Mapping spectral tropicality in The Maid and Return to Pontianak
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20153833 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sophia Siddique Harvey (Old Dominion University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 24-33 |
| Publication date | 2008-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0129-7619 • E-ISSN: 1467-9493 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9493.2008.00317.x |
| OpenAlex | W2090086546 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 13 |
| References cited | 10 |
Contemporary, postcolonial Singapore has tamed, managed, and essentially disavowed its tropicality, aptly captured symbolically as the ‘air‐conditioned nation’. This essay traces how two recent Singapore horror films, The Maid (2005) and Return to Pontianak (2001), evoke the ‘return of the repressed’ as a form of haunting that I call ‘spectral tropicality’. The films image and imagine this spectral return through unruly bodies (citizen subjects, female domestic workers, ghosts and vampire‐ghosts) and uncanny landscapes (the jungle and city). In particular, the films and this analysis examine two sociocultural spectres lurking beneath Singapore as a tropical urban city‐nation: the female domestic worker ( The Maid ) and ethnoracial folk beliefs ( The Maid and Return to Pontianak ). The Maid features the Hungry Ghosts Festival in the Chinese religious calendar, ghost marriages and an engagement with yin and yang energies, while Return to Pontianak deals with Malay folk beliefs of semangat (‘life force’), and the pontianak, a female vampire‐ghost. The Maid attempts to integrate Chinese folk beliefs into contemporary Singapore's cityscape, particularly the architecturally conserved Chinatown shophouses, while Return to Pontianak displaces Malay folk beliefs onto the tropical forest, which is mapped as a threatening other(ed) space and serves as Singapore's tropical doppelganger. Both films suggest that these folk beliefs have an unruly presence within the state's seemingly harmonious and meritocratic ethnoracial ideologies
Archaeology · Art · Cityscape · Geography · Jungle · Literature · Malay · Sociology · Vampire · Visual arts · Asian Studies and History · Gender Studies · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Philosophy · Socioeconomic Development in Asia
Transnational spectres and regional spectators
Tropical Liminal
Singapore as Model
Legitimizing viewing publics through nostalgia
Where got ghost movie
Queering the Tropics
Tropical Futurisms
Vampires in Video Games
Reading New Asian Tropicalities in Contemporary Singapore
Mapping tropicality in the masculinities and femininities of global Singapore in Crazy Rich Asians
“Legend Has It … ”
Tropics, city and cinema
Haunting Malayness
| Unique citing works | 13 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,72 |
| Citation span | 2008 - 2025 (18) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 11 |