I finally saw “Borat” the other day, and there was something about it that bugged me about it for quite some time afterward. It took me a while to figure out what it was.
It made me wonder because throughout much of the film I simply wasn’t laughing. I winced a few times (particularly during the scene where the naked Borat is wrestling with his equally naked, staggeringly obese producer). I loved the sequence where a TV weatherman desperately tries not to break down laughing when Borat, after participating in an achingly embarrassing on-camera interview elsewhere in the studio, keeps wandering into the middle of the weather report while searching for an exit.
Most of the time I just watched it. Others around me were howling, but I felt disconnected from it, as if I was missing something. And I didn’t know what.
After giving it some thought, now I think I do. And it stems from the following realization:
Andy Kaufman did this first, and better.
Although the film has a nominal narrative through-line (Borat trying to get to California to wed his spontaneous dream girl, Pamela Anderson), most of the film’s humor derives from ambush humor. That is to say, people have Borat sprung on them, and their filmed reactions provide the film’s humorous core.
There’s nothing new in this. Alan Funt was doing it with “Candid Camera” and “Candid Microphone” before that. Ashton Kutcher does it on “Punk’d.”
The aspect of it being a foreigner who puts people ill at ease made me think of Kaufman, and how right he got the same basic concept. Think of his quintessential “foreign man” routine, in which he stood before a crowd who, in his pre-“Taxi” days, didn’t know him from a hole in the wall. In his odd little voice and bizarre accent, he would do a series of impressions, one worse than the next, and all with little-to-no difference, one from the other. The humor came from the audience not knowing how to react: To laugh or cry or just feel embarrassment because this foreign guy’s act was just so ghastly. The longer it would go, the more convinced people became that this wasn’t a put-on, but instead just the worst comedy act ever. After each terrible impression the foreign man would say, “T’ank you veddy much.” His closer would be, “the Mister Elvis Presley.” The audience’s moan would be gargantuan as they braced themselves for this hideous performer’s butchering of the King. Whereupon Kaufman would launch into the best impression of Elvis, ever, blow the audience away, snap back into the foreign man and say, “T’ank you veddy much.”
The payoff wasn’t simply the Elvis impression. It was the self-realizing laughter that the audience had been “had” by a master comic mind. The pay off was the subjects of the hosing coming to understand how they’d been messed with, and also laughing at how uncomfortable they’d felt when, in fact, they’d been played.
There’s no payoff in “Borat.” Not to any of the sequences. Because Sasha Baron Cohen and his people didn’t play fair, as Kaufman did, as Funt did. There’s no “Smile! You’re on Candid Camera!”, no “T’ank you veddy much.” No one who was victimized on “Candid Camera” ever wound up on TV against their will. They had to sign releases after the fact. Everything was above board. Here, the producers cheated. Most participants were told that this was being done for a documentary that was being shown only in Kazihkstan (however it is you spell it) and would never be seen in the US. To all intents and purposes, they believed they were “off the record.” They signed the releases under fradulent circumstances and only discovered long after the fact that they were unwilling stars in an American comedy. There’s never a moment when Baron Cohen drops character and people find out they were fooled, and laugh at their own credulousness. We laugh at their foolishness, but they never get to, and consequently we, or at least I, wind up feeling sorry for them.
Much has been made of the gun store owner who, when asked by Borat “What would be the best weapon to kill a Jew?” gives recommendations without batting an eye. But when I watched the sequence, Borat’s accent was so thick that he could have been saying, “the best weapon to kill you,” i.e., the general “you” meaning a person. That may not have been the case, but still, it’s a possibility.
I probably wouldn’t have these concerns if I’d gone into the film without knowing its history or the reactions of the people involved (a suckered Romanian village, for instance, wherein various citizens were characterized without their knowledge as rapists or violent). I don’t mind people being held up for ridicule, as in “Candid Camera.” But I mind it when they’re being lied to about it, and set up for someone else’s benefit and aggrandizement. The only ones I have no sympathy for is the aforementioned news broadcast where they had Borat on as a genuine Kazahk journalist, and thus looked like idiots for doing so. They’re a dámņ news program; why was their research department asleep in checking Borat’s credentials? They deserved to be ridiculed, with or without their knowledge and consent.
But most of the people in the film didn’t.
Which just makes the film a ninety minute exercise in cruelty.
Sasha Cohen’s reported excuse/rationale is that he wanted to expose the dark underbelly of anti-Semitism in the United States because such attitudes could lead to the Holocaust. Well, y’know what? Considering the massive and intense anti-Semitism that’s rife in France, in Germany, in the Middle East (where they hold Holocaust cartoon competitions and Holocaust denial conventions) and even in Baron Cohen’s own England, I somehow have to believe that if the world faces the prospect of another Holocaust, the US isn’t going to be at the forefront of it. He didn’t really pick the US because he thought the Holocaust might happen here, in this country, one of the only consistent allies that Israel has ever had. He did it because we’re a big target and an easy target. Which is fine. But he shouldn’t be claiming there’s anything to his choice of targets other than just that we’re an easy one.
Just as his subjects were. Easy targets.
It’s easy to make people look stupid…especially when their single greatest mistake is trusting someone and trying to react to them with the best hospitality they can muster.
I’ll take trust over deception any day.
PAD
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I agree. And Andy Kaufman always came across as a nice, sweet guy in all the interviews I read and saw with him. Whereas the clips I’ve seen of Borat come across as meanspirited. Andy invited you into the world in his head. Borat wants to insult you and bring out the worst you have.
I lack the gene that allows me to laugh at the english…
Yeah, this was pretty meanspirited. I laughed at the trailer but by the time I saw the movie I felt too bad for many of the people in it to fully enjoy anything (plus, everyone kept saying it was the funniest movie ever. Bold words, hard to live up to).
And yeah, PAD’s right, the time when I could admire the “bravery” of anyone “exposing” anti-semitism in America has come and gone. Try it in Iran, tough guy. Even with some of the folks who seemd to be going along with the character’s prejudices I found myself wondering if they were just being polite. I know that sounds idiotic but I’ve been in situations where some otherwise nice old person will say something bigoted and I just let it pass. I’m not going to change their mind and they’ll be dead soon anyway.
I don’t find it funny to make people look stupid…Jay Leno does this with his ‘Jaywalking’ bit and Letterman does it too. It just seems too easy. If you are used to being on camera and you are talking to someone that isn’t it is very easy to make the other person look dumb. It doesn’t take skill and I don’t find it funny.
I didn’t find it funny, either, but for entirely different reasons. Part of the reason, I suppose, is that, at the time, I didn’t know these were real people and not actors playing characters, and there was nothing in the movie to indicate otherwise (which is a big failing, in my eyes… if you need outside information concerning the making of a movie in order to appreciate and understand the movie, then the movie isn’t doing its job). But I suspect I would have found it only slightly more humorous, if at all, had I had this information, because the movie simply isn’t clever or smart, and Borat himself is just plain annoying. And the scenes in Kazakhstan don’t work at all, because it’s not Kazakhstan, nor anything resembling Kazakhstan, and nobody knows anything about the country anyway, so what the hëll is the point of making fun of it? Humor generally doesn’t work unless it’s derived from truth.
Now, speaking of things that ARE funny, I was in Barnes and Noble today, killing time before a doctor’s appointment, and on a whim I bought Sir Apropos of Nothing. I only had time to read the first ten or so pages, but I’m already loving it.
Yeah, this was pretty meanspirited. I laughed at the trailer but by the time I saw the movie I felt too bad for many of the people in it to fully enjoy anything (plus, everyone kept saying it was the funniest movie ever. Bold words, hard to live up to).
And yeah, PAD’s right, the time when I could admire the “bravery” of anyone “exposing” anti-semitism in America has come and gone. Try it in Iran, tough guy. Even with some of the folks who seemd to be going along with the character’s prejudices I found myself wondering if they were just being polite. I know that sounds idiotic but I’ve been in situations where some otherwise nice old person will say something bigoted and I just let it pass. I’m not going to change their mind and they’ll be dead soon anyway.
Jeeze I HATE using other people’s computers. I posted the SAME thing 21 minutes apart???
I don’t think it’s accurate to say Borat put people ill-at-ease as a foreigner. While he tested people’s patience, bringing a bag of šhìŧ to a dining table, he was able to access a huge reservoir of patience no one posting here would have been able to access.
The scene with the laughing weatherman, as well as the scene with the driving instructor, highlight why I’m not sympathetic to the other marks. The weatherman didn’t take him seriously, and the driving instructor tells him women are entitled to drive in the US and to obey the driving laws or go to jail.
Also, Baron Cohen doesn’t seem to have a problem annunciating his English. The gun owner could have taken a page from even Don Rumsfeld’s book and replied, “the best gun to kill a person with is…” but he didn’t hesitate to respond in the manner he did.
I’m not saying you should have found something funny that made you uncomfortable. Nothing shows less humor than oppressing others with your own taste in humor.
I just don’t think there’s anything wrong with someone who cites the naked fight scene as the funniest they’ve ever seen in a movie. I mean, the naked fight turns into a naked chase. They get in the elevator. A woman — not chased out when they got on — casually leaves the next stop. The camera pans left, and there’s another guy still holding out until he gets to his floor. And then it gets outrageous.
Peter David: Sasha Cohen’s reported excuse/rationale is that he wanted to expose the dark underbelly of anti-Semitism in the United States because such attitudes could lead to the Holocaust.
Luigi Novi: What utter bûllšhìŧ. If there’s one thing that grates on me, is when people do things that they know in their mind is unethical, and then hide behind the smokescreen of a more reasonable and benevolent-sounding motive. Such people presumably think that they can get away with this because no one can read their minds to know that they’re lying. But as you just pointed out, Peter, there are often inconsistencies that put the lie to their rationalizations.
I mean, how much of the film really dealt with Cohen speaking to actual anti-Semites, rather than merely expressing anti-Semitism himself to unsuspecting dupes? Or misogny? The idea that he intended this film to have some type of allegorical merit is utter horseshit.
Anyway, if some guy with a foreign accent starts spouting anti-semitism to me I ain’t saying šhìŧ. Why take the chance he’s not some nutty fanatic about to do a Theo van Gogh on my ášš? People get killed over cartoons, for Godssake. Just walk away, look for a stick in case he follows you.
The film had funny bits and I make cast no aspersions on those who think it was the funniestthing they ever saw. I get more laughs during the 15 minutes of Robot Chicken. Whatever floats your boat.
Plus, of course, anyone who DID have a clue, either because they’d seen Da Ali G show, or simply because they were the sort to call people on bullcrap, got edited out. He only showed the most pliable, polite, or easily bamboozled victims.
Wow, I’ve been saying “it was better in the original Andy Kaufman” for weeks. Maybe I should have posted that to my blog earlier. 🙂
Considering the massive and intense anti-Semitism that’s rife in France, in Germany, in the Middle East (where they hold Holocaust cartoon competitions and Holocaust denial conventions) and even in Baron Cohen’s own England
—————-
Anti-semitism in England? I have never heard anyone spout anti-semitism. I have heard racist rubbish directed at West Indians, Africans, Pakistanis, Bangladeshi, Indians but never anti-semitism. Please get real.
I dunno, I liked it. Yeah, it was mean at points, but I liked how it directly tackled social taboos and got into what’s underneath the veneer of civility in society. That’s something that its predecessors (Kaufman, Funt, Kutcher) have lightly touched on, but they mostly focused on the shock aspect, rather than what’s really going on in people’s minds and what it will take to get them to say it. So I do think this was different and valuable.
Posted by: Steve Jones
Anti-semitism in England? I have never heard anyone spout anti-semitism. I have heard racist rubbish directed at West Indians, Africans, Pakistanis, Bangladeshi, Indians but never anti-semitism. Please get real.
Maybe you have to be outside the system to see the process, but for years i have observed a certain casual anti-semitism in British popular culture that reaches these shores.
This is not the Hitler-had-the-right-idea type of anti-semitism, it’s the kind that features more or less offensive stereotypes with a sort of assumption that the viewer/listener will “get” the joke…
The man is not Michael Moore. Whatever personal delusions he may hold, Boran Cohen does not shelter his activities as anything other than what they are. For the public, he refuses to break character. If he has the sense to not say in a courtroom his intent was to expose anti-Semitism, what he’s doing avoids the transgression of hypocrisy.
Storytelling ceases to work when the audience senses the storyteller isn’t following any rules at all. Just because Borat disregards the rules you like, that doesn’t mean he isn’t following any rules at all, and that what he presents doesn’t work.
And quite frankly, if he believes casual bigotry is the most secure shelter of anti-Semitism, I agree with him. It’s a resolve to be anti-Semitic with no moral conviction whatsoever. It’s an arbitrarily held bias. I think Borat’s handling of casual hypocrisy makes the movie 100 times more effective than Fahrenheit 911s on any scale of merit you could measure the latter.
His lies are obvious to the theater and home viewer. His presentation of Kazakhstan is consistent with that.
Plus, of course, anyone who DID have a clue, either because they’d seen Da Ali G show, or simply because they were the sort to call people on bullcrap, got edited out. He only showed the most pliable, polite, or easily bamboozled victims.
Someone above mentioned Jay Leno’s Jay Walking bit. I always cringe when someone apparently has signed a release to allow footage of themselves to aired that makes them look like an idiot.
Of course someone who knows all the right answers doesn’t get picked for broadcast. I presume there is no monetary compensation. If Jay asked me the dates of the Civil War and I said 1942-1945 I wouldn’t allow that to be on television unless I got about $100,000.
I think Borat’s handling of casual hypocrisy makes the movie 100 times more effective than Fahrenheit 911s on any scale of merit you could measure the latter.
I agree with Mike on this one.
…
…
Now let that sink in for a bit…
Should I be doing bad things to myself right about now? 🙂
So, yeah, I agree with Mike: we may not make our anti-Semitism as obvious as has been the case in other parts of the world, but we also often try and pretend it doesn’t exist at all, in many cases when it clearly does.
But stuff like with the college students who are now trying to sue because they thought they could say whatever they want? Jesus, you deserved whatever you get for being dûmbáššëš in the first place. Just because you think you’re dealing with a dumb foreigner doesn’t make it right.
Peter David: Considering the massive and intense anti-Semitism that’s rife in France, in Germany, in the Middle East (where they hold Holocaust cartoon competitions and Holocaust denial conventions) and even in Baron Cohen’s own England….
Steve Jones: Anti-semitism in England? I have never heard anyone spout anti-semitism. I have heard racist rubbish directed at West Indians, Africans, Pakistanis, Bangladeshi, Indians but never anti-semitism. Please get real.
Luigi Novi: Peter, was this by any chance a reference to people like David Irving? What examples of this were you thinking of?
Although Andy Kaufman did start out early with his foreign man, in later years he didn’t do the reveal to the audience. As was the case in his bad guy wrestler time. He could hold out a long time before any type of reveal. I, myself, wasn’t sure what was going on with the wrestling stuff while he was alive. Only long after his death did I even know what might have been going on. Kaufman did things no one will probably be able to duplicate in any innovative way again. I think at his core he wanted a reaction, any strong reaction, from the crowd. He didn’t mind being hated, so long as it was a strong hate. He didn’t want to do anything in the middle. And, although, he didn’t necessarily like those years, his work on Taxi will always be some of the fondest of my memories of him. Anyone remember Vic Ferrari?
There is a great deal of anti-semitism from some of the more radical Muslim’s in England…though, in fairness, they seem to hate almost everyone else as well, including Muslims who aren’t, well, insane.
Some–some–of the Englishmen I have known had a kind of low level anti-semitism (and they would be appalled to hear me make that judgement, since they associate anti-semitism with the real hardcore Hitler stuff). It was more the “Jews are pushy and money grubbing and control the American media which is why you all support Israel” kind of thing. (And if I heard one more claim that it was the movie EXODUS that made all of us americans throw our support to Israel…I doubt that more than 1 american out of 100 has ever seen EXODUS but it must get played a lot in Europe.)
On the other hand, most of the British folks I’ve known were big on ethnic humor, so it isn’t as though the Jews were singled out (and most of the Jew jokes were just Scotsman jokes with the word Jew. “A Jew and a Scotsman went into a bar and both died of thirst”, that kind of thing)
But…the jokes about Jews seemed to have a bit of a harder edge than those directed against Welshmen, Scots, etc…but maybe that was my own perception.
Rob, if you get the chance, read the never-filmed Tony Clifton movie script. Would have been brill.
http://www.subcin.com/tony.html
I found a number of sections of the movie to be funny. A few seemed to take things a bit far, but as a previous fan of borat and ali g, I thought this was a good way to end his series (as apparently there are no more hbo shows planned or in the works)
I did think however that the movie was not nearly as funny or smart as some of his older skits, example below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hlwDSnkXrA
Also just wanted to say, I took advantage of the free fallen angel offer from economic comics, have since read the first 2 trades and absolutely love it!!!
Those signed releases seem like pretty flimsy legal protection if they were obtained under false pretenses. If I were one of the key filmmakers on BORAT, I’d be concerned about defamation of character law suits and other legal actions.
Rob, if you get the chance, read the never-filmed Tony Clifton movie script. Would have been brill.
http://www.subcin.com/tony.html
Thanks,Bill, I think that gives an additional insight into the mind of Andy Kaufman. May the Mighty Mouse theme forever be associated with him 🙂
Actually, my problem with Borat is that I don’t think there is enough ambush humour that is genuine vs. what is staged. Basically, if you have a single element in the movie that is staged (ie. the ending – c’mon, if that was real he’d have 17 bullets in him in about 30 seconds), it creates a dominion effect throws the entire movie out of whack. You start to doubt the reality of *every* scene. The scene at the bed & breakfast for example: very funny, but think if it had actually “happened”, how many startling concidences must have happened in a row to make that scene come off? (owners, cockroaches, timming, and the perfect position of the cameraman when the duo run away at the end… do you *really* think that all happened immediately on the spot?) And, even a small moment like when the bear growls at the kids from the ice cream truck; think they could actually pull off, you know, serious endangerment without being tossed in the pokey? (the confessions of the drunken fratboys who are suing Borat, saying that they weren’t driving a van or anything, lends credience to this idea). Heck, even the character that Borat meets halfway through to disrupt his dinner party — very funny, but if you take the ending into consideration, not as “real” as it was presented.
Any event, those really occured to me after viewing, and alot of it depends on if you think that it has to be non-staged to be really funy. I think, as a film, comedy, social commentary on the USA, and a road-picture, it works and, staged or not, there’s alot of stuff in its that very funny (some of the movie’s funniest moments are brief, throwaway bits like the chicken squak when Borat throws down his bag, or my favourite exchange: “Does God love my neighbour?” “Yes, he does!” “Nobody loves my neighbour.”)
However, I think the true appeal of Borat lies in when his actions are “genuine” and so are the reactions. When he just does random interviews with people, or people interview Borat, THAT is where Cohen’s gift for improvisational genius shines through. But, when you look at the picture as a whole, serious holes in the “realness” of it start to pop up.
Tallest Fan Ever: …it creates a dominion effect throws the entire movie out of whack.
Luigi Novi: Yeah, that’s when the Founders, the Vorta and the Jem’Hadar come and get you, right? 🙂
I have resisted the urge to see Borat so far, mainly because, and I hope I don’t soung jingoistic here, I really don’t like people from other countries pointing out all the supposed flaws in America. I mean, if we didn’t have Americans like Jon Stewart, Steven Colbert and Lewis Black doing in already, and the place these people came from were idyllic paradises already, then I might be more understanding. I guess it’s a case of let us point out and make fun of our own foibles ourselves.
I am also not a big fan of the “Candid Camera/Punk’d” type of humor either. I always though it to be a bit mean. And the fact that we who watch it become conspirators after the fact–meaning we know it’s fake and watch to see how it turns out–doesn’t work for me. It makes me feel cruel, if that makes any sense.
I haven’t seen the movie yet but I’m familiar with the Borat character from “Da Ali G Show”, and yeah, sometimes I felt sorry for the marks myself. Often I thought “OK, they have to realize this whole thing is just a prank by now and they’re just playing along,” but maybe they didn’t.
Sacha Baron Cohen had three personas on that show: Ali G, Borat, and Bruno. The only one of those personas which the majority of the public is still unfamiliar with would be Bruno: a flamboyant reporter from an Austrian TV station for gay people. I think I heard something about Cohen’s next project being something with Bruno.
If he does wind up doing the same thing with the Bruno character, he could probably avoid another tidal wave of lawsuits if he let eventually let people in on the joke, as you said. Not only would it be safer, it’d be kinder.
>I am also not a big fan of the “Candid Camera/Punk’d” type of humor either. I always though it to be a bit mean.
I never bothered with “Punk’d” (whatever that’s supposed to mean) but the original, black & white Candid Cameras never struck me as “mean”. Rather it was just to put ordinary people in unexpected, silly situations and see how they react. And, to be honest, though I do know I have SOME degree of intellect, I suspect my initial reaction would not likely be much different than most of those on screen. C’mon, there’s just no way anyone is really going to be prepared to react in a rational, well-considered manner when the ball hits those bowling pins … and they shatter.
Anyone can do a stupid, “Hello, is your refrigerator running? Well, better catch it” kind of gag (and I use the word ‘gag’ very loosely here) but it takes originality and cleverness to come up with one where people step into a seemingly normal elevator and it moves sideways.
I did think however that the movie was not nearly as funny or smart as some of his older skits, example below.
Oh yeah, I saw that one. I doubt there were many (if any) genuine anti-Semites in that crowd, because at first when he sang the line about Jews people were like “What? Huh? Is he really saying that? Uh, I don’t know about this…” And when they finally joined in many of them were laughing, at what I can only assume was the ridiculousness of the song.
I found Borat hilarious when I watched it, but since my friends wouldnt be caught dead seeing a non-dubbed film, I had to see it a second time, in its original language, to really enjoy it.
It’s message is less political than antropological, and I wouldnt call its tactic “cruel”. He fabricate situations that go from the simply odd to the downright extreme, but he simply introduce one element in an already existing enviroment and films the reaction. Of course he select the funniest and discard the dull/boring/gentle situations, but after all he is a comedian, not a proffesor writing an essay.
About anti-semitism in Europe: other than the usual bunch of fanatics like neo-nazis, also present in your country, what many in America and Israel label as european anti-semitism is simply liberal movements dissenting with the way Israel do things. I fail to see how a Woody Allen movie watcher, Auster’s book reader, Gershwin listener can be an anti-semite, and that description more or less apply to most intellectual liberals who dissent with Israel in Europe.
It’s easy to make people look stupid…especially when their single greatest mistake is trusting someone and trying to react to them with the best hospitality they can muster. I’ll take trust over deception any day.
What about THE DAILY SHOW w/ JON STEWART? Don’t they do this all the time in their reporter segments? Does this mean you’ll look at the show differently now, as well?
william said:
“”I have resisted the urge to see Borat so far, mainly because, and I hope I don’t soung jingoistic here, I really don’t like people from other countries pointing out all the supposed flaws in America. I mean, if we didn’t have Americans like Jon Stewart, Steven Colbert and Lewis Black doing in already, and the place these people came from were idyllic paradises already, then I might be more understanding””
I actually do the opposite; I am much more interested about what an educated foreigner have to say about my country than on the eleventh spanish civil war essay from someone whose grandfather died in the conflict. It takes some distance to write anything enlightening about a society. Also, certain traits about us we dont notice or find unincumbent, a foreigner would find most revealing.
We spaniards learned that no one like a british “hispanist” to describe our society, and if only, you’d admit Tocqueville work early americans is worth a read.
“His lies are obvious to the theater and home viewer. His presentation of Kazakhstan is consistent with that.”
Yes, but what’s funny about someone making šhìŧ up about a country, and then making fun of the stuff he made up? You can’t claim that Kazakhstan is some sort of Jew-hating culture and then use hyperbole to mock that culture, because it’s meaningless. Maybe if the jokes he presented were actually original or clever, but it’s just tired material. It’s not satire, it’s not absurdist humor or a spoof of any kind, it’s just… nothing.
“What about THE DAILY SHOW w/ JON STEWART? Don’t they do this all the time in their reporter segments? Does this mean you’ll look at the show differently now, as well?”
The Daily Show is a little different. They used to be more like Borat. They’d do reports on normal people and make them look bad. I remember one man who had a giant Salami stolen so the Daily Show did a report with lots of Sexual Innuendo. A few years ago they purposedly decided to reserve that type of thing for the people who really deserved it. That’s part of why the show is more political than when it started out.
These days almost everyone who appears on the show knows what the Daily Show is. This is fairly apparent in the interviews. The people sometimes play along with staged stuff, and many of them are on the level that they can and do easily check into what the Daily Show is.
And while Sasha Baron Cohen told people that the interviews would never be shown in America (a blatant lie) the interviewees on the Daily Show are made perfectly aware of what will happen. Daily Show interviews actually take three hours because they ask all the questions twice, once seriously and once with silliness.
The Kazakhstan presented in the movie is the destination of bigotry and misogyny. Your complaint is like complaining about Dante’s Inferno. Dante didn’t portray hëll so much as punishment of sin as it was continued participation in sin, but stripped of the pretentions we hold while living.
I fail to see how a Woody Allen movie watcher, Auster’s book reader, Gershwin listener can be an anti-semite, and that description more or less apply to most intellectual liberals who dissent with Israel in Europe.
One of the odd things about bigots is their ability to hold in contempt large groups of people while simulatneously having affection for members of that same group. It was not unheard of in the South to have black wetnurses for white babies. Some maids were practically members of the family. I even remember something written by Eichman or some other high ranking Nazi bìŧçhìņg about how so many Germans had Jewish friends who they were willing to vouch for and how it would make it more difficult to do what had to be done (ie the Final Solution.)
So I find nothing at all odd about an anti-semite who just loves his Gershwin.
Bill Mulligan: Even with some of the folks who seemd to be going along with the character’s prejudices I found myself wondering if they were just being polite.
I haven’t seen the movie, so this is third person hearsay. But I have heard that rather than seeing Borat’s victims in the movie as closet anti-semites then often show themselves to be very polite. Despite the odd accent/requests/behavior of Borat he is generally treated politely with folks trying to help out. The article I saw mentioned a woman endevouring to help him undertand how to use a toilet (!??). Hardly the actions of an insensitive, bigotted lout.
Whoops.
“… they often show themselves to be very polite…”
dámņ typos.
The naked wrestling part of the flick was by far its weakest link simply do to the fact that it was the most obviously staged. But most of the “candid” moments had me cracking up, moreso than other film I’ve seen since “South Park.” Almost as funny as the film, though, is the fact that I sat behind three old biddies who I just knew would end up hating it. Sure enough, about 20 minutes into the movie they grumbled loudly and left. Which raises the question–just what the hëll did they think they were paying to see, anyway?!?
“I fail to see how a Woody Allen movie watcher, Auster’s book reader, Gershwin listener can be an anti-semite, and that description more or less apply to most intellectual liberals who dissent with Israel in Europe.”
So? We have a city, Colonial Heights, just South of Richmond that didn’t have any blacks living in it until the late 1980’s and that most people around here still call “Colonial Whites.” I’ve met quite a few people in their late 30’s and early 40’s who grew up there and talk about blacks in ways that you would think came out of a movie filled with the worste stereotypes of the slave days. Most of them spent their school days jamming to Michael Jackson and Prince and think that Eddie Murphy and Ricard Pryor were the best comedians to come out of the 80’s.
“People are Strange…”
. The Doors
“The Kazakhstan presented in the movie is the destination of bigotry and misogyny. Your complaint is like complaining about Dante’s Inferno. Dante didn’t portray hëll so much as punishment of sin as it was continued participation in sin, but stripped of the pretentions we hold while living.”
Except Dante wasn’t writing for laughs. And hëll isn’t a real place. So no, it’s not like complaining about Dante’s Inferno.
Portraying the “destination of bigotry and misogyny” is fine, but it needs a proper context to work. The scenes in Borat have no context, they just hang there expecting us to laugh at them simply because they’re so outrageous (and admittedly, many people do laugh at them, I’m just not one of them).
“So I find nothing at all odd about an anti-semite who just loves his Gershwin”
Hummm…ok, you convinced me. European liberal left is composed of anti semites because they disagree with Israel, even tho they respect, admire and enjoy the work of jews. We live in a cesspool of intolerance. When I read Will Eisner work I only enjoy the pretty pictures, because my bigotry prevents me from understanding the message.
That is of course much more logical than admitting that we have a valid oppinion about the issue. We are bigots and our views are not to be taken into consideration.
In your example about nazi germany you imply all those germans vouching for their jew friends were just bigots who hated the whole while loving the few. You oversee the fact that for those “bigots”, backing their friends could lead to their own dead or incarceration, and refuse to take into consideration that, maybe, some were not at all bigots.
I never had any desire to see this film before. Now i wish to see it even less.
Although Andy Kaufman did start out early with his foreign man, in later years he didn’t do the reveal to the audience.
He didn’t always do the reveal in the early years, either.
Some folks I know knew him before he became famous. He used to do his foreign man shtick to the clerk while just going out for ice cream…
Weird man…
“What about THE DAILY SHOW w/ JON STEWART? Don’t they do this all the time in their reporter segments? Does this mean you’ll look at the show differently now, as well?”
I think anyone who sits for an interview with a “Daily Show” correspondent deserves what they get. And that includes my good friend, George Takei, who got ambushed in an interview about Asian pørņ movies. After I saw the segment I called George and asked him what the hëll he was thinking when he agreed to do it.
He said, “They told me it was for a piece on Asians in cinema.”
I said, “George! It’s THE DAILY SHOW, for God’s sake! How could you have taken what they were saying at face value?!?”
“Yes, I guess I should have known,” he admitted.
PAD
Ambrose Bierce did the same thing for laughs. So did Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Adams. And Adams fabricated stuff about real places. So let me rephrase: it’s more like you’re complaining about the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
It was in bad taste for Sasha Baron Cohen to use the name of a real country in order to portray a fictional racist and misogynist country. It is unfair to the real Khazachs.
El Hombre Malo, I find it strange that you immediatly assume that references to antisemitism in Europe are directed to liberal Europeans criticizing Israel and the US. Nobody so far said it except you. I’m probably going to regret responding to this, since I will be accused of being a crzazy Israeli calling people antisemite for no good reason. But then again, maybe I’m just jumping the gun needlessly since nobody said anything.
There has been a noticeable increase in antisemtism in Europe emerging from 3 sources:
1) The good old (or in Eastern Europe, new) extreme right nationalistics or neo-nazis. Although it should be noted that these groups popularity has increased due to hatred of Muslim immigrants. But they are not fans of Jews either.
2) The growing Islamic population of Europe, aside from being poor, is also strongly influenced by propaganda of Islamic clerics or what they learned in their original countries. Since in these countries being anti-Israel is often mixed with antisemitism.
Most of the documented increase in violence against Jews in Europe at present comes from these two sources, namely young poor people, either Muslim immigrants or European born racists who attack synagogs, cemetaries and actual Jews.
3) A third group is the extreme fringe of the left whose criticism of Israel and the US had degenerated to being anti-American and anti-Israel completely, and sometimes as far as antisemitism. For example, a few years ago a group of Palestinian militants barricaded themselves in the Church of the nativity. A cartoon appeared in an Italian paper depicting
the baby Jesus in Beit Lechem saying: are they going to kill me again. Around the same time a Spanish caroon depicted Sharon (not one of my favorite politicians to say the least) as a giant eating Palestinian babies. Some felt that this as influenced by the blood libal against Jews. It was similar to a scetch in an Arab TV show showing Sharon drinking blood, and the Iranian show that had Israelis harvesting Palestinian children for organs.
Some Israelis and Jews feel that being anti-Israel is inherently antisemtic, mostly because it denies the Jews something that other nations have. However, this is not the case, just as being Anti-Spanish is not equivalent with being anti-Christian. However it is still bigotry and hypocracy of the first degree. Nothing to be proud about.
Some feel that applying a double standard on Israel and comparing it unfairly to Nazis is indicative of hidden, deep-seated antisemitic attitudes. However, since there is no way of knowing what’s deep in people’s mind, Ãt is better to assume that this is not antisemitism, but an example of being carried away by hypocracy, ignorance and ideology. They could be complared to people whose criticism against the US’s policies goes beyondthe rational that they began to support repressive communist regimes like Stalin’s and Mao’s.
It should also be noted that antisemitic attitudes can come in very strange guises. A few years ago I attended a peace conferance in Marseille. One of the participants was this friendly Palestinian guy. Anway, at a certain point, a group of Jewish-French lefties (who told me they are concerned about increased antisemtism that emerges out of criticism to Israel) distributed a petition against this Ehyptian series based on the protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Palestinian guy asked me about it. I told him what it was. And he asked me, isn’t it true that rich Jews in Europe had such power. This guy probably did not hate me, but he grew up on ideas that we can consider antisemitic.
Another strange story happened to me in an American junior high where I was attending. We had to write a paper comparing Odeseus to a historical or contemporary great man. One day I asked somebody I knew (not a close friend but a friendly acquaintance), who he was writing about, and he said Hitler. I don’t know if he even wa aware that I was Jewish and what this means. Weird.
There is no contradiction between hating Jews and liking work created by Jews. Some Jews survived the holocaust because of background in the entertainment industry that a certain Nazi liked. In the middle ages, when antisemtism was the norm, Christian theologians went to Jewish Rabbies in order to access the Old Testament in its original language.
Saying that someone is not antisemitic because he likes Gershwin is like saying that some of my best friends are Jews. It is rather silly. If someone is an antisemite should be judged by his words and actions.
El Hombre Malo, none of your words and actions has ever suggested to me that you are an antisemite, nor did I, or anybody else as far as I can see, ever accused you of being one. I don’t see any reason for such mutual respect to change.
“So let me rephrase: it’s more like you’re complaining about the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”
Again, no, it’s not. Adams satirized humanity in general. The only real places he wrote about were England and, to a lesser extent, the U.S., and his humor was always based on observations about people. I’ve read that book at least half a dozen times (as well as every other book he wrote) and I don’t remember him ever basing his humor on false satire of real places.
Vonnegut, either, although I’ve only read a few of his books. Vonnegut was more interested in socio-political trends than specific human behavior, anyway.