Morocco Mole (Secret Squirrel’s sidekick) tells me that his second cousin removed working at Havas’ has an interesting story about the origins of the ad. I must emphasise that it’s hearsay and there’s no evidence supporting the story. It could be juz fiction.
Havas’ knew that they had to portray, Chinese, Malay, Indian and Others* as this is SOP in public service ads. No public body wanted one race to complain of being left out. So they tot up the idea of a cross dresser who could also do all four races, as a way of meeting this requirement while hopefully making it entertaining, and a talking point**. The Nets people bot into the ad. And MediaCorp had no issues.
Someone involved (not an ethnic Chinese but from a minority that even other minorities sneer at) is alleged to have said: “If only we had used an anti-Chinese, vulgar person from a minority that thinks that said minority should be tua kee and kicking the ass of other races, not juz punching above their weight, fronting the ad, no-one would have complained except some dickhead Chinese chauvinist and the public would have shouted the person down.”
Meanwhile a long time ago, in a parallel S’pore in an alternate universe far, far away, Preetipls and her brother are looking at their bank accounts and smiling. They crossed dressed as a couple and parodied Malays, Chinese, Eurasians and Indians in an ad for Nets. A few Chinese men were jailed for complaining about “yellowface”. The ad won awards for promoting multiracism.
Details of this alternative S’pore: PM visiting from Bizarro S’pore?
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*
In 1824, the British introduced the concept of the “Malay” race into S’pore’s psyche and political governance, when they classified the residents of S’pore into “Chinese”, “Indians”, “Malays” and “Others”.
**Well they got it talked about, a lot.
Thoughts of a Cynical Investor 