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In Reply to: Borat today! Two local views: posted by clarkjohnsen on November 3, 2006 at 08:58:58:
He's funny, no doubt; and ballsy too but he relies on the good nature of his hosts to get close enough to reveal that they have biases and prejudices, etc; all the while ignoring the fact that they were nice enough and open enough to invite him into their homes, clubs, conversations and confidence.Don't piss on my shoe and tell me it's raining.
Follow Ups:
He demonstrates how seemingly "nice" people can hold ugly repugnant attitudes we thought were only now held by rabid fanatics. The guy is a genius. The question is; how many must he dupe to find a real closet Nazi? (Many, I hope.) I love his Ali G embarrassing interviews with big shots who will go along with any raunchy drivel if they think it'll get them on TV. Pretty amazing. Of all the VIPs I've seen interviewed on his HBO shows, ex-SoS George Schultz was the only one I saw who had the balls to say it was BS and walk out.
I haven't seen the film yet (I plan to though) but I can see how many normal people could allow themselves to humor a "crazy" foreigner who is saying outrageous things just to avoid confrontation. How many of us have not spoken up when friends or relatives have said something off-color? Then, think what it would be like to confront someone who is ostensibly a foreign journalist - and a crazy and unpredictable one at that - in front of a camera crew. That's what I suspect most of the footage in the film shows; we obviously won't see the bulk of the material that didn't turn out to this comic's advantage. He wants to show the United States as a country full of fat bigotted idiots, and that is easy enough to do given the population of America is 300 million. Certainly, it would have been just as easy (if not easier) to do the same thing in England - a nation that is chock full of inbred bad-toothed rustics, skinheads and soccer holigans, and zenophobic nationalists. It's the easiest trick in the book of anti-American propaganda to find a few examples of what is even more commonplace in other countries and present it as somehow typical of the "American psyche".Sadly though, being the most powerful and prosperous nation on earth and taking unilateral (even though necessary) action in confronting radical Islamism leaves us open to resentment and jealousy from lesser nations, especially once-great empires like Great Britain that have fallen on hard times and have a burgeoning Islamist problem within their home territory.
Borat goads his subjects along with a specific agenda in mind, but they're still responsible for everything that comes out of their mouths. Does it really matter how pleasant a guy can be if he thinks genocide isn't such a bad idea? In that light, I have a hard time calling him "good natured." Take a look at the clip, linked below.-Anthony
But "Borat" ambushes plenty of people who don't think the Holocaust was a good thing.This part of the L.A. Times review of the movie echoes and better expresses my sentiments on his brand of comedy.
"But because Cohen is intentionally provocative, willing to mock whoever crosses his path, he ends up baiting the harmless and playing ordinary people for fools just because they are gullible and had the bad luck to run into him, and it's here that the laughter especially sticks in your throat. The car dealer who doesn't object when Borat makes anti-Gypsy remarks may not be a secret racist but simply someone who decided it was a mug's game to get further involved with an obvious lunatic. And the Southern dining society that gets mercilessly humiliated seems to have committed no sin worse than earnestness, credulity and hospitality.
With his corrosive brand of take-no-prisoners humor that scalds on contact, Cohen is the most intentionally provocative comedian since Lenny Bruce and early Richard Pryor, with a difference. For unlike those predecessors, there is a mean-spiritedness, an every-man-for-himself coldness about his humor. The one kind of laughter you won't find in "Borat" is that which acknowledges shared humanity."
Don't piss on my shoe and tell me it's raining.
...that DEA guy into discussing a spread of illicit drugs on the table before them. You could see in the poor guy's eyes the growing realization that something was sorely amiss but he *stayed in character* as the agent. No one got hurt by that, and it was a great impromptu performance on both sides.Word also has come that some of Borat was scripted/staged -- just as it's quite apparent Ali G. was.
clark
That's not a bad assessment, but I think the author and many others are taking Cohen's style of humor way too seriously. Can we be so prideful that we can't take a joke? Cohen's routine is a kind of acid test in that regard.Anyone can be made to look silly and I'm certainly no exception. Also, nobody with a decent foothold in the world is above being mocked... hell, I deserve it. Supposing a person like Cohen managed to pull one over on me, Mr. Innocent Nice Guy, well shame on me for being naive, but above all else I think I possess enough humility to laugh at myself for it. I suppose that a person who doesn't have that ability would probably despise Cohen's style the most.
I don't think laughing at ourselves is just important, it's necessary. We're all fairly ridiculous creatures... and anyone who doesn't think so it just itchin' for it!
-Anthony
It seems to me that anybody can take advantage of unsuspecting people (as in "Borat") or film people doing some of the most childish and stupid acts (as in "Jackass"). Is the paying audience that desperate for entertainment that they'll stoop so low to pay for this?
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...to find this movie a cynical exercise in better-than-thouism. Which is also why it got the easy laughs in "oh-so-correct" Cambridge -- buncha snotnosed brats!clark
We agree.
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