Press Coverage

Singapore Straits Times: 18 March 2001
Excuse me, are you an angmoh?
by Cheong Suk Wai

The angmoh-looking Eurasians' stranglehold on Malaysian media and entertainment is loosening as Malaysians warm to all talents

WHEN Malaysian gongfu diva Michelle Yeoh kicks butt in Hollywood, she is not only stamping her soles on behinds. She is also socking home the salvo that, these days, one need not look like an ang moh to make it big in showbusiness.

In an e-mail interview with Sunday Plus, Malaysian culture critic Rosihan Zain Baharudin writes: 'With more Asians in the global spotlight - like Lucy Liu or the bevy of Miss Worlds from India - more Malaysians are realising that beauty does not mean white.'

Rosihan, 28, better-known as Dhojee to fans of his New Straits Times newspaper column Free To Decide, is also the managing editor of Tanpa Tajuk (Malay for Untitled), Malaysia's only artsjournal. That awakening, it seems, has broken the decade-long stranglehold by Eurasian - or ang moh-looking - talents on Malaysia's juiciest modelling and advertising jobs.

Nodding readily to this is modelling, stage and screen doyenne Deanna Yusoff, 34. On the phone with Sunday Plus from her home in Kuala Lumpur, the Malay-Swiss actress says: 'It's become a case of 'we see that kind of face every day'.

'It's just like having too much of the same fashion or food. People get sick and tired.' That is why, she adds, she has had to reinvent herself constantly to survive in the 'fickle' world of Malaysian media and entertainment.

Not that the va-va-voom thespian has had it rough. Before signing on as the It girl for fitness chain Phillip Wain Malaysia in February, Yusoff used to snag ad after lucrative ad, from Salem High Country tours to L'Oreal lipsticks. She also had a supporting role as Lady Thiang in the Hollywood movie Anna And The King, which starred Chow Yun-Fat and Jodie Foster.

Says Malaysian poet and film-maker Bernice Chauly: 'Eurasian talents are definitely no longer a novelty, although it's not that people don't appreciate their looks. 'It's just that even good-looking mixed-blood talents who are not half-white - for example, Malay-Chinese-Iban or Thai-Indian - are seen more commonly and so accepted more widely these days.'

Chauly, who is Chinese-Punjabi, should know. Her husband, Farouk AlJoffery, is one of Malaysia's top TV ad makers. AlJoffery had not, however, reverted with his take at press time.

Also, talent manager Lam Swee Kim says, there is a clear move among entertainment industry players towards preferring plainly-Asian looks. Ms Lam, who manages EMI Malaysia artistes under the Positive Tone label, is also a consultant for the Malaysian Music Industry awards in April.

In a separate e-mail interview, freelance communications consultant and indie film-maker Vernon Adrian Emuang confirms that the days of hiring Eurasians for Malaysian ads under a 'don't exclude, don't alienate any race' policy are long gone. As he puts it: 'Eurasians helped advertisers snare a wider audience, as their looks could not be pinned down to any one race.'

An adman for 17 years before he quit to be his own boss in 1998, 40-year-old Emuang was creative director of top ad agency Bozell Worldwide Malaysia in 1993, when the demand for Eurasians in modelling, advertising and entertainment reached fever pitch (see next story). He is also the founder of popular Malaysian arts website artseefartsee.com.

NO EURASIANS

FILM director Amir Muhammad, 28, says: 'Advertising's preference for half-white people reached its obnoxious peak a few years back, with a slew of ads for skin-whitening products. 'That,' he adds, 'triggered a backlash recently.'

'It's no accident that last year's most successful movie, Senario Lagi (Scenario: The Sequel), had a rambunctious cast who were mainly Malays and Indians, with no Eurasians in sight,' he says. Plus, of 2000's six other Malaysian box-office hits - among them Pasrah (Surrender), Mimpi Moon (Moon's Dream) and Anakku Sazali (My Son Sazali) - only two had Eurasians acting in them.

Amir shot Malaysia's first indie digital movie - Lips To Lips - which will air at the Singapore Film Festival next month.

Actress Joanna Bessey says, cautiously: 'Since the craze for skin-lightening lotions fizzled out in 1997, the demand for Eurasians has waned slightly, but surely.'

Of English-Malay parentage, Bessey is Malaysia's new Lux girl. She takes pains to stress that she snagged the sought-after soap endorsement after its makers' online poll of Malaysian viewers found that she was Malaysia's hottest female TV star.

'The kacukan (say car-chok-kahn) or mixed-blood brouhaha began dying down,' says Yusoff, 'during the recent Asian economic crunch.'

As she puts it: 'With no money, there were no ads and so no work for us. 'The economy still isn't so hot, even post-crisis.'

Be that as it may, three Malaysian ad industry players Sunday Plus spoke to also point to a change of heart in ad circles - from 'pasting pretty faces on product labels' to 30-second skits for multi-racial ensemble casts.

As Dhojee puts it: 'A curry paste or cooking oil ad would have little need for a Eurasian model, opting in favour of portly, middle-aged makciks.'

Says Yusoff: 'Malaysians have learnt to appreciate their own people, be they dark Indians or hitam manis (honey-brown) Malays.'

Send your comments to stlife@sph.com.sg

Caught between two worlds

THANK God It's Friday is not something you will hear Deanna Yusoff muttering too often. The accountant-turned-actress lets on: 'I'll be shopping in my shorts at the supermarket when I realise suddenly: Oh, s***, it's Friday.'

Friday is the holy day of the week for Muslims and, traditionally, the women honour it by taking especial care not to wear anything that exposes too much skin in public.

Adds the Malay-Swiss actress, ruefully: 'It's not that I don't give a s***. 'It's hard to be comfortable with who I am, when people take my behaviour as takde adat.' Takde adat  is Malay slang for disrespectful.

Her experience underscores the fact that Eurasians might be stars in reel life, but stick out like sore thumbs on Malaysian streets. How do they hold their own, then, in the schmooze-and-bitch world of showbusiness?

Advertising expenditure in Malaysia, says Malaysian culture critic Rosihan 'Dhojee' Zain Baharudin, increased two-fold in the 1990s, surpassing RM2 billion (S$0.9 billion). This, he adds, created a demand for good-lookers, especially models, and 'Eurasians tend to be blessed genetically in that way'.

In an e-mail interview with Sunday Plus, Mr Tan Hee Hui, 26, an online newspaper lifestyle editor, writes: 'People see Eurasians as glamorous folk, as they're of mixed stock and speak English fluently.'

THE NEXT BEST THING

FOR so long, other industry players point out, foreign-made ads - or, indeed, ads featuring Caucasians - have been barred by Malaysian broadcast authorities. So the next best thing, says indie film director Amir Muhammad, 28, was for ad and modelling agencies to hire 'Mat Salleh celup' .

'Mat Salleh celup is what Malays call people who they say are dyed-white. Dhojee agrees. 'Certainly, Eurasians are more articulate in English, so the issue was not so much one of pretty faces as it was of the need to tap into a limited talent pool.'

The predicament for ad and movie-makers, he says, is exarcebated by the fact that Malaysia is a small country. Every segment of the media and entertainment industry either overlaps or is linked closely, resulting in a fluid traffic of players to and from all segments. Not that being a rare commodity in the entertainment market always worked in their favour.

Actress Joanna Bessey, laments how 'not looking Thai enough' shut her out from Hollywood movie Anna And The King.

MIXED BLOOD

SO HAVE Eurasians got by on good looks alone? Indian-Filipino actor and Tall Order Productions managing director Hans Isaac, 29, thinks not.

While not Eurasian, Isaac - who used to be Yusoff's squeeze - is one of the few male mixed-blood actors on the scene.

As he puts it: 'I'd say being blessed with good looks from mixed blood opens the first door for you - and if you're female to boot, that door will be opened even quicker.'

Indie film-maker Amir Muhammad says: 'Looking half-white helps you get your foot in the door, but does not ensure that you stay in the room.'

Says ad industry veteran Vernon Adrian Emuang:'Good looks are just good looks. 'Eventually, it's personality, talent and diligence that matter.'

At the end of the day, the Eurasian thespians say their fractured or accented Malay limits their scope of work greatly.

As Amir puts it: 'For better or for worse, popular Malaysian cinema is still synonymous with popular Malay-language cinema.

'Also, if you've got a story set in upmarket Bangsar, then it makes sense to cast half-white people. 'But not if it's a remote kampung.'

Plus, Isaac notes, Malaysian cinema-goers' tastes tend towards love stories and, whether the characters are professors or peons, they prefer faces they can identify with.

It certainly helps, he adds, that he passes off easily as a Malay, so much so that he 'gets more cards for Hari Raya Puasa than at Christmas'.

Wherever the competition between Eurasians and non-Eurasian talents might be, adds Dhojee, it would not be 'onstage, singing live' because 'the bulk of Malaysian music supporters are Malays who want music in Malay'.

Yusoff, who pens her own R&B music and records only in English, says: 'The industry somehow thinks that because you are Malay, you have no business singing in English.'

Dhojee counters, cheekily: 'I'm sure Deanna doing heavy metal would go down well with Malaysian rock fans!'

Malaysian appeal: The faces that are going places (Pictures & Captions)

Rare breed: Hans Isaac is one of the few male mixed-blood actors on the scene.

Hot Item: Joanna Bessey is hot in Malaysia but she was still not Asian enough for Hollywood.

Media Darling: Malay singer Siti Nurhaliza is a current belle of Malaysian entertainment.

(c) 2001 Singapore Press Holdings Limited.

Source: STRAITS TIMES 18/03/2001