference to Jean Baudrillard's essay "Disneyland Company" (1996)TRANSCRIPT
Swansea University, Student No. 570886
Total No. of Words (including bibliography): 5,260
Disneyland revisited: Singapore as a poster-child for
modernity and postmodernity?
Introduction
This paper is an examination of modernity and post-modernity, as applicable to the
island state of Singapore. We start with William Gibson’s acerbic, witty and
outrageous critique of Singapore’s version of modernity (Gibson, 1993). Gibson’s
attempt to poke fun at Singapore is social commentary of how and why modern
society came about, in particular, the political, the economic, the social, and the
cultural processes underpinning the rise of modernity. In Singapore, the dynamics of
modernity is represented by the tension created by a government with a centralized,
bureaucratic economic structure originally designed for a more passive, receptive
audience. The reign of technocracy and the pursuit of natural sciences in the last 30
years have produced economic success and enabled self-efficiency in the “clean
dystopia” that is the Singapore nation state. Is this state of modernity sustainable in
the future of Singapore?
Next we evaluate the economic or cultural state or condition that is known as
postmodernity, and we will focus on the later phase ascribed to Ester Dyson, the
pattern recognizer, as “being digital”: “A new kind of community, not a culture, is
coming. The difference between a culture and a community is that a culture is one-
way (you can absorb it by reading it, by watching it) but you have to invest back in a
community (Brockman, 1996).” We will proceed to examine the conditions for
postmodernity that exists in Singapore as signposts for the future direction of a
technocratic island state. How will the arrival of Vegas style casinos in Singapore in
early 2010 change Singaporeans and society as a whole? Jean Baudrillard’s essay
“Disneyworld Company” where he describes that we are “no longer alienated and
passive spectators but interactive extras” (Baudrillard, 1996) is a helpful starting
point to illuminate the potential implications of the integrated resorts, that are
integrated within community and society.
1
To conclude, this paper will offer an insight as a possible way forward to develop the
radical thinking that is missing in society, and essential to the future of Singapore –
based on the reading of Jean Baudrillard’s essay “Disneyland Company” (Baudrillard,
1996).
Why Singapore?
Dispatched to investigate whether “that clean dystopia represents our techno future”,
William Gibson1 spent a few days visiting Singapore in 1994 and wrote a travelogue
for Wired magazine (Gibson, 1993) published in Sept/Oct 1993, and the relevant
excerpt follows:
Singapore is a relentlessly G-rated experience, micromanaged by a state that
has the look and feel of a very large corporation. If IBM had ever bothered to
actually possess a physical country, that country might have had a lot in
common with Singapore. There's a certain white-shirted constraint, an
absolute humorlessness in the way Singapore Ltd. operates; conformity here is
the prime directive, and the fuzzier brands of creativity are in extremely short
supply. The physical past here has almost entirely vanished. There is no slack
in Singapore. Imagine an Asian version of Zurich operating as an offshore
capsule at the foot of Malaysia; an affluent microcosm whose citizens inhabit
something that feels like, well, Disneyland. Disneyland with the death
penalty. But Disneyland wasn't built atop an equally peculiar 19th-century
theme park - something constructed to meet both the romantic longings and
purely mercantile needs of the British Empire. Modern Singapore was - bits of
the Victorian construct, dressed in spanking-fresh paint, protrude at quaint
angles from the white-flanked glitter of the neo-Gernsbackian metropolis.
These few very deliberate fragments of historical texture serve as a reminder
of just how deliciously odd an entrepot Singapore once was - a product of
Empire kinkier even than Hong Kong.
1 Author of cyberpunk novel Neuromancer, who coined the term “cyberspace”. 2
The article provoked a minor controversy and elicited a variety of reactions, including
among others, Guardian journalist Steven Poole, digerati Peter Ludlow and
architectural philosopher Rem Koolhaas. The reactions are revealing in several
respects - the successful efficiency of modernity has unforeseen consequences; in the
micro-management and control over information by government, and in the passive
consumption of standardized and mass-produced cultural products of a distinctly
Western flavor.
Guardian journalist Steven Poole (famous for his lengthy obituary on Jean
Baudrillard) places the Singapore travelogue in the context of the dystopian near-
future landscapes of Neuromancer, where control by corporations and governments
are uncovered in its many guises, even in cyberspace (Poole, 1996). In that setting, it
is not surprising that in the horrified account in 1993 of Singapore, Gibson “despises
the seamless, structured planes of corporate big business. He hunts out the gaps in the
control structure; he is the champion of the interstitial (Poole, 1996)”. This is a fairly
predictable conclusion from Gibson, as anticipated by Wired magazine.
In writing of governance structures and political sovereignty in online communities,
Peter Ludlow expressed amusement at the deliberate attack in Gibson’s description of
Singapore as the Disneyland with a death penalty, when “the real Disneyland is in
California – whose repressive penal code includes the death penalty” (Ludlow, 2001,
p. 386 footnote 43). Ludlow brief commentary is obliquely ironic for two reasons;
firstly, the US is the biggest exporter of standardized and mass-produced cultural
products with Disneyland being the epitome of global capitalist output; and secondly,
the subsequent arrival of a Las Vegas style casino to the Singapore in early 2010
brings the wholesale assimilation of US cultural products directly into Singaporean
society and individual psyche at ground zero. Disneyland is no longer imported into
Singapore, it will be living and breathing in Singapore by early 2010.
3
Architectural guru and philosopher Rem Koolhaas (Miles et al., 2000, pp. 22-24)2 had
the strongest reaction to Gibson. His focus was on the ‘new’ overwhelming the ‘old’,
and this turns the new millennium into an exercise of soullessness (Miles et al., 2000,
p. 23). He describes the Singapore Songline as “dominated by a kind of Confucian
post-modernism”. The city’s primary architects and its central government are highly
aware of this flaw in character, alluded to by the former Minister of Information and
Arts (1991-1999), George Yeo: “It may seem odd, but we have to pursue the subject
of fun very seriously if we want to stay competitive in the 21st century (cited in Miles
et al., 2000)”. Koolhaas describes Singapore as being in a “Promethean hangover”,
an anti-climax after its monumental achievement, a ‘Barthian’ state grasping for “new
themes, new metaphors, new signs to superimpose on its luxurious substance (Miles
et al., 2000, p. 23)”. This paper takes the view that Koolhaas’s critique on Singapore,
in comparison with Gibson, lacks humor and in being obstinately serious about the
urbanization, he misses the point of social construction (see Latour below).
Modernity
Stuart Hall, cultural theorist of the Birmingham School, accepts the existence of
modernity, being “concerned with the process of formation which led to the
emergence of modern societies (Hall, 1996, p.3)”. Taking a historical approach to
formation of modernity, it is treated as “different processes working according to
different historical time-scales, whose interaction led to variable and contingent
outcomes (Hall, 1996, p.3)”.
Habermas similarly observed that the term has popped in and out of periods in Europe
“when the consciousness of a new epoch formed itself through a review relationship
to the ancients, whenever, moreover, antiquity was considered a model to be
recovered through some kind of imitation (Habermas and Ben-Habib, 1981, p. 6)”.
2 “Singapore Songlines: Portrait of a Potemkin Metropolis…or Thirty Years of Tabula
Rasa” from Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau “S, M, L, XL (1995)” cited in MILES, M.,
BORDEN, I. & HALL, T. (2000) The city cultures reader, London; New York,
Routledge. 4
Thus, there is no single explanation or phenomena and modernity relies on a
combination of factors in the form of social processes and structures – the political,
the economic, the social and the cultural. Modernity eludes definition due to an
amorphous nature and the evolving and non-static condition within society.
Despite the difficulty in pinpointing the condition of modernity or its very nature, we
are quite prepared to attribute the costs of modern culture – such as “civilization’s
discontents” (Freud) and increasing rationalization (Weber) – as the primary causes
for disenchantment with the modern world (Habermas and Ben-Habib, 1981, p. 6).
This presupposes we were enchanted in the first place, an interesting choice of words.
Bruno Latour, as a constructivist, explains the meaning that we ourselves have
ascribed to modernity:
‘Modern’ is thus doubly symmetrical: it designates a break in the regular
passage of time, and it designates a combat in which there are victors and
vanquished (Latour, 1993, p. 10).
Latour is critical of the use of the term “modernity” because it is used in a qualified
sense, due to our inability to maintain the double symmetry. Science and modernity
are inextricably related – the rise of science has changed the world irrevocably – we
think we are modern, and distinguished from the past. Latour argued this is too simple
a distinction for today. While Latour respects scientific method, he puts science in
context of a construction of systems that mix politics, science, technology and nature.
In fact, he argues that scientists are practical sociologists, and he argues against the
existence of post-modernity and for the illusion of modernity3.
3 “So is modernity an illusion? No, it is much more than an illusion and much less
than an essence. It is a force added to others that for a long time it had the power to
represent, to accelerate, or to summarize – a power that it no longer entirely holds.”
LATOUR, B. (1993) We have never been modern, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard
University Press., p. 405
Irrespective of whether we define modernity from a sociological view, as social
processes or discourses related to the Industrial Revolution or the Enlightenment; or
from an anthropological view, as the construction of systems that mix politics,
science, technology and nature, such that arguably there never has been modernity (or
at best, it is a moot point); it is the unshakeable belief in science and technology that
is defining modernity, and the trumping of science over social, political and
philosophical discussions.
Singapore Modernity
If modernity is defined by science, technology, industry and progress, then Singapore
should be a serious contender as a poster-child for modernity. This characterization
of a modern society is based on “the rational use of scientific techniques, and by the
application of reason to meet the common interests of all, since reason is seen as the
source of progress in knowledge and society (daCunha, 2002, p. 190)”.4 J. M. Nathan
is of the belief that the island state of Singapore has redefined modernity, as a result
of its unique geography (epicenter of Southeast Asia), its history (post-colonialism),
its multicultural and multiracial society and its dynamism (daCunha, 2002, p. 194).
This belief goes against the trend that the export of Western modernity, in particular
from the United States, has reduced the world into heterogeneous blandness of the
usual brand suspects, such as McDonalds, Hollywood movies, etc.
Singapore had to modernize, and yet, the wholesale adoption of liberal democracy,
free enterprise and rational technologies would weaken the nation-state and cultural
integrity. This has led to a paternalistic style government with a focal point “on the
solidarity of community over issues of abstract rights (daCunha, 2002, p. 194)”. In
this sense, the Singapore political leadership responsible for defining its modernity
guided not only the political economy of the nation-state but also its cultural and
spiritual well-being.
4 Article entitled – “Reframing Modernity: The Challenge of Remaking Singapore” by
J. M. Nathan Singapore in DACUNHA, D. (2002) Singapore in the new millennium :
challenges facing the city-state, Singapore, ISEAS.6
The counter-argument is that Singapore is the anti-thesis of modernity, and what has
happened is ‘modernization without modernity’ - “without the critical and self-
reflexive consciousness of modernity (Crane et al., 2002, p .164)”5. Singapore has
created a version of modernity in which the subversive and irrationality has been
subdued and its radical impulses smoothed-out (Miles et al., 2000). By contrast, Beng
Huat Chua makes the coherent argument that it may be possible to reject the Western
modernity of liberalism but not the modernity of capitalism in Singapore (Chua,
2003). Due to Singapore’s state of “embeddedness in global capitalism”, there has
been no import of Western culture imposed on Singapore, nor has there been an
existing ‘traditional’ Singapore culture. His argument is “the cultural modernity of
capitalism should be emphasized, rather than narrowly conceptualizing this modernity
as ‘Western’ (Chua, 2003, p .19).”
This paper takes the view that Singapore is a poster-child for modernity set against
global capitalism and a political economy of scientific rationality, technology,
industry and progress. Singapore is a marvel of modernization due to the very nature
of being rational, orderly, clean and obsessively compulsive. This is a post-modern
vision of a society infused with global capitalism, communitarianism (so-called Asian
values), multiculturalism (or a pluralistic society), and technology. Singapore can
therefore be a point of reference for post-modernism:
Almost all of Singapore is less than 30 years old; the city represents the
ideological production of the past three decades in its pure form,
uncontaminated by surviving contextual remnants. It is managed by a regime
that has excluded accident and randomness. Even its nature is entirely remade.
It is pure intention: If there is chaos, it is authored chaos; if it is ugly, it is
designed ugliness; if it is absurd, it is willed absurdity (Gardels, 1997, p. 171).
5 Article entitled “Cultural Policy and the City-State” (2002) by Kian-Woon Kwok
and Kee-Hong Low, which appears in CRANE, D., KAWASHIMA, N. &
KAWASAKI, K. (2002) Global culture : media, arts, policy, and globalization, New
York, Routledge.
7
Singapore is a model that therefore complies with the social and cultural view of
modernity’s achievements being limited to the free citizen and free labor but not the
free consumer, because “the values of economy and equality were calibrated to the
understanding of politics and economics (Poster, 2006, p.236)”. In Singapore case,
issues of gender relations, sexual preference, consumer patterns and emotional
dynamics were subordinate to nation building and institutional realization of political
and economic freedoms.
Post-modernity
How do you identify postmodernity? In modernity, the consumer’s role was
marginalized and played a secondary role: “Consumption was considered necessary
for the reproduction of labor and the satisfaction of needs (Poster, 2006, p. 236)”.
The complexity and importance of consumption is a salient feature of postmodernity.
This is supported by Michel de Certeau who criticized social scientists for using
quantitative methods to study consumption - blinded by science, and failed to see that
consumption has its own trajectory – because consumption ‘moves’ and can be
indiscriminate (Poster, 2006, p. 238). The difference is the way an individual
identifies with the object that is consumed. In modernity, the consumer maintains the
object of consumption as separate or apart from him/her. In postmodernity, “the
consumer renders products of her/himself, becoming part of the experience being with
products (Poster, 2006, p. 242)” The consumer in modernity equates consumption
with status, while in postmodernity, it is identity.
Postmodernity is associated with new media because of “speed, flexibility, digitality,
hypertextuality (Lister, 2003, p. 192)” as their defining characteristics. Therefore, the
consumption of digital media is a key characteristic of postmodernity – this is because
the consumer transforms the objects by virtue of their consumption. The individual
become more than a mere consumer, and turns into a creator of new digital media
content. The change in consumption, digitality and the consumer evolution into a
“prosumer” (Benkler, 2006) are significant factors in “being digital” and the process
of decentralization into the building of communities. Esther Dyson, the pattern
recognizer, spotted this development before many others:
8
It's not between democracy and tyranny. It's decentralization. More and more
things are chosen individually. It's the primacy of the small unit. You can now
be as efficient in a small unit as you are in a big unit (Brockman, 1996).
In addition to the difference in consumer consumption, and the association of new
media in the change from modernity to postmodernity, the third way to identify
postmodernity is the collapse of modern culture (Jean Baudrillard) or any changes in
the culture of capitalism (Fredric James). For Baudrillard, the postmodern world is
hyperreal - in a postmodern world, “we are involved in the empty and meaningless
play of the media (Lane, 2009)”. This means we are playing a part and the symbolic
meaning is destroyed specifically our past, and instead a chaotic and empty world
replaces it. The pervasiveness of electronic communication and mass media “has
reversed the Marxist theorum that economic forces shape society. Instead, social life
is influenced above all by signs and images (Giddens and Griffiths, 2006)”. Meaning
in our lives is replaced by images, through TV, so that we are walking around in a
make-believe universe where we are responding to media images instead of
interacting with real people. It is difficult to separate our real lives from the reality
created by media images, TV, etc (Giddens and Griffiths, 2006).
Baudrillard refers to Disneyland as a metaphor of hyperreality – the Disneyland
themes parks are fictional worlds where the use of technology, and the simulation of a
false reality, is so desirable and attractive, consumers come back for more each time.
The simulated reality has, in actual fact, become more real, i.e. hyper-real. This is
acutely described in Simulacra and Simulations:
The Disneyland imaginary is neither true or false: it is a deterrence machine
set up in order to rejuvenate in reverse the fiction of the real. Whence the
debility, the infantile degeneration of this imaginary. It’s meant to be an
infantile world, in order to make us believe that the adults are elsewhere, in the
‘real’ world, and to conceal the fact that real childishness is everywhere,
particularly among those adults who go there to act the child in order to foster
illusion of their real childishness. (Baudrillard and Poster, 1999, pp. 166-184)
9
Baudrillard is still influential and popular, and widely associated with postmodernism,
because his work “has been animated by the dual project of tracing the new forms of
social control that govern and produce us and searching for and discovering forces
which opposed and reversed this perfected system (Merrin, 2005, p. 99)”.
Singapore Postmodernity
Any visitor who asks, “what can I do in Singapore” receives the standard response:
there are only three things to do – shopping, eating and watching movies. And the
proof is in the pudding because Singapore has become a consumer heaven with
overwhelming evidence of a consumer culture comparable to those of advanced
developed nations. It is not hype to state that Singapore’s consumer lifestyle is better
than most of the world’s major cities. All the major fast food chains, major fashion
labels, luxury cars, shopping malls selling only electronic items, even specializing in
high-technology products. This consumer phenomenon has prompted the Prime
Minister of Singapore in his 1996 National Day Rally Speech (akin to the UK Prime
Minister’s speech or the US State of the Union address) to proclaim – “Life for
Singaporeans is not complete without shopping!” (Chua, 2003)6
The recognition given by the Singapore leadership to significant developments in the
cultural industry, was swiftly followed up by pragmatic economic development and
investment in theatre, popular media and the arts over the last decade. Andrey Yue
makes an astute observation that “Underpinning this growth is the emergence not only
of culture, but of an expedient culture that has the capacity to transform everything
into a practical resource (Yue, 2006, p. 3)”. In this state of ultra-consumerism in
Singapore, there emerges three distinct characteristics which point to the emergence
of a capitalist postmodern consumer culture: firstly, the speed and volume of
consumption due to unprecedented economic progress such that consumerism is a
culture among Singaporeans, secondly, consumption patterns are demarcated by class,
age, gender, sexuality, race and nationality, and thirdly, these patterns provide fertile
ground for new practices described by Michel de Certeau as ‘acts of doing’ to
reconstitute identity and potentially disrupt hegemony (Yue, 2006, p.3).
6 The proclamation was reported in The Straits Times, 18 August 1996.10
Yue cites the example of gay and lesbian consumption in Singapore to support her
argument of the existing and continuous development of identity subcultures in
Singapore despite government intervention: “The acquisition of citizenship as
consumership is evident in how gay and lesbian consumption in the last five years has
outstripped Sydney as the queer capital in the Asia-Pacific region. Despite the
illegality of homosexuality and the censorship of gay Internet content by the
Singapore Broadcasting Authority, a queer culture has emerged through AIDS
organizations, gay and lesbian activism and especially queer life-style consumption
(Yue, 2006, p.8)”.
The government clearly recognizes these trends described by Yue and their potential
not for disruption, but for continuing and maintain economic progress. The Singapore
government is promising yet another remarkable transformation and this involves an
experiment on media, society and culture on a massive scale. Terence Lee has
examined the latest Singapore initiative of a cultural revolution set out in the report
from the Creative Industries Working Group (CIWG) of the Economic Review
Committee (ERC), a government appointed, high-level body tasked to identify future
economic growth sectors and opportunities in Singapore(Lee, 2007). The Media 21
initiative “…envisions Singapore as ‘a global media city, a thriving media ecosystem
with roots in Singapore, and with strong extensions internationally (Lee, 2007, p. 8)”.
There are strong elements of McLuhan’s Extensions of Man in this statement. The
vision of a Renaissance City 2.0 was to “…(re)package the city-state as a creative and
vibrant place to ‘live, work and play’ – a contemporary catchphrase in Singapore – for
both local and foreign talents (Lee, 2007, p. 2)”. The Renaissance City is an allusion
to the Age of Enlightenment. At first blush, Singapore government is reinforcing
modernity by harking back to Enlightenment and McLuhanism. Its rhetoric however
conveys post-modernity – embracing counter-enlightenment ideas and post-liberalist
concepts of culture, society and identity. Lee criticizes the Singapore government for
the use of marketing and PR for “sexing up Singapore (Lee, 2007, p. 14)”. He remains
skeptical and argues that the efforts to liberalize Singapore are cosmetic and ‘gestural’
(Lee, 2007, p.11).
11
These transformations included the over-turning of a long-standing ban on casinos,
and investments from Las Vegas Sands (Yahoo!, 2006)7 and Genting Group (Genting,
2006)8 to construct two gaming-entertainment venues – known as integrated resorts –
in Singapore. William Gibson’s slanted critique of the Singapore Disneyland, in the
current context of the arrival of gaming-entertainment venues in Singapore as part of
the remaking of its post-modern future, may not be pure coincidence. His past track
record of recognizing the trend, and naming it (i.e. cyberspace), it is prescient of
Gibson to attribute the remaking of Singapore with “Disneyland”. What we would
call the new “Disneylandscape” of Singapore.
In reading Jean Baudrillard’s essay Disneyworld Company (Baudrillard, 1996), one
cannot help but wonder about the corporate values and cultural signifiers that come
with the packaged deal of the casino operators. Other multi-national corporations
operate in Singapore, so what is the big deal one might ask? The difference is subtle
and yet significant – the casino operators are bringing the entertainment Las Vegas
style to Singapore’s doorstep, in their backyard and to friends, relatives and
acquaintances. Hyperreality, as described by Jean Baudrillard, is complete:
But we are not longer in a society of spectacle, which itself has become a
spectacular concept. It is no longer the contagion of spectacle that alters
reality, but rather the contagion of virtuality that erases the spectacle.
Disneyland still belonged to the order of the spectacle and of folklore, with its
effects of entertainment [distraction] and distanciation [distance]. Disney
World and its tentacular extension is a generalized metastasis, a cloning of the
world and of our mental universe, not in the imaginary but in a viral and
virtual mode. We are no longer alienated and passive spectators but
interactive extras (figurants interactifs); we are meek lyophilized members of
this huge ‘reality show’ (Baudrillard, 1996)”.
Each Singaporean is no longer a passive spectator, and will become ‘interactive
extras’ in Disneyland. Each Singaporean is transformed into a performer in a vast and 7 Article can be found at: http://sg.biz.yahoo.com/060526/1/4153y.html 8 Article can be found at:
http://www.genting.com/press/2006/GentingIntlandStarCruisesPressRelease_08Dec2006.pdf 12
macabre reality show facilitated by media, culture, society and technology. Singapore
will be at once entertained and at the same time, distant and become indifferent to the
surroundings. Singapore Inc is transformed into “Singapore Spectacular, Inc”:
In 1911, George Simmel in his extraordinary essay “The Metropolis and Mental Life”
considered the implications of modern urban life for the individual - how would we
respond, internalize, assimilate and digest the myriad of diverse experiences and
stimuli resulting from modernity? The cost of modernity is “treating others in
objective and instrumental terms (Harvey, 1990, p. 26)”.
Furthermore, we would “surrender ourselves to the hegemony of calculating
economic rationality” and we would build up a “blasé attitude” from filtering out the
complex stimuli to tolerate the extremes. George would argue it is a “sham
individualism through pursuit of signs of status, fashion, or marks of individual
eccentricity” and he is right on the money. In fact, Singaporeans revel in sham
individualism and exceed all expectations in this area.
Finally, what will post-modernity in a Disneylandscape bring? This question will
require further analysis and research. It is a beginning of a serious of questions to
elicit answers, in the context of a construction of systems that mix politics, science,
technology and nature, in the hyperreality of Disneylandscape.
Conclusion
To conclude, Gibson’s penchant for spotting a new paradigm, and naming it first
(“cyberspace”) has to be taken seriously. The anointment of Singapore with the tag
of “Disneyland” and the arrival of Disneylandscape in the form of integrated resorts,
the Media 21 and Renaissance City 2.0 initiatives are not mere coincidences.
This paper predicts that Rems Koolhaas got it wrong when he described Singapore as
suffering from a Promethean hangover. The Singapore social experiment to blend
media, society and culture on a massive scale, in a grand promise as a Renaissance
13
City 2.0, is happening and only execution and the finished product remains to be seen.
There is no denying the forces behind “Singapore Spectacular, Inc.”
Singapore has an unshakeable belief in science and technology. The investments it
has made over the last 30 years, and continue to make, in the development of natural
sciences is a defining characteristic of modernity. The rational use of scientific
techniques and the application of reason in the name of progress in knowledge and
society, has consequently triumphed over social, political and philosophical themes.
Set against the backdrop of global capitalism and a political economy of scientific
rationality, technology, industry and economic progress, Singapore personifies
“modernity” with its ruthless and vicious subordination of gender relations, sexual
preference, consumer patterns and emotion dynamics to realize political and
economic freedoms.
In the past decade, there are a few significant changes, which have had an impact on
how Singapore perceives itself in the world stage, and its role in postmodernity. The
complexity and importance of consumption patterns was the first significant factor in
postmodernity. Blinded by science and its quantitative methods, the consumer was
seen as a passive receptor. In postmodernity, the consumer is identifies with the
object that is being consumed, and becomes part of the experience with the product,
creating its own identity. The second significant factor is the association of new
media with postmodernity, bringing about the speed, flexibility, digitality and
hypertextuality to change the nature of consumption. The consumer is a creator and
producer of new digital media content. The third significant factor, and the missing
radical link, is the demise of modern culture into hyperreality. In a post-modern life
where we are playing a part and the symbolic meaning is destroyed, including our
past, to be replaced by a chaotic and empty world. This is the Disneyland effect.
Singapore, in the throes of post-modernity, has recognized the oncoming sea of
change produced by the amalgamation of media, society/culture and technology. The
ultra-consumerism society of Singapore is reflected by the mantra “Life for
Singaporeans is not complete without shopping!” Another remarkable transformation
14
is promised to Singaporeans in the Media 21 and Renaissance City 2.0 initiatives.
Ironically, these initiatives are strong reminders of McLuhanism and the Age of
Enlightenment, which is beset in modernity. The rhetoric of Singapore’s politicians
however convey post-modernity – embracing counter-enlightenment ideas and post-
liberalist concepts of culture, society and identity – as seen from marketing and PR
for “sexing up Singapore”.
The missing radical link is the demise of the modern culture, as exemplified by
Gibson’s critique using the Disneyland effect. In this paper’s analysis, using Jean
Baudrillard’s description of hyperreality, the arrival of Disneylandscape in the
integrated resorts to Singapore, spells the transformation over time of every
Singaporean into an “interactive extra” in Disneyland. Singaporeans will evolve into
performers of a vast and macabre reality show through the skewing lens effect of
entertainment and distanciation. In this hyperreality, Singaporeans would further
surrender to the hegemony of calculating economic rationality and the sham
individualistic pursuit of signs of status, fashion or personal identity. Singapore, Inc,
will be transformed into Singapore Spectacular, Inc – the virtual reality show.
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