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Month: December 2020

Bang My Car: Pastiche, Parody, Satire, Irony

Bang My Car: Pastiche, Parody, Satire, Irony

1, Consider this statement in the introduction by Dave Chua: “In Imaginary Geographies of the Singapore Heartland, she explores the Singaporean landscape through a survey where she reveals more depth than immediately apparent.” Focusing on the transcript parts of this sections (Parts B and C), identify two examples of that depth…i.e. more than just a humorous representation of the rascally uncle character

Part B: Under the premise of discussing which locality in Singapore has better food/accommodation, he ends up revealing more about what he values in people and in his own life:

  • When talking about the ‘lorong’s’ he says that “unless you know the people, they treat you like dirt” –> a general social commentary on, perhaps, the exclusivity of people in Singapore
  • “Sometimes don’t need to see people, sometimes don’t need to see their face, is good” –> His appreciation of solitude or getting away from society in a place where people are all you see.
  • “I think the people in the east are too proud.. they are all too rich” –> social attitudes towards wealth; rather than it seeming like a proud aspiration wealth is considered a degradation of character.
  • “Sometimes I look at the jungle opposite, the lallang, the temple the other side, I feel like my heart like… not so good … I know I always got some place to go” –> the uncle lets down his humorous facade by saying that, he himself, feels low too and relies on the uncomplicated, un-urban things in his life to make him okay. Saying that he always has a place to go in nature implies that people of his generation may feel lost in the hyper-urbanised new Singapore. There is an irony in his generation when he has seen the hope in Singapore’s modernisation but resists it as well.

Part C: The uncle shows the ‘vices’ his family members are suffering from currently, and reveals how he rejects the need to seem classy or elegant for a more raw and natural appreciation of life, without a facade of needing wealth or success.

  • This is especially apparent when the uncle discusses his daughter in law, when he says that the mother ‘listens to everything that is ang-moh’ and ‘wears too many nice clothes and sits in the air-conditioned office for too long’ which implies that ‘everything being so good’ artificially in her life means that so everywhere else things are “not as good, so got big problem”. Here the uncle reveals how he views the rat race that humans tend to subjugate themselves to is superficially ‘good’ for growth but leaves human society with larger problems, wherein there is no introspection.
  • We are also given more of a sense as to how he wants to guide his family, yet with their preoccupations (with work, school), he doesn’t know how. When he refers to talking to his grandson when he says “I want to tell him so many things , show him so many things, but I don’t know how to say, maybe the thing also not there anymore” the uncle reveals a more yearning and ‘fatherly’ side of himself where he is aware that he is losing the opportunity to impart the values he has to his grandson, and with the increased time and distance, his values may not apply anymore.

2. Focusing on the final extract of the sociology paper / academic writing (P. 75), review some of the ideas (from basic to complex) that we discussed about pastiche, (meta-)parody, irony. How does Ang use these features of form and style to make both satirical criticisms and more sincere observations of Singapore?

  • This text starts out like a pastiche/parodic in the high class literature + formal language: “collective amnesia”, “culturally homogenous world” which uses the vocabulary of academic works. The questions in the second paragraph seem satirical and parodic with the hyperbolic nature of the extrapolation of the uncle’s often belligerent and bland words.
  • Meta-parody – “What is certain is that his narrative exists in the liminal and indeterminate space between real life and reel life” – Is Ang talking about his own narrative in the construction of Bang My Car? Is Ang mocking us, the readers, for treating Singaporeans like specimens to analyse.
  • Towards the end the last paragraph and statement seems more sincere and more philosophical as the judgements made about Singaporean society rather than just being about subject 23 which develop resonance, for example to feeling ‘unable to be understood by everybody else’, the need to suppress ‘individuality’ for ‘political correctness’, This last statement could also be Ang referring to how her own personal opinions on Singapore is omitted in the book, which is ironic.

3. Now read the section called ‘Hyperhistories’ (p.72-3): how does this section compare to the other in terms of parodic satire and more sincere/convincing contemplation?

Similarly to P.75, moments of explicitly artificially constructed academic writing, with definitions of ‘who a hyperhistory’ applies to, references to ecological sociologists, and the honesty of comparing Singapore to a ‘hot-house’ and the sincerity of recognising Singapore’s superficial construction.

{MORE TO BE ADDED}

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