Borat Speaks:
Sacha Baron Cohen comes out of character to defend "Borat" from its critics.
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Borat Speaks:
Sacha Baron Cohen comes out of character to defend "Borat" from its critics. |
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This still cracks me up. "Wait! No! We're not really like that! Come visit!" God bless them.
Then there are people who heard about the movie third and fourth hand, and the absurd details and the fact that it has nothing to do with the real country got lost in the game of telephone. (And believe me, that will happen.)
Also consider that much humor using personas works by exaggerating genuine traits. Someone who doesn't know much about Kazakhstan could easily think that Borat claims that they have 9 year old brides because the country really does have young (though not actually 9 year old) brides, and Cohen is making fun of that. It's like making a joke about Jewish mothers not thinking the fetus is viable until it gets out of law school; nobody would interpret that as an actual Jewish take on abortion, but they *could* interpret that as "Jewish mothers push their kids towards higher education, and the joke's making fun of it".
Someone who doesn't know much about Kazakhstan could easily think that Borat claims that they have 9 year old brides because the country really does have young (though not actually 9 year old) brides
How young are they, actually?
I think the plus of the movie is that many, perhaps most Americans will now be aware that there *is* a country called Kazakhstan. The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
I'd like to see the defense of some of the alleged ethically questionable tactics surrounding the procurement of releases. (E.g., the Texas hotelier who signed when told he was shooting an historical documentary)...
1. Portrayed a racist, misogynistic and religiously
intolerant reporter from Saudi Arabia.
2. Ferreted out the rampant anti-semitism among
left-wing ANSWER-type antiwar protestors.
3. Gone to an illegal immigrant demonstration with
anti-Israel placards and uncovered more anti-semitism.
4. Infiltrated Muslim student groups at UC Irvine
who hold lectures with titles like "Israel, the
Fourth Reich."
By focusing exclusively on bigotry from white Americans,
and not having the guts to make fun of the most
intolerant Muslim nations (like Saudi Arabia)
Cohen is demonstrating more of the political
correctness that he pretends to skewer.
A more subtle point which Cohen apparently didn't address is how insulting the movie is to Americans: it shows how horribly ignorant of the rest of the world we are, that there are so many of us who could believe this is the kind of person any state news agency would send for a piece like this, and so ignorant as to believe that Kazakhstan is as he portrays it. Of course, since truth is a defense against libel, we'd have no case in court; far too many Americans are provincial and ignorant.
For myself, I only wish Cohen had run into someone who was polylingually fluent in English, Kazakh, and Russian while he was filming; THAT would have been funny, and might make a great ending. Since I don't expect anyone will be willing to pay me my $50/hour freelance rates (I'm a computer geek, not a lawyer) for the time it would take to watch the movie, I doubt I'll ever see it. Life is too short to waste on false friends, bad booze, or bad movies.
I would be amazed to go up to John or Jane Q. Public and find out that they know more about Kazakhstan than either it exists or could point it out on a map.
Personally, I thought it also showed how patient, polite, "multicultural," and non-judgemental Americans were as well. The vast majority of people were extraordinarily patient, accepting plenty of things that they never would've taken from someone else because "he's a foreigner and it might be his culture. Considering all the various attacks on provinicial Americans being suspicious of foreigners and intolerant and so on, that's somewhat worthy of comment.
Fixed your post.
Mr. X beat me to it, tho I think replacing "courageous" with "tedious" also works.
But hey, Sbron, you feel free to go do all that, okay? I'll look for your movie on YouTube.
Someone's gotta answer the Michael Moore's, Fast Food Nation types, etc etc
There are plenty of obnoxious Americans in the movie, some of which were funny and some of which just made me cringe at the thought that there are really people like that out there, but there are plenty of Americans who aren't that appeared in the film, and the humor comes from Borat's ignorance instead of the American's ignorance.
Apparently, while some people are sueing, the humor coach says his appearance in the movie has led a lot of people he knew in the past to contact him again and he's talked to all sorts of people he hasn't seen in years. Sounds like he's had no problem with how it's all turned out.
My all-time favorite bit from "Da Ali G Show" was one where Cohen-as-Bruno did a piece on a sports team of some sort, and was happily cavorting with them on the field. The team is a bunch of typical manly men, while Bruno is acting clearly excited and titillated by the experience. They don't seem to notice. He eventually asks them to pose in various amusing ways for the camera, then asks them to say "I love German gay television" - which finally crosses the line. When they react with revulsion, he responds in a convincingly confused fashion: "It's a gay show."
Priceless.
Borat reveals the racism and sexism and anti-Semitism in America, but we're all aware of that - and Bruno stands poised to reveal the homophobia. I think that's going to be the shocker for most Americans. Some sixty percent of Americans are members of a racial minority, but some NINETY percent are heterosexual. That's half again as many people who simply don't see the world in which they live.
Re the article, one thing confused me. The "Throw the Jews Down the Well" skit is rightly well-known, but unless I fell asleep during part of the "Borat" movie, it wasn't in the film. Yet the article says it was. Maybe they were thinking of "The Running of the Jew"?
> extraordinarily patient, accepting
> plenty of things that they never
> would've taken from someone else
> because "he's a foreigner and it
> might be his culture.
Am I the only one who sees this as political correctness gone horribly wrong? When you can announce at the dinner table that you've had sex with your sister, and people don't express the unacceptability of this, how exactly is that positive? Why is it good to pretend you don't object to someone's outrageous behavior?
This is the foundation of nearly every sketch John Cleese wrote in Monty Python: the barely-restrained rage of facing a complete moron. But unlike Cleese, Cohen plays the moron to reveal that modern people - not just Americans - never show any sign of the rage they ought to be feeling.
If someone - who wasn't recogniseably Cohen, obviously Jewish like Cohen, or clearly physically incapable like Cohen - came into a bar and sang "throw the Jew down the well", I'd send him to the emergency room, and I would not feel bad about it. He'd recover, and he'd regain full function in just about everything eventually, but he sure as hell would not forget it. I'd bet he wouldn't go singing that song in any more bars, either.
But we have become a nation of pussies. So I'm part of a dying breed - men who lift heavy shit for fun, don't take shit from anybody, and don't apologise for it or try to conceal it. We might not make as many friends... but we sure do get laid a lot more.
What makes you think he didn't? You don't believe that everyone Cohen met or filmed wound up in the film do you? I'd bet money that Cohen did run into folks who knew something about Kazakhstan. If he didn't it was only because he was deliberately avoiding them. Some of his bits were filmed around here, and you don't have to go far to run into areas with high eastern european populations.
It isn't a real documentary, and Cohen made no attempt to present a balanced or accurate view of his encounters. What you see is exactly what the writers and director wanted you to see, just like any other movie.
By commenting on what this movie says about real Americans (without having seen the movie?) you make the same mistake as the Kazakh government.
Are you suggesting that all heterosexuals are homophobes?
Well, it's multiculturalism and tolerance taken to a laughably ridiculous extreme. I don't think that it's the right thing to do to just play nice, but it showed that plenty of people are willing to put up with a lot of things just because a foreigner is doing it and "it's his culture."
Incidentally, the article does substantiate that he's trying to make a point and advance an agenda as well. Luckily, he remains amusing while doing it-- which rescues it from it not actually making the point that he thinks it does.
I just watch it for the humor. People trying to read political points into it tend to be annoying, because no matter what there's going to be someone there claiming that it points out how Americans are awful. Either too tolerant and apathetic about the bad things in foreign cultures, or too intolerant and unaccepting of foreign cultures.
And I'm with those who think that any publicity is probably to the net good of Kazakhstan and similarly situated countries.
I don't think the stereotypes will continue to cause harm. I like Chico Marx, and I know a Swedish joke (although it had to be explained to me that Swedes used to have the stereotype that Poles had in jokes a generation ago. I don't know who is the butt of jokes about unintelligent people today.)
I see his point, but to compare ignoring the singing of a lunatic foreigner in a bar with Germans in 1930 is quite a logical leap.
From Proverbs 26:4-5:
Also noting Kenny Rogers:
who also said:
He might not have been able to trick the professional types as easily with a fake country name, but given that they seem to be the ones with the best case against him (morally, if not legally) and he can't actually speak Kazakh anyway, maybe that would have been the better way to go.
It's not homophobic (or even anti-gay, assuming you were using "phobic" in any real sense) to react unhappily to being objectified without your consent. Would it show misogyny for men to react unhappily upon learning they were secretly filmed in the locker room for the entertainment of women?
It's funny to see the reaction of the dupes, but that's because humor is all about the unexpected. Sexual orientation is irrelevant.
That's quite a leap from one night at a bar or dinner party to the Muslim-veil issue. It's laudable to take a stand against lawful-but-bad behavior, but people will and should let an isolated instance go without comment because it's both polite and not worth the effort in these scenarios, not laughably extreme.
I'm sure Borat wasn't sincerely invited back to any of the places he did his schtick nor did anyone suggest government policy to allow him to continue. People were polite, but that doesn't mean they were accepting.
The most accurate numbers I have seen show the homosexual demographic to be between 2-3% of the population. Those numbers are consistent across western countries. The erroneous 10% estimate came from the unscientific Kinsey Report.
Personally I think the funniest part of the whole thing was where he nearly got his face beat in a few days ago by someone he tried to play his Borat shtick on. Hugh Laurie (Dr. House) had to step in and save him.
I keep hearing about the 'throw the Jew down the well' sing-along, was this in the movie? I saw the version on the Ali G show, and when he starts singing about throwing Jews down wells they pan over the audience everyone looks totally shocked, then they get that it's a joke and people start joining in.
It's sad that this sort of Richard Pryor nuclear offensive routine being understood so readily would result in humorless commentators and pundits using it to condemn Middle America as being secret Jew-haters. It's progress, idiots!
One wonders how long he'll be able to do his shtick before he's too famous to make it work, and he can't find anyone who doesn't know that Borat and Bruno are having them on.
2. Borat took deceived and took advantage of a number of people who did not deserve it. I am assuming that none of the victims knew what was going to happen -- if they did, then my take would be different. One could argue that the college fraternity guys deserved being shown up as fools and bigots, but I doubt that the mortgage bankers knew that their convention dinner was going to be streaked. The etiquette teacher certainly didn't sign up to be shown nude pictures of Borat's "son." Showing up at the dinner table with a bag of purported feces is not funny, it's just abusive. His crew got their cameras into places under false pretenses and put people in awkward positions for the amusement of others, often in circumstances where people were simply trying to be decent to a stranger. That's just plain rude.
3. People have a right to be indifferent. We are all indifferent to something, some of us are indifferent to almost everything. What is the utility of lambasting that indifference by holding it up to ridicule? I suspect that even someone who is not personally indifferent to anti-Semitism and who simply bit his tongue when confronted with "Borat's" inane antics would not be inclined to be sympathetic to Cohen's position after being told, "You did not confront me and beat me soundly when I said bad things. See, I have now exposed your indifference for all to see." Instead, one might think, "Well, screw you, Cohen, you've just guaranteed that I would never lift a finger to help you under any circumstances." Guerrilla theater doesn't necessarily make friends for the actor or the cause he purports to represent.
4. Caliban: O-lifting, power, or BB? BTW, it's usually not worth the trouble of pounding some jerk in a bar, in my opinion. Once you start, there are just too many who deserve it. I'd rather just enjoy my beer in peace.
5. Sacha Baron Cohen is an ass. Hugh Laurie should have kept out of it.
In another time and another place the epithets were different—“bourgeois-nationalist,” “bundist,” “wrecker,” “vlasovite,” “parasite,” and so on. While the targets were different, contemporary America seems to have its own list of enemies.
For an amusing take-off on Soviet-speak in the spirit of Borat, see The Peoples Cube where you find the progressive truth generator.
"Some sixty percent of Americans are members of a racial minority"
Really? Over half (a majority) of Americans are minorities? Only in Lake Woebegon.
Still can't wait to see "Bruno".
Oh wait, I don't think he'd survive that experience. It's much safer to trick and humiliate people in a civilized country.
(I can't get the URL tag to work, but the relevant Wikipedia article is "Racial Demographics of the United States").
....or that he claims that Kazakhs drink fermented horse's urine because the national beverage is actually fermented horse's milk....
Not hardly. Look at that tape again.
And, if you think that a drunken crowd in a honkey tonk goes from "That's offensive" to "Oh, this must be part of some sort of satirical sketch" in one verse, you vastly overestimate the collective intelligence of most honkey tonk denizens and underestimate the effects of beer.
Some sample comments from the enlightened international crowd:
Charming, eh!
Or not.
I think he means 60% of Americans are non-white. But that’s not correct as 74.7% of Americans are classified as being white. This includes people having their origins in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. It also includes Hispanics who self identify as white. Note “Hispanics” are a language group, not a racial group. White people are one of 5 racial groups that can be identified from DNA analysis. Thus Arabs and Asian Indians are both white. While there are sub-groups within the 5 major clusters, you cannot sensibly classify these sub-groups as being a different race because they are too distant (genetically) from the elements of all the other clusters.
You want to see anti-Semitism then come to Berkeley. I have traveled all over the world, lived on both coasts and in a southern state. The only time I encountered anti-Semitic remarks to my face was in California. One of people making the remarks was originally from the UK and was Oxford educated with a PhD in physics. The most anti-Semitic community I ever experienced was Harlem where I worked for about years.
The last two groups are 1. Pacific Islanders, which includes Australia, Papua New Guinea, Melanesia and Micronesia, as well as other Pacific-Island groups further east. 2. Native Americans, which includes both North and South America. People having origins at continental boundaries are admixtures and don’t fall neatly with the five major clusters.
While not notably anti-Semitic, as far as I could tell, I thought there was a high level of dumbness in San Diego. They are basically rednecks with a beach there.
Actual comment from a law school classmate this week, who I will never hire to represent me.
So people have a "right" to be indifferent to anti-Semitism, and therefore others should not point it out or mock it or try to learn from it or expose this kind of attitude in order to examine it. In other words, we should not try to improve our culture, we should not question our societal flaws, our bigotry, our indifference, our personal faults.
I am not into P.C. and my favorite comedy is generally the very un-P.C. like South Park and Carlos Mencia. They also pinpoint our absurd cultural flaws. I have not seen Borat, so I don't know how it would go over with me - but I think your #3 is very problematic.
If these folks are truly indifferent to anti-Semitism, they should be ashamed. You may not like the whole candid camera thing, but it is not wrong in principle - it is very right in principle - to find a way to point these things out. These particular folk may just mad after it is exposed, but others watching the film might think to themselves "wow, would I have done better in that scenario?" and turn their own attitudes around. Seeing it in someone else -- that is what art is all about -- often awakens people to their own attitudes.
It is exactly that kind of societal self-reflection that prevents something like the holocaust from being able to happen: because people won't be indifferent.
i agree. slate.com did a great article on exactly this point
oh ... HELL YA!!!!
and especially, living in seattle. i grew up in an east coast city, where people have cojones, talk smack to yer face (not behind yer back), defend their honor, etc.
those kind of people DO still exist.
but certainly not in seattle. if they do, they are hiding.
translation: REAL lifting, neanderthal grunting, or prancing around in a bikini?
heh. just letting my o-lifter bias out.
i actually respect each of these disciplines (and others ) in the iron game.
i have yet to do a BB contest (i probably will) but have enjoyed PL and OL stuff
Borat did not "improve our culture." Borat the man should certainly question his own flaws, though -- he is an ass. I would be utterly indifferent if I saw someone beating him to a pulp.
No, others watching the film think, "Wow, what an asshole Borat turned out to be. Some of those other people aren't very attractive, but the biggest jerk in the film is Borat, himself. Schindler's List was art; Borat is sophomoric, self-indulgent crap. If Sacha Baron Cohen is disliked, it has nothing to do with antisemitisem, it has to do with the fact that he is not likable, that he takes advantage of people's good nature, and lies to them to get them on camera. Occasionally, he gets someone to say something embarrassing, maybe even reprehensible. But most of the movie was mean-spirited and abusive. Frankly, I suspect that he harmed, more than he helped, if his goal was to make some kind of statement about societal attitudes toward antisemitism. Bringing a plastic bag full of shit to the dinner table while pretending he didn't know how to flush a toilet has nothing to do with changing society's attitudes toward Jews; showing an unsuspecting (female) etiquette teacher pictures of his "son's" penis and asking if it is okay to show family pictures to the host of an upcoming dinner doesn't seem to me to have much to do with the struggle against antisemitism; streaking a convention of mortgage bankers doesn't really advance the cause much. If one knew no Jews but "Borat", antisemitism would be easy to accept. Sacha Baron Cohen deserves to be treated badly because of what he does, not what he is. "Societal self-reflection"? If you think that Sacha Baron Cohen is going to improve society with this, you are living in a different universe than I am. The best thing Sacha Baron Cohen could to improve society is by getting out of film-making and not stealing any more money from theater-goers.
really courageousan ideologue more interested in a political agenda than in comedy that people actually enjoy watching, he would haveThe article says that he wanted to expose indifference to anti-semitism. This goal is already that of an "ideologue interested in a political agenda"; it isn't just comedy. We're just criticizing his choice of one political agenda over another.
So the question for Borat is not Are Americans racist?' or 'Is it satire or social commentary?' or anything else sophiticated. Its more of a sociological, meta-question: why in the world do so many movie critics think Borat was hilarious when it wasn't? They weren't seeing humor (there just wasn't alot there);they were seeing something else. Their own projections of mid-America? Their own shock at the dirty talk and the anti-semitism and the guerrilla humor (Borat craps in a bag at a dinner party; HA HA!). Movie critics were clearly seeing the movie as a social statement of some kind rather than a movie comedy-why were so many willing to do so?
Sk
and especially, living in seattle. i grew up in an east coast city, where people have cojones, talk smack to yer face (not behind yer back), defend their honor, etc.
Places where people "talk smack" to each others' faces and "defend their honor" are far more likely to be inhabited by "rednecks" -- and I'm using this in a race-neutral sense as Thomas Sowell uses it. People who live in "pussy cities" like Seattle have the crazy idea that learning to ignore slights by strangers cuts down on senseless violence. More kids grow up with a father not being sent to the cemetary or the state prison over a parking spot dispute that way.
If anything, Borat shows that "middle America" may be inhabited by more "pussies" and fewer rednecks than one might suspect according to crude stereotypes.
Nope. It doesn't show how "horribly ignorant" "we" are, unless you are a gentile. That is who Borat was going after. NASCAR, cowboys, an all those other dumb@ss goys. So if you are a Jew don't worry about it.
Of course if you are a Jew you probably got that little frisson of fear when the goyim in the theater all started laughing and you had to ask yourself were they laughing with Borat for the "right" reasons.
I worked for a guy who was born in the Bronx, generally educated on the East coast, but who had worked in the Bay area. He said "friggin'" a lot. We finally asked why, and he said that in California, it wasn't considered proper to say "fuck" in the office. That's why he moved back East.
I can claim expertise in clustering. There is no such thing as the in clusters. You may partition your distribution into as many or as few clusters as you choose. In some distributions there may be a "knee" in the curve, so that to go from n to n-1 clusters you're increasing the average in-cluster distance significantly more than in going from n+1 to n clusters, so n might be a useful place to stop, but that's not guaranteed, and that might not be the only such step. (There can also be a distribution, such as the points in 3-space which are the vertices of a regular polyhedron, where no clusters between singletons and all of them make sense.)
utter rubbish. this isn't about ignoring slights, it is about being a complete passive aggressive ninny.
they don't IGNORE it, they merely don't have the honesty/sack/integrity to address things DIRECTLY, but instead do it behind people's backs, etc. I am not the first transplanted east coaster to notice this about seattle.
again, this is not about disregarding stuff. they don't do that. they just don't address it directly.