In Reply to: Notable in the rudely personal disparagements below... posted by clarkjohnsen on November 15, 2006 at 09:41:57:
"Concerns about the rampaging egotist arranging humanity in a hierarchy and installing himself at the top of the heap."Pure invention on his part.
" That kind of thing. Can, as an example, an Alabama minister's wife -- bluntly insulted for her dearth of pulchritude -- be safely assumed to be less of a human being than our fearless guerrilla artiste?"
Again pure invention on his part. He obviously didn't get the joke. The joke was at the expense of the character Borat as much as the mark. Cohen possesses is an ability to creat an outlandish character that still manages to draw real people into real discoarses. Then he turns the table with a shocking twist. The geniune reactions of his marks are funny in that we can relate with the mark as much as we can laugh at their predicament. The humor is very layered because of this. Much of the humor is in the complete awkwardness Cohen creates with his invention of a clas of cultures. looks like Duncan completely missed ll that."The film, right down to the spottiness of its laughs,"
I suppose that depneds on who you saw it with. The audience I saw it with laughed from begining to end.
" and regardless of whether staged or not, is amazingly similar to that of your average Will Ferrell comedy."
Duncan clearly doesn't understand comedy on it's most elementary levels. Borat was as close to your average Will Farrell comedy as it was to a Woody Allen movie or a Monty Python sketch. I suppose there are some very basic similarities due to both actors having their roots in improv sketch comedy but that is where any similarity ends. While Will Farrell and Sasha Cohen both create distinctive cartoony characters the direction they take and devices they use from that point on are completely different. Duncan's comparison is painfully ignorant of comemdic conventions and techniques.
He pretty much makes a fool of himself while pretending to be concerned about the greater good of humanity. All in all he comes off like your garden variety idiot who blames America's violent culture on Heavy metal music and video games. I can't help but think he felt like one of the marks in the movie. It seems he, like most of them, take themselves far too seriously to get the jokes.
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Follow Ups
- You want an argument with duncan? OK - Analog Scott 14:53:02 11/15/06 (5)
- Re: You want an argument with duncan? OK - sjb 15:23:39 11/15/06 (4)
- Yes. After being "Punk'd" or caught on "Candid Camera", people mostly just laughed. After Baron Cohen... - clarkjohnsen 06:51:17 11/17/06 (2)
- Bingo! - jbmcb 12:16:33 11/19/06 (0)
- Such is the difference between good natured folks who can take a joke - Analog Scott 09:32:49 11/18/06 (0)
- Re: You want an argument with duncan? OK - Analog Scott 16:33:16 11/15/06 (0)