ABSTRACT

The cultural materialism of Jack Neo In contemporary Singapore cinema, Jack Neo is by far the most commercially successful talent as an actor and director. A large measure of Neo’s success lies in his true-to-life portrayals of everyman characters, and their responses to the material conditions and needs of survival in Singapore, which is seen as a competitive, self-seeking society. In this way, Neo presents materialism as a culture that motivates and consumes all the characters on the screen. In fact, it might be said that Singaporeans are basically driven by a culture of materialism and Neo is the one Singapore filmmaker who has proven to be the most empathetic of this culture. Because of this empathy, I hold that Neo is the most materialistic filmmaker in Singapore cinema. I will expand on Neo’s materialism when I address the concept of cultural materialism as it relates to Neo’s films. But one could say that Neo is also materialist inasmuch as he steadfastly avoids intellectual themes or a consciously artistic style (this is very much in keeping with the culture of materialism among Singaporeans who basically do not pursue artistic careers; the refrain one usually hears is that one cannot make a living through art).