#LookAtMe
Ken Kwek
Eko Pictures: 2022
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In 2015, the Singapore government put a seventeen-year-old behind bars for the crime of “intending to wound religious feelings”. The boy, Amos Yee, found notoriety after publishing a YouTube video on the recently deceased Lee Kuan Yew. In an eight-minute clip studded with profanity, Yee compared Lee to Jesus for being “power-hungry and malicious” and claimed that the followers of both figures were “delusional” and easy to manipulate. These comments stood out among more legitimate criticisms of the late Lee’s legacy: income inequality, low social spending, his control over the media and propensity to sue his critics. Yee picked up another charge for obscenity thanks to a lewd drawing of Lee with Margaret Thatcher. The idly vulgar thoughts of a teenager would usually be swept under the sheer heft of content on the Internet. However, Yee’s videos went viral and were subsequently mass reported by offended adults. The saga consumed local headlines for months—a recalcitrant brat, his weeping mother, him being slapped outside a courtroom, the venomous statements from politicians—and made it to international news. The New Yorker said the episode demonstrated Singapore’s “dire need for cultural education through intelligent dissent”. Modestly attended rallies were held in Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The next year, Yee was sentenced to another stint in jail for offensive comments about both the Christian and Islamic faiths. Yee packed up and moved to the US where he was granted political asylum.

Ken Kwek’s new film #LookAtMe draws inspiration from this story. Sean Marzuki is an aspiring YouTube star. His twin brother Ricky (both portrayed deftly by yao) occasionally helps with petty pranks on their long-suffering single mother (Pam Oei) for views. The brothers are inseparable, Ricky even tags along on Sean’s dates with his girlfriend Mia (Ching Shu Yi). Everything unravels when the trio attend Mia’s megachurch in an attempt to ingratiate Sean with her parents. The sermon of the week is barely scriptural and more a homophobic rant on “defending the family”. The congregation laps it up. Ricky, who is gay, and Sean storm out with Mia not far behind them. Incensed by the sizeable audience for the pastor’s comments, Sean records a rejoinder. He makes a throwaway comment about how both Christians and Muslims are “scared of gays” but the bulk of his video is an intentionally crude edit that makes it look like the pastor engages in bestiality.

• Tags: Issue 29, Ken Kwek, Ruby Thiagarajan, Singapore