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Borat The Unknowable
Maybe I am alone in the world, but I just don't get Borat. Would muggings or snuff films be okay at the theater? Or is it just okay to push hatefulness as far as you can without gettting arrested?
I took my 20-year-old and my 18-year-old sons to see Borat Monday night, mainly because it was the 18-year-old's birthday. I love movies, and I try to love all kinds of movies. I have over a thousand DVDs at home, I keep up on the reviews, and movies are what I do to unwind.
Borat got great reviews -- rotten tomatoes put it in the 90s, so I was prepared to go and have a good time. Heck, I'm a big fan of practical jokes.
Before I went, however, my wife pointed out to me the lawsuits that are flying as a result of Borat -- she told me people were set up by Borat, lied to by the producers, and basically abused by the filmakers. She told me she thought I was a better person than to go and spend my money helping people like that.
Ugh. I hate it when she says things like that.
My first impression was, hey, this guy really hates people. I mean, hates them in a way where it's okay to do anything at all to them as long as you can make yourself look funny. This wasn't Candid Camera, this was, I dunno, some kind of evil candid camera. We weren't there to laugh with the people, we were there to laugh at them.
Then I laughed. I laughed a bunch of times, actually. Some parts made me laugh out loud. Interestingly, I don't think I would have laughed had I watched it by myself at home. There's something about the group experience that promotes laughter.
I've always recognized that people laugh when there's something funny and they laugh when they are uncomfortable or embarassed. That's why one of my favorite shows, "Who's Line is it Any Way?" sometimes slips from truly funny gags just to gay or sick humor -- you can always gross people out or embarass them to get laughs. It's always a sure thing to get the audience going. But in a way, to me it's cheating.
Borat seemed to go for the gross-out, embarassing kind of humor, the easiest kind to do. The setup was very simple: as part of a larger frame story about a foreign reporter, he would setup various well-meaning and totally oblivious people. He would show up playing the reporter on some pretense -- wanting to sing the national anthem, wanting to learn western table manners, wanting to learn about Evangelical Holiness churches, wanting to learn about politcs. Then he would drop some kind of bomb in the proceedings designed to get the biggest reaction. He told the crowd he wanted George Bush to drink the blood of terrorists, he brings a bag of feces to the dinner table after going to the bathroom, he tells a worshipping crowd that he and Mr. Jesus are going to California to take his girlfriend (which the viewers understand as having sex with Pamela Anderson), he tells Bob Barr that he has just eaten cheese made from his sister's breast milk.
Along the way he steps all over people's good nature. Frat boys who pick him up for a ride are pushed booze and made to look like fools (they were told the video would not air in this country), feminists are demeaned until they leave the interview.
It got so I would cringe every time Borat met somebody, because I was afraid of what kind of mean thing he was going to do to them. The movie audience thought it was great, I guess. I groaned and shook my head a lot. But I DID laugh, so that's something I guess.
To me, the lowest point was where he visited the Holiness church. Now I'm not a regular church person, but I respect people's right to do things that might look pretty silly to the rest of us. I'll make fun of people during a debate or argument for just about anything except their God. To have some self-centered comedian show up in a worship service and make a show just to sell movie tickets? It seems really, really low to me.
So leaving, the kids thought it was great. I was vaguely sick to my stomach. I guess we old people just don't appreciate humor like teenagers. If the movie hadn't been an ambush, and the people would have been in on the joke, I would have liked it a lot better -- but these kinds of jokes, the people never would agree to. That's my problem, you take nice people and see how mean you can be to them. Who were these people? Why white southerners mostly, of course. Bible-thumping, southern, conservative, white folks. Maybe I feel a little picked on, LOL! When I pointed this out to my 20-year-old, he said something like "well, I'm not that proud at all of my southern heritage so who cares"
I didn't waste time to ask him about Thomas Jefferson, or Washington, or Patrick Henry, or Lee, or Patton. I'm firmly in favor of Borat having a right to be as offensive and disgusting as possible. Hey, pick on me and whoever I identify with all you want. Have fun with it. But the people you pick on tell me a lot about your political opinions and what you want mine to be.
My wife has friends in other countries, their kids watched the movie and wanted to know, "Is that really the way people are in the United States?"
Several times I thought these guys should have been arrested. Perhaps some parts were staged? How else can two naked men run into a convention and wrestle on the floor? How else can Borat physically attack and chase Pam Anderson through a parking lot?
I just don't get it. And if I do understand it, I have one question: If this is okay for you to watch, where do we go from here? What's the sequel going to be like?
I guess I just don't understand evil comedy.
Great review! I used to like Tom Green & I enjoy watching Jackass. It's low low low brow, but it makes me laugh when I've had a long day. Yes, I cringe and my brain decomposes slightly. But it makes me happy that people can be dumber than me--and on purpose, no less. Borat seems to be on the same level, so it's strange that he's being elevated to something described as "smart" by critics. The same critics who slam the Jackass gang & Tom Green.
I haven't seen Borat, and though I was excited about it for a while, now it seems like a rehash. Maybe it raises the brow to a slightly higher level? Or maybe it's really more comparable to the antics of Michael Moore? That would explain why the critics are raving. Anything that casts the U.S. in a bad light is GOOD. Create a character based on how foreigners are perceived by some Americans, then use that character to draw American bigotry into the light. Archie Bunker meets Candid Camera. Is it smart to target bigots, or just an easy way to spice up old hat?
These "smarts" are a noble trait from a leftist POV, but Borat's politics are a double-edged sword. They can either enhance the comedy or detract from it. I'll reserve further comment and judgment until I've seen it for myself. It might gel for me or not. But I can perfectly understand what you're saying from the previews I've seen. The few detractors on Rotten Tomatoes make basically the same points, and they've gotten lots of nasty comments.
Liking Borat seems to be a sign of enlightenment and open-mindedness. People might complain that you just don't "get it", implying that you're better off watching "Santa Clause 3". Thumbs may go up or down, but anyone who can't see the vitriolic side of this master prankster have themselves been fooled by intellectual dishonesty.
Strangely enough, looking back on my experience I felt like the _real_ Borat. Is it really okay to chase down celebrites? Make fun of religious people? Insult a rodeo crowd? Wrestle naked in a random convention speech? If you dress up like a foreign reporter, should you insult everybody you meet? Does that make it okay?
I'm not asking if it is legal, I am asking you if you think you should pay money to people to do this.
I'm not so sure any more. What's okay and what isn't? Borat seems to know the rules. I thought I knew them, but I guess I'm old school.
The thing I do like about the Borat character (and perhaps this will help the old schoolers) is that he's sort of like a Marx Brothers character who has escaped into the real world. The kind of humor we see now is certainly more vulgar than was allowed back then, at least publicly (now we know all about that formerly secret Aristocrats joke). But the Marx Brothers were on the edge in their time, and now that everything's been done in staged settings it makes sense that taking an improv routine into the real world is a good way to keep things unpredictable. Even if it means stepping on a few toes along the way.
I don't know how we failed our two oldest sons that they would think being cruel at the expense of others was acceptable behavior. If you go into a nightclub for a comedy act, you expect there to be people joked about (Polish, Gay Haters, Gay Lovers, Blacks, Whites, Fat people, Skinny people, whatever). But you do not expect people to be brought on to the stage under false pretenses and then have people make fun of their central beliefs or trick them into saying things they don't believe or agree with. I was disappointed that you couldn't talk the kids into seeing something else and I am even more disappointed by their ensuing reactions. But perhaps part of that is being kids. Heaven forbid that they agree with us at this stage in their lives. As movies continue to sink lower and lower in their content, I am turning more and more to a good book.
I don't get Borat either, and I wouldn't waste a nickel on his movie. On the other where are the good movies? Maybe Borat's success is due to its field of competitors. Maybe Borat the movie is like a warm stale too small sip of water when you are dying of thirst.
Other good movies in current release (according to RottenTomatoes.com): Babel, Casino Royale, The Departed, Happy Feet, The Queen, Stranger Than Fiction, Little Miss Sunshine, Flags of our Fathers, Flushed Away, The Last King of Scotland, Volver, The Devil Wears Prada, Idiocracy.
Yes, it has been a really bad year for movies. But now things are looking up, and there are plenty of choices besides Borat if that isn't your cup of tea. They just announced that the release of Eastwood's companion piece to Flags has been moved up to Dec. to make the Oscar competition. Plus there are other potentially fantastic offerings in the wings: Eragon, The Nativity Story and Apocalypto (by Mel Gibson, who didn't need to be deceived by Borat to get drunk and say stupid things!).
DWC and I have been having a long off-line debate about Borat. I guess I just don't get it. For those interested in more discussion,
Another friend saw Borat over the weekend. He liked it, but was amazed that it didn't get an NC-17 rating, which I think it definitely should have (if not an X). I still didn't get a chance to go, but I've reached a decision: Rather than throw money at a potentially corrupt film, I'll download it from Bittorrent if I can find a good copy. This is in the anarchic and morally questionable spirit of the film, right? Then I can watch and assess it, and if I deem it to be something I want to support I'll go buy a ticket at the theater and then just leave.
Sometimes intellectual curiosity and moral clarity just don't mix, but darned if I ain't gonna try to strike a balance!
I will not spend money on this -- not only because it's trash but because it's nasty trash of the most condescending and manipulative kind, the kind that insists any objection to it is due to not being a sophisticated person.
My response to that BS is unprintable.
Charles Krauthammer had a great article on Borat. You can find it here.
It took a bit of thinking and discussing Borat to realize that this was political humor. Borat was instructing us on who he felt to be skewered and who didn't. Krauthammer hits the nail on the head with his article.
I think you can talk about movies in cinematic terms (I'm a big fan of the medium) and that's fair enough. But the format, the setup, the morality of a piece of work is something else. We like to pretend that morality is compeltely divorced from art, and when it is strictly fiction, it is. But ambush political humor is an immoral way of having a discussion. Sasha makes millions at the unwitting expense of others and portrays their political views in terms they themselves would disagree with, and he uses common courtesy to do it. To me, that's simply not right. The Golden Rule instructs me to treat people the way I would want to be treated. This creation, unlike other low-brow prank movies like Jackass and Candid Camera, fails the test.
Before I comment you should know a bit about me. I make movies, funny irreverent movies. I do Internet pranks and poke fun at the stupidity around us. I produced How-to-Do Girls (Bikini Calculus) and made Qur'an-a-Boom http://www.quranaboom.com/. Both are very politically incorrect. So now that you know that.
I hated Borat. I went with a friend of mine because she wanted to go to the movies. She enjoyed some small elements of the movie because she isn't from the USA and could relate to doing embarrassing things. She related to being the Borat character. But as the movie continued even she didn't laugh any longer.
The "humor" was lame. But it was difficult to watch the humor because the movie quality was so bad. It was suppose to be a documentary but that was clearly not possible. Who was operating the camera?
So I couldn't even get into the movie because it wasn't real enough.
Some of it seemed set up which ruined he candid camera aspect. And the real parts were just mean. There is a way to poke fun at idiocy but that movie and the character in general doesn't do that. It tries to make fun of things Sasha Cohen doesn't like but are perfectly logical and respectable.