I Not Stupid Art Analysis

Upon watching Jack Neo’s satirical-comedy film I Not Stupid, I was transported back into a Singapore narrative filled with paranoia, stress and disdain: moods characterizing academic elitism, mother-state mentality and “kiasuism” (meaning scared to lose in dialect) at its former peak. Within the film, Neo and his cast captures both feelings and emotions of Singaporeans from the past decade, a zeitgeist of our heritage roots communicated to the audience. Thus, I Not Stupid falls into Leo Tolstoy’s categorization of what consists art, writing in his book What is Art that the artist “transmits his feelings” (Tolstoy #3) through art and can hand to his descendants “thoughts he has assimilated from others” (Tolstoy #13). Tolstoy expresses the personal relationship between art and audience. He writes that “receiver[s] of a true artistic impression… feel as if the work was their own” (Tolstoy #27). True art recreates the thoughts and emotions of the audience through the artists’ creative genius, giving a voice that reflects clearly their viewpoint. Likewise, Neo’s

Without a subject or contextual knowledge, difficulties arise for artists to communicating their emotions across the audience. Conversely, artists creating an art piece with a context provide common ground for understanding. But they would create art works for an intended audience. In filming I Not Stupid, Neo had in mind a Singaporean audience, whom arguably has a greater understanding and deep-rooted sentiments of the former educational landscape. When typical Singaporeans watch I Not Stupid, they would have a greater emotional response in comparison to non-Singaporeans or Singaporeans lacking background