You’d think that Mediacorp anchors are conservative dressers, but some are not. Thumbs up?

By Mao Shan Wang

It has been a quiet Monday evening. I was watching Channel 5’s News Tonight as usual, and Glenda Chong was reading. Like most nights she’s on air, she was standing by the right side of her desk, opening with “Tonight’s Top Stories”. She wore a cream-coloured, form-fitting, knee-length dress. As she spoke and walked to the right side of the screen behind her, barely finishing a sentence, I caught sight of something I have never noticed of Ms Chong before. The dress is not unattractive. A somewhat Thirties silhouette, with a box-pleated neckline that formed, to the sides, fetching sleeves (possibly raglan) over her arms, it was one of Ms Chong’s better choices (over, say, the rather dowdy tweed jacket of some months back). But I did not expect to see, as she stood there telling me that “Singapore and the US are entering new areas of partnership” (truth be told, I was looking forward to see Kamala Harris), very clear and visible outlines of the protuberances of her breast. I look up at my clock: Nine, it told me, is not exactly the late-night hour.

I thought perhaps it was the lighting at that particular spot in the studio. Or, perhaps where she stood was just too draughty (despite the lights!). When she returned to the desk and the camera framed her much tighter, I realised I was not mistaken. Yes, there they were: distinct, dramatic, dauntless. I said aloud: “Oh, no.” My brother, who had just walked in from the kitchen to join me, said: “Why, not nice, ah, the dress?” Before I could offer a reply, he went, “Woah! Wow! WOW!” My mother, stirred by the living room commotion, also joined in. “哎哟，很难看啦! (aiyo, looks awful).” And I didn’t point anything out to them! Before Ms Harris’s face could appear, I received a WhatsApp message from my best friend, all the way from Sembawang. It was preceded by a screen shot of Ms Chong, seated (or standing?). “Correct me if I’m wrong,” she wrote. “Glenda looks like she’s bra-less. Surely it can’t be?”

I played the expert and the arbiter, not. “She is a liberated woman,” I texted back, not entirely sure of what I wrote or if I would come across as someone from the Seventies. Is anyone even supposed to look at her there? “I understand,” came the rapid reply, “but this is the national news, not an R-rated channel. I’m liberated too. But she’s reading the news, not acting in a movie. Am I a prude?” My friend, a PR professional, is not, and her reaction is totally comprehensible. This was the news and Kamala Harris was coming on! It is possible that Ms Chong did wear underclothes—a smooth, sheer, silky slip perhaps, just not a brassiere. Whatever, it was her choice. Just as it was ex-Mediacorp artiste, former 成人杂志 (City Beat) host Sharon Au’s choosing to go bra-less for work one day, as revealed by her pal Kim Ng in the latest installation of #JustSwipeLah. I am not sure if Mediacorp issues dress guidelines for their journalists who go on air, but I am sure the 23-year Mediacorp veteran’s superiors do not tell her what to wear—or not—under her dress. I am just surprised that no one behind the camera, not even the studio director, noticed and advised her accordingly when she walked in earlier to take up her position.

But in these ‘woke’ times, these minor indiscretions, not amounting to a wardrobe malfunction (so 2004!), are not supposed to bother us. When I mentioned this to another friend (a fashion industry veteran) after the newscast, she said very delightfully, “power to her!” Ms Chong, a former model, I’m sure, is empowered enough to know if she needed to be taped or not. And although she was standing at sedia (made more obvious by two diagonal pleats serving as bust darts) that did not mean our visual space had to be totally intruded. “Nippage” is real and is inevitable, as I recall reading somewhere, since women “simply have breasts”. I think the good news is that Mediacorp can finally be seen as a modern broadcaster and that, no matter how distracting—or titillating—the effect some clothes may have on their anchors, their on-air staff would not be dressed, as one stylist once said to me, “as if going to meet grandma”. Frankly, I think cascading locks to the right of the face are far more distracting than a pair of perky dots on the chest.

Updated: 24 August 202, 16:00. Unadulterated TV screen shot: Mao Shan Wang