Jack Neo

I don’t love or hate his movies. There is a crassness to his movies, but they are targeted at the HDB folk. I’m generally willing to overlook their crassness (after all I’m mostly guilty of the same.)

About his affairs, it was a shock all the same. But a movie director has the great temptation to stray. He’s the alpha male, and he has access to a lot of ass. But we didn’t think of that sort. Then again, it’s like making the same mistake that most people make, that nerds are not human beings.

It's true that he looks a little bit pathetic now, because as opposed to Tiger Woods, who has been up to his neck in deep shit but nevertheless praised as an excellent lover, only one person has admitted to being Jack Neo's mistress. He looks a lot like a loser now. I remember that in college somebody said that if you're a professor hitting on his students, that is one of the most pathetic things because you're using your power over them to get your way with her. Well you could say that about Jack Neo.

Then came the infamous press conference, where he read a very short statement, his wife read a short statement, and then she collapsed, and then Ah Nan screamed at all the journalists to go away.

What was very interesting was the Life report on that press. They were universally condemnatory. One article on life, curiously said "Jack Neo didn't say sorry". Well he admitted that he was wrong, and that's almost the same thing. Another article said that he should have said sorry to the public as well, contravening a more common- sensical notion, expressed on a few forums, that he owes his wife and family the apology, not the public. Brian Miller wrote that he packed the 60 strong press pack into a small room, and further more got his people to occupy the first row.

I suppose the press released was staged managed to some extent. But I believe that Jack Neo already said exactly what he needed to say: I'm sorry. That was all he owed the press. It was very unfortunate that his wife had to be dragged along, and many people said that it was the most distasteful aspect of the press conference. What if it was deliberately distasteful? The only rational purpose for the wife to be there is to say what she said, which was: could the media please leave me alone. That was simple enough. In fact, the whole affair of that press conference seems to have one consistent message: fuck you, media scum. The trooping out the wife to show everybody how much she has suffered. The making her faint in order to make the media look bad.

The psychology of the wife was interesting. I think she probably thought, you just close one eye if he has the occasional affair, so long as the family is not compromised. Hardly ideal, but not a disaster. It's true that what you don't know can't hurt you. But what you know but not everybody knows, can't hurt you very much either. It's totally different if this thing gets publicised, and you suddenly become the talk of the town. It's that much more unbearable.

As for the press, I think they decided to play up Jack Neo's abhorrent behaviour in order to deflect from the main message, which is that they are harrassing Jack Neo at least as badly as how Jack Neo harrassed the young chicks. But do they want to keep on demonising him? Well, they would. Because in the Chinese entertainment scene, nobody fucks with the press. The press maintains its God given ability to make or break stars. Jack wanted to upset the prevailing order, so they had to fix him.

Another rumour going all around is that somebody told the press to deflect attention away from the Silviu Ionescu case. Maybe, but it would be a 180 degree turn from the massive amounts of media coverage that the case has been getting.

I think that he'll take a break from film making for the time being. Any way his shows' quality are going downhill.

Any way, I can cynically say that with this Jack Neo case, I have not been entertained that much in quite a long time.