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Re: You want an argument with duncan? OK

Posted by sjb (A) on November 15, 2006 at 15:23:39

In Reply to: You want an argument with duncan? OK posted by Analog Scott on November 15, 2006 at 14:53:02:

" 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.

Yes but he does so at the expense of people's trust and general good nature as in the scene at that dinner. It's one thing to expose a racist or serious hypocrite it's another thing to just be insulting to people who are being kind to you. So, no invention, just a noting of a lack of basic decency.

This bit from the L.A. Times review reflects my feelings about Cohen's style...

"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."

FWIW this is the stuff that was being discussed previously about Borat.

Don't piss on my shoe and tell me it's raining.

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