There's been many parallels drawn between Crazy Rich Asians and Singapore Social with some reviews calling the latter a "sequel (to the former) that no one asked for".
Crazy Rich Asians was a box office success. It also fared relatively well amongst critics, and was touted as a game changer in the Hollywood scene.
It shone the international spotlight on Singapore and whilst some online commentators raised the lack of ethnic diversity and argued if Newton Hawker Centre should have featured as the Hawker Centre of choice amongst locals, many more were in unison that the film presented Singapore beautifully.
Was it an representative view of a regular slice of life in Singapore? No, but neither did it claim to be. In fact, it was in its name itself - that it was a focused anthropology surrounding the lives of Crazy Rich Asians, and in this particular case, some of them happened to be Singaporeans.
With Singapore Social however...were they just looking to alliterate? The promotional blurb on the Netflix site for the programme says "Peer into the lives of young Singaporeans as they defy expectations..."
No wonder young Singaporeans took offence - because if you're going to put their young nation into your title name for promotional purposes globally, then you better do it justice.
And to do it justice, please first take a look at who should be given the rights to tell our story.
It's a known fact that CRA featured an Asian American director Jon Chu, with Kevin Kwan the Singapore-born novelist as counsel. Chu also insisted on bringing in a screenwriter of Asian descent Adele Lim to revise the original script. I'm not saying they know Asia/Singapore, but you have to give them props for trying.
In Singapore Social, if you take time to scroll through the credits (that is if you've lasted long enough), you will be hard pressed to find Singaporean names, especially amongst the first few "executive" roles. Instead, the guys who took care of transportation must be undeniably Asian/Singaporean (really, go look!).
When will we learn that we ourselves must tell our own stories? I'm sure you will find quality production houses a plenty in Singapore (but none of them would probably try to sell a whitewashed wannabe Singapore as a pitch).
All it takes is one small slip from an ignorant party (Love Productions USA, I'm looking at you) and the validation of several others who don't know better (um Netflix?) to undermine years of progress in making Asians feel like there's something relatable for them on the screens of international TV.
To be fair, I might have an uneducated opinion - after all, I am writing this review having watched only one single episode in the series.
I simply saw no point in wasting an additional seven good hours of my life.
