Perhaps by this point, resigned folks are no longer surprised that some things will just remain exclusive to one particular group of society — it’s a fact of life anywhere else, really.
But when ethnic inclusivity involving food in Singapore gets messed up, someone’s gotta get blasted. Like what mm2 Entertainment did with The Voice last year, Mediacorp is being lambasted for making popular cooking reality series MasterChef — a global hit heartily enjoyed by people of all races — only restricted to Chinese-speaking audiences for its local franchise.
The competition, created in Britain in 1990, pits home cooks against each other in a pressure-cooker environment. There have been spin-offs in various countries, and at one time, there was even MasterChef Asia (that ended with Singaporean contestant Woo Wai Leong taking the top prize).
When it was announced that there would be a MasterChef Singapore, people were elated — here was a series that could propel average Joe/Jane home cooks to stardom based on their individual prowess in kitchens. But Mediacorp quickly dashed the dreams of many when it confirmed that the program would be shown on free-to-air Chinese-language channel Channel 8, with potential applicants asked to rate their fluency in Mandarin.
Why? Because Channel 8 attracts the largest audience of any channel in its network.
how is it being salty? Masterchef is known widely and english appeal to all races. How do u expect the malay and indians who do not understand chinese watch it? maybe rename it MASTERCHEF chinese version singapore instead of singapore
— damnbruh (@chickenfrommc) February 23, 2018
I am disappointed with regards to SINGAPORE MASTERCHEF being on channel 8 and contestant have to be able to speak Mandarin. Have we gone a few steps back? I am a born and bred Singaporean Malay. By putting such rules show how racist our country is. @GordonRamsay please help.
— fistfuss (@fistfuss) February 28, 2018
If Channel 8 caters to a larger audience bc of the chinese majority then might as well have the show cater solely to THEM? Don’t call it Masterchef SINGAPORE when other races can’t understand a shit of mandarin or need translators or subtitles pic.twitter.com/fI09YhSXJL
— Ed (@edyazwan) February 26, 2018
Boiling outrage
Disappointing for sure, but it Mediacorp did buy the rights to the franchise, which in turn gives it the right to do whatever it wants for commercial success. The undeclared reason might be that Mediacorp doesn’t want to run into issues involving religious dietary restrictions when the contest is open to Singaporean Muslims and Hindus — but as fans of MasterChef have seen in past shows, this shouldn’t be a problem at all (re: MasterChef UK winner Saliha Mahmood-Ahmed and MasterChef USA’s Sheetal Bhagat). There could also be creative workarounds to ensure that the cooking challenges are appropriate for all contestants.
The decision to restrict the show to a Chinese-speaking audience can be argued as a wasted opportunity for Mediacorp — here was a squandered chance to get folks tuning back in to Channel 5.
“…how sad and outrageous to think that it’s a show about food — one of those things that’s supposed to unite Singaporeans regardless of their ethnic and linguistic backgrounds,” stated local playwright and social commentator Alfian Sa’at in a viral Facebook post.
“There’s much to be said about the continual equating of Singapore with Chineseness, which is either very thoughtless, done by people whose social circles are unabashedly monoethnic, or if you’re feeling less generous, then sinister, done by people happily flexing their majoritarian muscle.”
Instead of feeling powerless and resigned to how things are run in Singapore, Alfian proposed that boycotting the show itself and the companies that sponsor it could be a sign of protest.
Though the margins of loss from any boycott may be too small for Mediacorp or its sponsors to care, Alfian noted that it should be done “for yourself, as a form of critical consumerism”.
“Any company that doesn’t care about obtaining your goodwill doesn’t deserve your money,” he concluded.
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