Singaporeans are a fiercely proud little nation.
So when anything about Singapore comes on TV, my wife wants to watch it.
Flicking channels one night, we came across what looked like an interesting documentary.
It was about a woman named Annabel Chong.
She went to Raffles Girls’ School, my wife’s old school.
It’s named after Sir Stanford Raffles, the founder of Singapore.
Standards are very high: education, dress, speech, manners.
Amongst the teachers and the students.
After doing her A levels, Annabel Chong came to London to study law.
Eventually she dropped out of law school and switched to The University of Southern California.
Here she studied ‘photography, art, and gender studies’.
One day, she saw an ad in the LA Weekly, for a modelling agency.
She went along, and they turned out to be making hardcore films.
Annabel Chong was persuaded that being in these was a feminist stance for equality.
She was convinced she would be making art.
So she began starring in porn films, and after a while it seemed perfectly normal to her.
There is a massive porn industry in LA and she was welcomed into it.
So much so, that she was persuaded to make a movie called ‘The World’s Biggest Gang Bang’.
There was no plot.
It was just a world-record attempt.
She would have sex, on camera, with over 250 men.
The film became a massive hit and Annabel Chong became a superstar in the porn industry.
She felt she’d achieved something to be proud of.
She went back to Singapore.
She took a film crew to Raffles Girls’ School.
She wanted to film the teachers talking proudly about what a good student she’d been.
And how they always knew she’d make something of herself.
She thought they’d want to call an assembly for her to make a speech to the girls.
Telling them everything she’d done and that they could achieve similar things.
That was her reality.
But suddenly she ran into their reality.
They didn’t want her in the school.
They wouldn’t even talk to her.
The teachers wouldn’t be interviewed on camera.
They were deeply, deeply ashamed of her.
They didn’t want the girls exposed to her influence.
To them she was no better than a prostitute.
Annabel Chong was in floods of tears.
This was a prime example of cognitive dissonance.
When what’s in your head doesn’t match reality.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go at all.
IMHO, Annabel Chong’s life is a prime example of naivety and denial.
She just assumed that, as she was now an artist, a feminist icon, and a world record holder, Singapore would automatically be proud of her.
In her naivety she had a massive desire to be accepted.
And of course, fame is the ultimate badge of acceptance.
She hadn’t understood it isn’t just about being famous.
It depends what you’re famous for.
It isn’t just about holding a world record.
It depends what the world record is for.
Now of course she’s done nothing to be ashamed of.
No one else got hurt by anything she did.
But where she did go wrong is in being oblivious to everyone else’s reality.
That’s a lesson that we, in our business, really should be aware of.
It’s fine to do what you want.
It’s fine to shout about whatever you want to.
As long as you don’t want anything from anyone else.
If you do want something from someone else, you’d better find out what they want.
If we want a certain reaction from an audience, we need to hold the audience in mind.
We need to come off broadcast and go on receive.
Otherwise we’ll be disappointed when we find out what we think they ought to want isn’t what they actually want.
Provoking a desired reaction is not the same as just provoking.
And, as my wife turned off the TV, she summed it up.
“Stupid woman, what did she think was going to happen?”
And the answer is, of course, she didn’t.
Another classic case of brains but no intelligence.
john woods - 9 November 2011 12:01 pm
‘Now she was a world record holder.’ Priceless. Altogether now ‘Dedication, ooh ooh, dedication… dedication, it’s what you need, if you want to be the best,a nd if you want to beat the rest, mmm dedication’s what you need’. Roy and Norris (RIP) would have been proud.
Ben - 9 November 2011 4:26 pm
Yet on the other hand we salute Steve Jobs for not giving a damn about people professed to want.
I do suspect there’s a demographic in Singapore that’s more in favour of Annabel Chong. But it wasn’t the demographic that the doccie was made for.
Al - 9 November 2011 11:43 pm
Hallo Ben – actually, her record was very short-lived.
Also, I think, a sad reflection of the Singapore education system. I mean, you’d think a top school would teach folks to think a bit, no? As Mrs T rightly said, ‘stupid woman, what did she think was going to happen?’.
Robin. - 10 November 2011 4:33 am
Al,
Don’t you think the difference is that Steve Jobs did understand what his audience wanted.
He understood them better than his competitors did.
Which is why he didn’t let market-researchers dictate to him.
The question of what the audience wanted never cropped up for Annabel Chong, until she had a nasty surprise.
Dave Trott - 10 November 2011 10:16 am
Was that the same documentary where it was revealed Annabel was raped early on in her life and her move into porn was deemed to be her way of trying to control her sexuality after that trauma? It might be a different doc. but in the one I saw there were some excruciating scenes with her mother, who was also unimpressed by her record-breaking ‘achievements’. I don’t think Annabel was stupid. I think she was ill.
rachel carroll - 10 November 2011 10:26 am
Rachel,
I’m sure it was the same one, everything you mention was in it.
She was certainly vulnerable, but IMHO that was pre-rape, not post-rape.
Initially, she was drunk on a train, met a guy and agreed to go back to his flat to have sex with him.
(A stranger in a foreign country, seems a bit dopey to me.)
On the way she was gang-raped in an alley.
This became the cause (excuse?) for her later behaviour.
She wasn’t ashamed of anything until everyone in S’pore (her mother included) told her it was shameful.
IMHO she went through life reacting to what other people told her to do.
She desperately needed approval from day one.
I think that was what got her raped in the first place.
Dave Trott - 10 November 2011 11:01 am
I vaguely remember a series of Playboy doccies (long before the Playboy channel, these were probably made for HBO) that worked on the formula of Playboy centrefold goes back to hick home town and encounters family, teachers, schoolfriends etc. who’re (mostly) all appalled at her descent into godless depravity. At which point the audience has the double delight of looking down on the uptight hicks while wondering ‘what the heck did she expect?’
So without having seen the Chong doccie and possibly being utterly wrong, I’d like to suggest that she may still be doing some savvy media manipulation? Remember, she still has to make a career out of her old world record.
Al - 10 November 2011 11:23 am
Here you go Al: http://liveedge.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/whatever-happened-to-annabel-chong/
Dave Trott - 10 November 2011 11:42 am
I wouldn’t recommend you seeing it, Al. It’s deeply depressing. You’re right, her need for approval was the thing, Dave. And yet the thing she wanted most, she was never going to get because of her actions. Those scenes with her mother were more excruciating than the gang-bang.
rachel carroll - 10 November 2011 11:43 am
It all seems a bit messy. I’m staying out of it.
john woods - 10 November 2011 12:09 pm
Thanks for the link, Dave, but yuck! The writer’s zeal in getting hold of the record attempt video is only matched by his contempt for Chong. Feel sticky.
Al - 10 November 2011 12:45 pm
So glad to see she’s got her clothes on these days. Thanks Dave!
rachel carroll - 10 November 2011 1:01 pm
Is there a male equivalent – and would he be carried shoulder high through the streets of his home town?
Grilla Login - 10 November 2011 1:21 pm
while i agree that you have to know your audience, i do think the thing with grace was that she didnt know herself in the first place. i have also seen the documentary and it appears to me she tried to get over her role of the victim she suddenly had become in the gang rape. an involuntary victim, by the way. it was stupid to go with a random guy to have sex, but the guys are guilty of the gang rape. i guess this conflict is what she had been struggling with. maybe she just wanted to break free from the keep face practice, since this would have meant to suffer in silence and extend the victim role. anyway. bit rich of me to write a psychological assessment out of a documentary.
i hope she is doing well nowadays.
peggy - 10 November 2011 2:38 pm