Who watches KIN, the Singapore TV Drama, and why?!

I attempt to consider the greatest mystery of Singapore TV.

After the semester ended it was winter break from university, and my main resolution was to watch more television. “What? Huh?”, you might say, so I’d like to declare that generally, I don’t spend all that much time in front of the proverbial goggle box, because 1) I’d have to compete with my parents 2) I don’t have the patience to sit through serialised shows (though somehow I can just sit there and watch hours-long Let’s Plays on Youtube — but that’s something for another time). So in an effort to expose myself to more and different media, I end up on Channel 5 watching local soap KIN with my sister.

After watching about a month’s worth, I have one key question: WHO WATCHES KIN, AND WHY? This essay/article attempts to explore potential reasons for it, because every time I sit down for it I scratch my head and wonder.

What is KIN? Kin is a Mediacorp original series that airs at 8.30pm on Channel 5 on every weekday, and has apparently inexplicably high viewership numbers. It revolves around four families living and working in a fictional neighbourhood, and the issues that arise around them and the large collection of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances that seem to revolve in their orbit. As I’m watching (having started pretty late at episode 500-something), these issues span anything from two simultaneous and separate moving-house plots to drinking problems, from (un)requited love to a blackmail plot, and of course the usual family drama. This melodrama has apparently been here since the very beginning. According to Wikipedia, the series started off with a baby-swap plot — that staple of dramas (k- or otherwise) since time immemorial. At this point in time, it still has little ripple effects — they are still tied in one way or another to the respective families, but if you didn’t know it, it’s somehow not all that consequential.

It keeps you riveted by the inclusion of multiple plotlines per episode, kept together in a frenetic series of short scenes that all tend to end in hard cuts to the next. Here’s an example, generated by my brain as though it were one of those questionable amalgamation AIs:

John is sitting at a table in his office — a glass box with the door open. His brow is furrowed as he flips through a set of stapled documents. A sleek laptop, unplugged, and a mug is the only thing open on the table. Sara knocks on the door, causing John to look up.

Sara: John, you wanted to see me?

John: Oh yes, hi Sara. There’s something I need to tell you about what I just heard from Ming about the latest deal with Portman-Toh.

Sara: Oh no — is it about how K&S has offered them a better deal?

John: (puts his papers down in shock and worry) Yes, where did you hear this?

Sara: Well, I heard from Zul, who heard from Sandy, who heard from-

Rachel, a colleague, knocks.

Rachel: John — there’s someone here from K&S here to see you.

Sara and John look at each other in trepidation.

HARD CUT to next scene, which is set in a coffee shop, where Auntie Tan and May are sitting at a table.

[All names have been re-made up again to avoid copyright issues, but hopefully they capture the vibe.]

So you can see how a scene is vaguely set — characters enter, talk to someone, a conflict is raised, more trouble is introduced, and then hard cut and you find yourself in a completely different situation with a different set of characters with their own problems. Repeat about 3 times an episode, further each scene enough to keep the audience hooked, and you’ll end up with an episode of KIN.

This tactic reminds me of clickbait, not going to lie. Clickbait works by drawing you in by triggering the release of dopamine with something that causes you to want to know more about something, and creates a sense of anticipation. (I got this definition off Psychology Today.) These, together, create an itch that needs to be scratched by you clicking on that article to find out just how those top 10 celebrities have managed to baffle doctors with their secret trick for smooth skin, weight loss and the ability to work from home with just their laptops. In the case of the show, it causes you to want to continue watching.

There’s a certain unreal-ness to it all. Everything is pristine — going beyond even what we’d call our clean (or clean-ed) city. Everybody always has perfectly coiffed hair and immaculate makeup, even just after they’ve crawled out of bed. The vibe you get is that the whole world it’s set in is air-conditioned — whether you’re sitting in an office, eating at an open-air restaurant, or walking along the Singapore River, it’s a weirdly sweat-less place. With that sweat-less-ness comes a sense of distance and remove from reality. It’s less a funhouse mirror than an Instagram-filtered version of Singaporean reality — and this strange attractiveness makes it all the easier to sit in front of.

This effect is only added onto by the acting, which I feel somewhat obliged to briefly touch upon, having spent quite a significant portion of my life in various theatre-related co-curricular activities. To a large extent, most give convincing performances that allow you to immerse yourself in the story — some characters are annoying enough that I channel my inner small child and yell an “eeeeeeeeeeeee” of disgust when they appear. I guess that’s worth kudos to the actors and the writing — that it can provoke that strong of a reaction. The accents, as often stereotyped, do sometimes suffer from Mediacorp-syndrome — the affectation of something not-quite Singaporean that tends to slip on and off like an ill-fitting mask over your nose. (However, most actors are at least consistent, so it’s less big of an issue than you’d imagine). Sometimes, it even comes across as over-rehearsed — you can tell they’re acting. This is fine, but given the medium of TV, which is highly mimetic (mimesis being the state of being ‘true-to-life’, or a close imitation of something), it pulls you out from being able to completely suspend your disbelief. But I guess it also adds to the above point on it being over-polished — it becomes all the more addictive, because of it.

KIN feels Singaporean in its own little way. It seems to try very, very hard. For one thing, they try for representation with a multi-racial cast. Heck, the aforementioned four families follow the CMIO model — the Lohs, the Hassans, the Balas, and the Shelleys respectively. Their kith (… an intended pun on kith and kin) also are a mixed bunch of various races. They also try to cover “societal issues” — one of the plotlines that’s on as I write this is about ex-cons and biases against them, there’s another ongoing plotline that tries to represent DID, and they do have an actor with Down’s Syndrome. While the effort is appreciated, and there’s no real, right way to represent these issues on screen, it feels Singaporean in its inherent safe-ness.

I define ‘safe-ness’ as attempting to be progressive, but stopping at pushing millimetres past the boundary and before any feathers can be ruffled. This feels typically Singaporean with regards to media — we live in a culture where censorship looms like the sword of Damocles over most media creators, whether you be an independent artist or writing for Mediacorp. They’re trying to do something, it’s just not something that gets very far.

I can’t help but feel that it moralises in a shallow-ish way — like I’ve been sat back down in CME class in primary school and had a fable read to me. I read an article (that I very silly-ly lost the link of) about how their head writer(?) chose to include someone with Down’s Syndrome — it was because she’d seen a kid with Down’s Syndrome smile in a way that basically lit up the room. It really cheered her up, so she thought it would be a good idea to have a character that brings that light and cheer into a family, and binds them together. While positive representation, (and also heaven knows Kin needs more positive moments overall — the character is a cheerful chap), I can’t help but feel that it still infantilises and reduces the character to a stereotype, even if it’s a positive one.

Admittedly, I’m getting more and more frustrated with the show as I watch more of it. It’s not so much the issues stated above — I‘ve just got a propensity against people constantly put in negative situations. This has been annoying me more — as I watch more episodes I start to wonder at how miseries seem to pile up like one of those accidents on the PIE. The conflicts that arise are, as they say in literature class, man vs man — they arise because of what people do, and have impacts on other people. On one hand, it doesn’t seem completely impossible, on the other, it gets tiring to watch. It was honestly refreshing to see an episode where people seemed to like each other — anybody smiling or even happy to see each other is somehow pretty rare in a show where people meet with different people every other scene.

I guess I can’t say right now whether I’ll continue watching. It’s moreish in the way junk food is — you take one chip, you realise too late you’ve eaten half the bag, and you’re left with the greasy residue on your fingers and your lips and a slightly guilty, bloated feeling. That tends to be when you ask yourself, “Do I want to continue?” If it were really a bag of chips, I could definitively tell myself that yes, this is where I stop. But because it’s a show, the question lingers like the “are you still watching?” screen on Netflix, and I feel like I’m sitting slouched in front of the TV, drowsing as the screen casts its dim light across the room. It’s that kind of fuzzy state that I guess I find myself in with regards to Kin — I’m watching it because I was already watching it, and I know I could stop any time, but somehow I don’t.

Should you watch Kin? Maybe, if you find the above appealing. I can’t really say. I haven’t made my mind up yet, as you can see from what I’ve written so far. But if it’s gotten you interested, I’ll see you at 8.30pm in front of your TV screen, tuned to Channel 5.

[Feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you think of KIN. Sadly the semester has started and I’ve not got the time to continue watching it right now, but who knows about the future?]