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Is this what they mean by the Queen’s English?
Last week, the Speak Good English Movement launched a new campaign with a series of videos starring comedian Kumar as the “Queen of Grammar”.
Wait, you say. Isn’t Kumar a man? Shouldn’t it be the “King of Grammar”.
Wrong word used. That is hardly very good English.
Well, Kumar is dressed like woman in the videos, specifically a queen with a tiara and all that.
So the Grammar Queen is also a drag queen.
Wait, you say. Why is a national campaign using a drag queen to teach us good English?
A drag queen is hardly a very good role model, especially for children.
Well, at least it’s not Phua Chu Kang.
But have you seen Kumar’s stage act? Not exactly what I would call family-friendly.
The thing is that there are actually two Kumars – the M18-rated stage version and the G-rated TV version.
This is how the comedian has reigned since the early 90s.
I first worked with Her Highness 20 years ago on a variety TV show on Channel 5 called Live On 5.
I was the “research writer” on the show although I did very little writing and even less research.
I spent most of my time at work watching my fat Australian boss play Doom on his office PC. Good times.
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One week, the movie was to be the Mel Brooks comedy Robin Hood: Men In Tights.
I thought who better to review a movie about men in tights than Kumar, who was then already famous for performing in drag at The Boom Boom Room in Bugis.
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Kumar was a controversial figure.
He had been featured on the front page of The New Paper a few months earlier with the headline “Who says I’m gay?”
He claimed he was not, which no one believed (except me).
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So everyone was right (except me).
Another reason for my boss’s reservations was that he thought Kumar was banned from TV after The Ra Ra Show.
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One innuendo that the show was accused of involved a gear stick in a car in a sketch. You can imagine.
Kumar wasn’t even in that sketch.
Still, my boss was understandably reluctant to allow me to book such a controversial figure as it might get him into trouble and keep him from playing Doom.
So he asked his boss: Was Kumar really banned from TV?
To my relief, my bigger boss said no.
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But as long as Kumar was not dressed as a woman, it was okay to have him on Live On 5.
Fortunately, going drag wasn’t a requirement for the movie review segment.
When I called Kumar on the phone to invite him on the show, the first thing he said was “I thought I was banned.”
I told him what my bigger boss told me.
Kumar then agreed to be on the show and asked what movie he had to review.
I said Robin Hood: Men In Tights.
“Oh,” he said, “how appropriate.”
I thought so too.
I sometimes wonder if I hadn’t called Kumar back in 1994, would he still think he was banned from TV?
I might have changed the course of Singapore TV history and Kumar’s career more than I realised.
Since then, he has appeared many times on the small screen, even co-starring with Hong Kong star Carol Cheng on the Channel 5 sitcom Oh Carol! in 2002.
He can currently be seen on TV in the Channel 5 infotainment series Kumar Goes Back To School, not in drag of course.
I would like to say that Kumar has yet to be allowed to wear a dress on TV, but that’s not true.
I remember seeing him play a woman on a Channel 5 sitcom a few years ago, although I don’t remember the name of the sitcom.
I was then told Kumar was allowed to play a woman on TV, but he was not allowed to play a man playing a woman.
Did you get that?
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You know, since Neo used to play women like Liang Po Po and Liang Xi Mei.
(I should point out that cross-dressing is not banned on TV per se as evidenced by Neo and Dennis Chew’s Aunty Lucy. Even on The Ra Ra Show, the character Bibik Belacan was played by a man in drag, but ironically, it wasn’t Kumar.)
The Speak Good English Movement videos aren’t produced for TV, but what you get is more or less the G-rated TV version of Kumar.
Except that he’s in drag.
But thanks to 20 years of Kumar on TV, Singapore has been conditioned to accept a drag queen as the face of a national campaign.
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And I apologise for that.
Long live the queen.
- Published in The New Paper, 1 June 2014
EARLIER: Kumar lied! I will never believe celebrities again