Leslie
14-07-2009, 01:14 PM
http://www.straitstimes.com/ST+Forum/Online+Story/STIStory_402633.html (http://www.straitstimes.com/ST+Forum/Online+Story/STIStory_402633.html)
July 14, 2009
Horrified by many profanities in matinee show on NS life
I ATTENDED the matinee show Own Time Own Target at the Drama Centre in
the National Library building over the weekend. One magazine lauded it
as a 'laugh out loud, rediscovery of zany side of national service'. I
presumed this meant it was a family-type show and took my two teenage
sons, aged 16 and 14, to the show on the premise of a MediaCorp-owned
magazine review.
To my horror, I was cringing uncomfortably in my seat the whole show,
highly disturbed by the language used. I do not have a problem that
the language was coarse and in dialects. But it was offensive when
every sentence and curse uttered by the officers (rightly or wrongly,
provoked or otherwise) at the NS boys in the drama was a profanity of
the female genitals.
The show was a full house, with young and old, males and females
equally represented. I am sure I was not the only one who was
disturbed by the excessive cursing and swearing by the officers at the
recruits. My observation was that people laughed out loud not at the
clumsiness of the recruits but mostly because they felt uncomfortable
with the profanities.
As a mother, I find it hard to imagine that after years of sheltered
school life where students are taught values, to be gentlemanly and
polite and respect their elders, these boys have to do NS run by
officers who do not blink an eye when they curse their mother, sister,
girlfriend and the whole female population by way of conversation.
My boys were shocked to realise that NS is a rite of passage where
they will be officially subjected to bullying, shouting and cursing -
nothing gentlemanly at all.
If this is a light-hearted look at life of NS boys during basic
military training, I fear to know what my boys will face in their
real-life situation when they enlist. Please, someone, assure me this
is not so.
Wee Hua Boey (Mdm)
:whistling
July 14, 2009
Horrified by many profanities in matinee show on NS life
I ATTENDED the matinee show Own Time Own Target at the Drama Centre in
the National Library building over the weekend. One magazine lauded it
as a 'laugh out loud, rediscovery of zany side of national service'. I
presumed this meant it was a family-type show and took my two teenage
sons, aged 16 and 14, to the show on the premise of a MediaCorp-owned
magazine review.
To my horror, I was cringing uncomfortably in my seat the whole show,
highly disturbed by the language used. I do not have a problem that
the language was coarse and in dialects. But it was offensive when
every sentence and curse uttered by the officers (rightly or wrongly,
provoked or otherwise) at the NS boys in the drama was a profanity of
the female genitals.
The show was a full house, with young and old, males and females
equally represented. I am sure I was not the only one who was
disturbed by the excessive cursing and swearing by the officers at the
recruits. My observation was that people laughed out loud not at the
clumsiness of the recruits but mostly because they felt uncomfortable
with the profanities.
As a mother, I find it hard to imagine that after years of sheltered
school life where students are taught values, to be gentlemanly and
polite and respect their elders, these boys have to do NS run by
officers who do not blink an eye when they curse their mother, sister,
girlfriend and the whole female population by way of conversation.
My boys were shocked to realise that NS is a rite of passage where
they will be officially subjected to bullying, shouting and cursing -
nothing gentlemanly at all.
If this is a light-hearted look at life of NS boys during basic
military training, I fear to know what my boys will face in their
real-life situation when they enlist. Please, someone, assure me this
is not so.
Wee Hua Boey (Mdm)
:whistling