By Tiffany Gwee
An April Fools’ Day prank organised by MediaCorp has been slammed by several netizens online – many of them who claim the joke to be “insensitive” and “offensive”. On April Fools’ Day earlier this week, MediaCorp put up a video on their Facebook page in order to draw the readers’ attention to a video they staged.
The 2-minute video entitled ‘Mak Cik caught husband red handed featured a frustrated Malay “makcik” who appeared to have caught her husband cheating on her with another younger girl. It was shot from an onlooker’s viewpoint and was uploaded on 29 March by YouTube user “Geraldine Tan”. The video circulated quickly and garnered nearly 200000 views in a few days.
It was only on April Fools’ Day that MediaCorp revealed that this video was deliberately staged and acted out by actors and actresses from TV show “The Noose”, which was set to premiere on the 1st of April.
Many netizens were unhappy about the joke because they viewed it as the video portraying Muslims in a negative manner. The very fact that Muslims are not allowed to participate in April Fools’ due to religious reason fuelled the anger as well.
Insensitive and Tasteless
Facebook user Johan Shah questioned the “purpose” of the joke – he mentioned that this only brought a “bad image to Malay families and especially Malay Hijab aunties”. He ended his comment by describing the joke as “tasteless”. Another Facebook user Nik Fadzil Imran also expressed his discontent with the insensitivity of the video. He stated that the video showed the “lack of real knowledge of Islam” and that the lady “treated her husband rudely, disrespectfully” which is not the “way of Islam”.
Moreover, Facebook user Melissa Abbas also agreed that “more research could have been done before carrying this out”. However, she established the fact that “what is done cannot be undone” and that Singapore “imposes racial and religious harmony” so we should “all just learn from this”.
Angry Users Overly Sensitive?
On the other hand, there were also some who thought the joke was funny and perfectly fine. Facebook user Mira Mishaela commented that some people are too “sensitive about race issue(s)”. “It’s just a joke why so sensitive,” she commented, “Malay dramas in Suria full of scandals, cheating and lying you all watch so loyally every night.”
User Davin Ng, who claims to have studied the Qu’ran and Hadiths, also mentioned that those who are upset by the joke “should probably examine (themselves) and wonder if (they) are so perfect that (they) have never told a single lie in (their) entire lives”. “You all should ask your MP to ban and dismantle Suria in the name of Islam.”
Turning the Situation Around
It might be thought provoking to think about different scenarios and how people might react to the same joke – what if this had been staged by a standalone drama group? Would the comments be as angry?
Some might see this frustration as an underlying anger towards MediaCorp instead of targeting the joke itself.
With nearly 600 comments (and counting) on MediaCorp’s Facebook post, the severity of this April Fools’ prank is definitely not a joke at all.
Click here to watch the original Youtube video that MediaCorp posted
Click here to read the comments from MediaCorp’s Facebook Page (scroll back to April 1’s posts)
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