"It is fun to be in the same decade with you." - Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a letter to Winston Churchill

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Gramsci writes about hegemony as a continuous struggle for consensus. Popular culture (television programmes, advertisements, films, magazines, fashion, parades, etc) is one particular site of such ideological struggles.

Please choose one specific example from popular culture in Singapore and show how ideological struggles play out there.

Hegemonic and counter-hegemonic struggles

To maintain its power, the state uses a mixutre of coercion and hegemony. Hegemony is a dynamic process, with the dominant party struggling to impose its mindset on the subordinate party and get it to internalize and accept it, (thus giving longevity to the hegemony) producing consensus. At the same time, the dominated resist by engendering counter-hegemonic currents to subvert and protest the ideology that is being imposed on them.

I shall consider one example of the former (P65 MPs Hip-hopping at Chingay 2007) and one of the latter (NDP @ Simei).

1)

In an attempt to connect with the younger, post-Independence generation, the PAP has recruited and branded 12 Members of Parliament born after 1965 as "P65" MPs. Besides giving them a blog to connect with the Internet generation and marketing them to the public via the mass media, it also secured a spot for them in 2007's Chingay Chinese New Year Parade to perform a hiphop dance number; in the first place Chingay is an instrument of hegemony, organised as part of Chinese New Year festivities to placate the Chinese community after traditional firecrackers were banned in the 1970s.

Hip-hop is an art form originating in the 1970s and as such is younger than both the PAP (founded in 1954) and the P65 MPs. By associating the P65 MPs with hip-hop, the PAP is giving them the impression of funk, freshness and vibrance, part of which will presumably reflect on the rest of the Party and by extention the State. This is in contradistinction to its existing image of technocratic efficiency, whiter-than-whiteness and the starched collars of junzi (Confucian gentlemen). Interestingly, whereas Gramsci characterised hegemony as getting the proletariat to internalize bourgeois values and accept them as their own, in this case the dominant group is instead attempting to appropriate the values of the dominated group for itself.

The engaging of the public through pop culture and a popular parade is different from the usual top-down approach of diktat and of urging citizens to tighten their belts and do what's best for the country, disseminated through bureaucratic and political channels. Instead, citizens are engaged with through the medium of popular culture, broadening the scope of hegemony and its methods of capturing citizens' hearts, minds and souls.

Having P65 MPs dance hip-hop during Chingay (a parade which features a selection of groups form many sectors of society, from undergraduates to religious associations to grassroots organisations to civil society organisations to foreign talent) brings the message that "we are you" - the relationship between dominant and submissive parties is blurred and hegemony is internalized by the people.

Watching the actual performance, one finds that during the performance the P65 MPs are surrounded and outnumbered by youths who might be half their age, lending them the aura of youth. Most or all of these dancers are from NUS, which might serve to blunt the manufacture of consent by associating the P65 MPs only with one segment of society - English-educated undergraduates.

The MPs' dance moves are comparatively tame for hiphop, and the performance is short at less than 2 minutes. Although there is an attempt at manufacturing consensus, it is incomplete

2)

The National Day Parade (NDP) is a yearly celebration held to commemorate the Nation's independence in 1965. Besides involving government figures there is also a strong military presence in it, recalling Nazi and Communist military parades. During it, participants, spectators and TV viewers are urged to come together as one, forgetting their differences, in an orgy of nation-building.

NDP @ Simei is filmed in a toilet, with actors improvising props from all manner of everyday materials. Umbrellas serve as swords and rifles, motorcycle helmets and a first aid box substitute for military headgear and a dumpster replaces the jeep that the President rides around the track in. Instead of military uniform, the actors are topless (a symbol of informality and/or barbarity instead of civilization). The use of profane objects to substitute for sacred ones violates the sanctity of the ritual, and with the ritual removed from its familiar context, its ludicrousness is apparent.

The actors march in an exaggerated fashion that mocks conventional Singaporean military marching, and in the background a mobile phone plays a ringtone of the National Anthem (official guidelines indicate that the Anthem is to be played respectfully, so its satiric use is a form of resistance). The 'President' in military attire underscores the links the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) and State have and waves to a non-existent crowd, which parallels how dignitaries at parades wave to everyone and no one at the same time.

At one point, one actor exchanges some indistinct words with the President, and when the latter assents he gets on the floor and does pushups, only to be told to "Recover, recover". It can thus be inferred that the actor was asking the President for permission to carry on. During NDP the Parade Commander asks the President for permission to "carry on" the parade, but here this has been conflated with permission to "carry on", which in a SAF context means to do pushups as a form of punishment.

Being males, some of the actors would have been through or would eventually have to participate in the NDP as part of their military service. Even if they have not/will never participate(d) in NDP, they would have been bombarded with it every year, on TV, through newspapers, banners and more. By parodying the hegemonic tool, they use its forms and vocabulary but subvert them and show their non-acceptance of hegemony - they have not internalized these values as their own.


Primary sources:

1) P65 MPs:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3ldVddy00Ks
http://youtube.com/watch?v=NJ1jTYCWWzs&mode=related&search=
http://youtube.com/watch?v=FvNa2UUEc_A

2) NDP @ Simei
http://youtube.com/watch?v=4_lW52LADOI