Rant: Ris Low

If you haven’t seen RazorTV’s soul-consuming interview with our Miss Singapore World winner, Ris Low, run along and Google that video ASAP. When I first watched it, I could actually feel clusters of precious brain cells withering into oblivion; when print media caught up with the online outrage, avowed English-language ‘experts’ came crawling out of the woodwork to defend Low, arguing that her grasp of English represents that of a large majority of our population, and that by ridiculing her, we inadvertently ridicule others. Meanwhile, the PR machine attempted damage control by emphasising the ‘beauty’ in beauty pageants, claiming they are not ‘a test of oratorical speech or a debating contest’.

The argument that we should settle for someone who cannot string basic sentences together, on the grounds that she represents most people in the country, is fallacious to the nth degree. Yes, there are lots of Singaporeans who speak in a similar way, but there are also plenty of Singaporeans who do not. If we’re picking someone to represent our country, she needs to be intelligible. Yes, thanks for pointing out the obvious: that beauty contests are mainly about looks, but the fact remains that world-class pageants have a question-and-answer element that can make or break a pageant queen. Low’s problem isn’t even a question of Singlish – she didn’t drop any Singlishisms during the interview – it’s a matter of plain English. This isn’t beautiful, it’s cringeworthy, especially as our government espouses English as our main language of business and education.

There’s also the issue of at least appearing to have a rudimentary grasp of general knowledge – why couldn’t we pick a woman who isn’t going to stick her foot in her mouth? The RazorTV reporter who conducted the interview was an attractive, well-spoken female. I would’ve picked her over someone whose knowledge of South Africa is limited to safari prints. Look at Miss Singapore World 2008, Faraliza Tan, who was as eloquent as she was beautiful. Surely she’s not the only woman among our population of almost 5 million with these two qualities?

Low is surely feeling the burn of shame after being reviled in our newspapers, complete with the blown-up text of her mispronounced words, and I surely do feel bad for her. However, my sympathies do not extend to whomever allowed her to do the interview – assuming that they had full knowledge of her shortcomings regarding English. They’re the ones who should be mortified.