MediaCorp’s April Fool’s ‘cheating husband prank’ slammed
An elaborate tongue-in-cheek prank which saw a Malay “makcik” pretending to catch her cheating husband on a public bus has angered several netizens, who accused the actors of portraying Muslims in a bad light.
The videos of the incident, which many thought was genuine, saw a Malay auntie confronting her husband with his mistress in tow. It quickly went viral after being uploaded on YouTube on 29 and 30 March, and was viewed over 200,000 times in total.
But after the stunt, which was crafted and acted by the team behind popular Channel 5 comedy show “The Noose”, was revealed to be an April Fool’s Day joke on Mediacorp Channel 5’s Facebook page, several readers were not amused.
In Malay, Facebook user Midi Yusope said that the prank had humiliated the Malay community.
According to Maryam Nagisa, the joke had tarnished the reputation of Muslims and that the two Muslim actors involved in it had made a laughing stock out of themselves.
One of the actors involved in the prank also addressed the joke soon after the reveal.
Sharifah Nur’aisyah, 19, who plays the mistress in the clip said on her Instagram, “Yes the girl in the video is me. No I’m not a home wrecker. No I’m not Pinoy. No I’m not a local minah. ….Tell everybody, your friends and your makciks that it was all an act. HAPPY APRIL’S FOOLS.”
But some were also unhappy that Muslims were associated with April Fools’ Day, a day deemed as not Islamic.
Facebook user Faruq Rasid explained in Malay that Muslims shouldn't celebrate April Fools' because lying is not permissible in the religion.
But others felt they were taking things too far when the sketch was supposed to be just for laughs.
“You were fooled, just admit it and move on. You don’t have to bring in religion into this matter,” says local comedian Muhammad Fadzri, 27, in Malay.
