In offering a selective survey of gay sexuality in Singaporean Chinese popular culture, particularly television, film, and theater, this article examines how the notion of the liminal functions as an effective critical trope to engage with a shifting presence/absence materiality of gayness in these representations. It also argues that this presence/absence is a consequence of the concentrically circular hierarchy of cultural production and consumption created by the Singapore media censorship model. The contradictions embedded in censorship practices and gay cultural representations ultimately emerge out of Singapore's desire to present itself as a culturally open and vibrant society in its bid to be part of the global capitalist network, while the country continues to hold onto its archaic antisodomy laws inherited from the British Indian Penal Code.
Agamben, Giorgio.Homo Sacer: Sovereign PoWer and Bare Life. Trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press , 1998.
2.
Althusser, Louis.Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Trans. Ben Brewster. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2001.
3.
Babuscio, Jack. "The Cinema of Camp (AKA Camp and the Gay Sensibility)" In Camp: Queer Aesthetics and the Performing Subject: A Reader, ed. Fabio Cleto, 117-35. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999.
4.
Basu, Radha. "7 in 10 Frown on Homosexuality, NTU Survey Finds" The Straits Times, 20 September 2007, H10.
5.
Bhabha, Homi K.The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1994.
6.
Butler, Judith.Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex."New York: Routledge, 1993.
7.
Certeau, Michel de.The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. Steven Rendall. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984.
8.
Chan, Kenneth. "Cross-Dress for Success: Performing Ivan Heng and Chowee Leow's An Occasional Orchid and Stella Kon's Emily of Emerald Hill on the Singapore Stage" Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature23, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 29-43.
9.
Chua, Beng Huat. "Conceptualizing an East Asian Popular Culture" Inter-Asia Cultural Studies5, no. 2 (2004): 200-21.
10.
Derrida, Jacques.On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness. Trans. Mark Dooley and Michael Hughes . London: Routledge, 2001.
11.
Detenber, Benjamin H., Mark Cenite, Moses K. Y. Ku, Carol P. L. Ong, Hazel Y. Tong, and Magdalene L. H. Yeow. "Singaporeans' Attitudes towards Lesbians and Gay Men and Their Tolerance of Media Portrayals of Homosexuality" International Journal of Public Opinion Research19, no. 3 (Autumn 2007): 367-79.
12.
Elegant, Simon. "The Lion in Winter." Time Online Edition, 30 June 2003. <http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/501030707/sea_singapore.html> ;, accessed 29 March 2007.
13.
"Extract of PM Goh Chok Tong's Interview with Time Magazine." 5 February 2003. <http://www.yawningbread.org/apdx_2003/imp-116.htm> ;, accessed 29 March 2007.
14.
"Films Act (Chapter 107)." 1 October 1981. <http://agcvldb4.agc.gov.sg/non_version/ cgi-bin/cgi_retrieve.pl?actno=REVED-107&doctitle=FILMS%20ACT%0a&date= latest&method=part>, accessed 28 March 2007.
15.
Foucault, Michel.Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books, 1977.
16.
Goh, Chok Tong. "From the Valley to the Highlands: Speech by Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong at the National Day Rally on 17 August 2003 at the University Cultural Centre, National University of Singapore." 17 August 2003. <http://www.gov.sg/nd/ND03.htm>, accessed 21 March 2007.
17.
Heng, Russell. "Tiptoe Out of the Closet: The Before and After of the Increasingly Visible Gay Community in Singapore." Journal of Homosexuality40, nos. 3/4 (2001): 81-97.
18.
Hinsch, Bret.Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990.
19.
Jagose, Annamarie.Queer Theory: An Introduction. New York: New York University Press, 1996.
20.
Li, Xueying. "Let's Move On, Says NMP after 377A Plea Is Rejected" The Straits Times, 24 October 2007, H5.
21.
Lim, Eng-Beng. "Glocalqueering in New Asia: The Politics of Performing Gay in Singapore ." Theatre Journal57, no. 3 (2005): 383-405, 569.
22.
Lim, Eng-Beng. "The Mardi Gras Boys of Singapore's English-Language Theatre" Asian Theatre Journal22, no. 2 (Fall 2005): 293-309.
23.
Lim, Song Hwee.Celluloid Comrades: Representations of Male Homosexuality in Contemporary Chinese Cinemas. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006.
24.
Martin, Fran.Situating Sexualities: Queer Representation in TaiWanese Fiction, Film and Public Culture. Hong KongHong Kong University Press, 2003.
25.
Media Development Authority of Singapore. " Development and Policies: Information about Funding, Licensing and Guidelines " <http://www.mda.gov.sg/wms.www./devnpolicies.aspx?sid=93> ;, accessed 28 March 2007.
26.
Media Development Authority of Singapore. " Licensing Conditions for Drama/Play." 23 March 2006. <http://www.mda.gov.sg/wms.ftp/Appendix1-Dramaconditions.PDF> ;, accessed 28 March 2007.
27.
Media Development Authority of Singapore. " Subscription Television Programme Code" <http://www.mda.gov.sg/wms.file/mobj/mobj.613.subscription_tv_prog_code.pdf> ;, accessed 28 March 2007.
28.
Miller, D.A. "Anal Rope" In Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories , ed. Diana Fuss, 119- 41. New York: Routledge, 1991.
29.
Ng, King Kang.The RainboW Connection: The Internet and the Singapore Gay Community . Singapore: KangCuBine Publishing , 1999.
30.
Ng, Thomas. "Law and Homosexuals." In People Like Us: Sexual Minorities in Singapore, ed. Joseph Lo and Huang Guoqin, 17-20. Singapore: Select Publishing, 2003.
31.
Ong, Aihwa.Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999.
32.
Peterson, William.Theater and the Politics of Culture in Contemporary Singapore. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press , 2001.
33.
Peterson, William. "The Queer Stage in Singapore." In People Like Us: Sexual Minorities in Singapore, ed. Joseph Lo and Huang Guoqin, 78-96. Singapore: Select Publishing, 2003.
34.
Phillips, Richard. "Film Festival Director about Censorship in Singapore" 24 April 2000. <http://www.singapore-window.org/sw00/000424ws.htm> ;, accessed 28 March 2007.
35.
Price, David Clive. "Singapore: It's In to Be Out" Time, 10 August 2003. <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,474512,00.html> ;, accessed 29 March 2007.
Sa'at, Alfian. "Playwright's Message." In program for Wild Rice Presents Happy Endings: Asian Boys Vol. 3, written by Alfian Sa'at, directed by Ivan Heng, performed at the Drama Centre Theatre, Singapore, 11-29 July 2007.
38.
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky.BetWeen Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985.
39.
Seet, K.K. "Discourse from the Margin: A Triptych of Negotiations in Contemporary Singapore English-Language Theatre." World Literature Today74, no. 2 (Spring 2000): 305-12.
40.
"Short Circuit 2006-For the Record, Part 1" October 2006. <http://www.yawning-bread.org/arch_2006/yax-662.htm>, accessed 1 April 2007.
41.
" Singapore Gay Documentaries." <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_gay_documentaries> ;, accessed 28 March 2007.
42.
" Singapore May Relax Strict Sex Laws, But for Heterosexuals Only" International Herald Tribune, 9 November 2006. <http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/11/09/asia/AS_GEN_Singapore_Sex_Laws.php#> ;, accessed 29 March 2007.
43.
Tan, Kenneth Paul, and Gary Lee Jack Jin . "Imagining the Gay Community in Singapore" Critical Asian Studies39, no. 2 (2007): 179-204.
44.
This Film Is Not Yet Rated. Directed by Kirby Dick. 98 mins. Santa Monica, CA: IFC/Genius, 2007. DVD.
45.
Uhde, Jan, and Yvonne Ng Uhde.Latent Images: Film in Singapore. Singapore : Oxford University Press, 2000.
46.
" Why We Should Leave Section 377A Alone: PM" The Straits Times , 24 October 2007, H5.
