Undressing Room & Naked Ladies.

It is done. Undressing Room and Naked Ladies are out. They will not be screened in next year's line up of M1 Fringe Festival.

IMDA asked for re-submission when the "performance lecture Naked Ladies by Thea Fitz-James and interactive piece Undressing Room by Ming Poon had excessive nudity. Both exceeded the M18 rating..."

The plot seems interesting enough, provocative even. Undressing Room calls for an audience member in a spontaneously interactive act to undress in private. "The idea is to relate to a stranger without the "protective skin" of clothing."

As for Naked Ladies, it is a monologue (I guess) where a lecturer shares about nudity "to address public perception of the female body." There is a part where artist Fitz-James (see below) "inserts her finger into her private parts."

Now, it is not called the Fringe Festival for nothing. It is about pushing the edge of our public perception and social/moral norms. It is about daring to go where no imagination has gone before from an artistic angle (however crass in some views) and then returning hopefully with an enlightened understanding of the forbidden fruits (taboos) of society.

The two shows have divided society between what many may call the "self-righteous" and another group where others may call the "sell righteous".

While the former needs no further explanation (that is, "a Facebook page - on Nov 22 - called Singaporeans Defending Marriage and Family compared these shows to "a solicitation for a public sex act"), the spirit of the latter (that is, "sell righteous") is surmised in the M1 organisers' own words: "IMDA's assessment of both performances was ironic as the works make deliberate attempts to distinguish nudity from sexualised connotations. They added that the works were not lewd, nor was there any artistic intent to titillate."

In fact, the M1 organisers said that the works advocated "body positive messages as well as a sense of personal candour and community trust. Ultimately, the licensing process - along with the online furore surrounding these works - deems that society at present is not ready for these - cutting edge, intelligent works."

How's that for so-called "selling righteousness" in the name of artistic expression and education? Is IMDA then being hypocritical, cutting safe (instead of "cutting edge"), and apparently unintelligent or unintelligible to the artistic community?

Lesson? Honestly, since the two shows are cut from the festival next year, we will not know how "body positive" the message will be or in what ways the show aims to "distinguish nudity from sexualized connotations." Neither will we know whether it is anything but lewd, and that it was never the shows' artistic intent to titillate.

Alas, is our society (the adult - above 18 - section, that is) not mature and ready enough for such works where nudity, and what appears to be sexualized acts, are done in a professionally artistic and "non-titillating" manner?

I guess it all depends on how a society views sex. Some society endorses polygamy as offering children of such union with more parenting options. Others see adultery as pardonable if it is done on a business holiday - just don't do it in your own backyard. In yet other society, paying for sex is deemed culturally legit.

With such liberal (relativistic) mindset, we no longer take anything that seriously when it cuts against the grain of what we think is right, endurable or workable. We don't take the marriage vows seriously if monogamy turns out to be monotony. We don't take moral values seriously if it is too restrictive or if it doesn't move with changing times. And we don't take exclusive sex in the context of a lifetime marital commitment seriously if not having sex on the second date is considered as not expressing true love to the other.

The truth is, there is a shy hypocrite in even the most conservative amongst us. But the issue is not so much that we are all hypocrite in one way or another. The real issue here is, what are we as a cultural collective moving towards?

Is there a IMDA inside us that censures us from doing some things we will not want our kids to be doing? What values do we want to pass down to our children and our children's children?

In other words, in the name of love, artistic freedom and creativity, will we smash all boundaries just so that we may enlighten or educate, or will we preserve/protect some which are worth preserving, because they are what we want our children to respect and protect?

Put it in another way, is there other more enduring and meaningful ways of teaching body positive messages (though less artistic maybe) without us being exposed to values that we do not want our kids to be influenced by, and in the end, risk ourselves from being influenced by it?

So many questions....has anyone an answer(s)? Cheerz