Borat: Cultural Learnings of America (Larry Charles, 2006)

[GringoTex]

I found the film cheap, exploitive, and cynical, and am amazed at the notion that it reveals anything about "society." Cohen orchestrated/scripted a series of racist and sexist gags and we paid $9 to laugh at it. Everybody gets what they want, I guess.

[The Invunche]

You say "cynical" like it's a bad thing.

[David Ehrenstein]

Borat, Cowboys & Gay Marriage

[montgomery]

As a huge fan of the show, I was a little disappointed too. I guess the biggest reason is that the Borat character is probably finished now due to over-exposure, and I wish he would have taken it further. As Commander Shears said, many of the bits from the show go far deeper. Of course, the film was funny, but I'd take nearly any 3 episodes of Ali G in a row instead.

[Lemmy Caution]

Holy Jesus are those flashing adverts on the NY Blade site annoying. I had to hit refresh and then stop the process before they loaded. Probably saved myself from an epileptic fit.

[David Ehrenstein]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061127/ap_ ... erson_rock

[Gropius]

So, what do we think of this?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1955930,00.html

Here's a brief blog entry at Lenin's Tomb criticising that piece:

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2006/11/ ... ouser.html

[GringoTex]

Borat, Cowboys & Gay Marriage

This piece is as lazy and fluffy as the film. Author claims Cohen "exposes" things about homosexuality, cowboys, and Texas. It reads like a "Homophobia for Dummies" chapter. Check out Kyle Henry's doc on the Texas gay rodeo circuit for real social commentary. This Borat crap is one-note Tom Green.

[David Ehrenstein]

Borat didn't go to the gay rodeo.

[tavernier]

This Borat crap is one-note Tom Green.

The ultimate insult...and isn't "one-note Tom Green" redundant?

[GringoTex]

Borat didn't go to the gay rodeo.

He didn't go to Texas, either, but that doesn't stop the New York Blade writer from claiming it's so.

But why didn't Borat go to a gay rodeo? Why didn't Borat interview any gay people? Or if he did (and you know he did), why did the footage end up on the floor?

Because mainstream America would rather laugh at fag bashing than have to look at fags. And Cohen knew exactly how to give them what they want and cash in.

I know lots and lots of bigoted rednecks. They love this movie.

[David Ehrenstein]

The Blade wirter found the scene reflective of his experiences.

But why didn't Borat go to a gay rodeo? Why didn't Borat interview any gay people? Or if he did (and you know he did), why did the footage end up on the floor?

Because mainstream America would rather laugh at fag bashing than have to look at fags. And Cohen knew exactly how to give them what they wanted and cash in.

Hey you answer your own questions!

Why pretend you're asking me one?

[Barmy]

Wow that Blade article was funnier than Borat. AND I was the 1,000,000th visitor and got to claim a prize!

[marty]

I have to admit, I was a bit underwhelmed by it considering the hype and every critic calling it the funniest film of the decade and one of the bext ever. I found parts of it funny but, as a whole, it just didn't do it for me. In terms of comedy, give me films like Flirting With Disaster, Young Frankenstein, Bullets Over Broadway, His Girl Friday, Bringing Up Baby, Trouble in Paradise and Artists & Models any day over Borat.

[David Ehrenstein]

AND I was the 1,000,000th visitor and got to claim a prize!

What did you win? A dream date with Neil Patrick Harris?

[tavernier]

AND I was the 1,000,000th visitor and got to claim a prize!

What did you win? A dream date with Neil Patrick Harris?

No, a year's worth of press screenings accompanied by Armond White.

[GringoTex]

The Blade wirter found the scene reflective of his experiences.

Really? The Blade writer thought homophobia in the South was a barrel of laughs, the funniest movie of the year, he couldn't stop laughing?

(you can answer those questions, as I have none)

[MichaelB]

Because mainstream America would rather laugh at fag bashing than have to look at fags. And Cohen knew exactly how to give them what they want and cash in.

You do know what Cohen's next big-screen project is, don't you?

Here's a clue if you don't.

[soma]

Purposefully avoided all reviews and this thread until tonight, after seeing the film. It opened here last Thursday and has pretty much sold out session after session after session. We saw a 10:50pm screening to a near full house - something I've not seen for years so late on a Tuesday night. The three sessions before it sold out a couple of hours in advance. And this is at one of Melbourne's largest multiplexes! Even more amazing is that it's a comedy, and to many a blatently offensive one at that.

I went in with an open mind free of external opinion and LOVED IT, I haven't laughed that hard in years! I'm incredibly selective when it comes to comedy and it takes a lot to impress me. But I would go as far as to say this is the funniest thing I've seen since Monty Python; from the sheer audacity, to the pitch-perfect execution, to the steadfast maintenance of character and the uncanny ability to highlight social, political and cultural critique via satire... Cohen is pure genius.

Snot on the chin, tears on the floor funny. This is one of the year's best films.

[John Cope]

Oh, you guys will love this one (especially you, Barmy)

[Barmy]

Hitch nails it.

With all the snot and dribble (I hate to think what else) that people seem to be emitting at Borat screenings, I'm beginning to think we're in for a very bad flu season.

[tavernier]

Now that he's flunked out of being a Bush flunky for the past few years, Hitchens is taking a shot at film reviewing?

I guess all that booze won't hamper has sharply critical (if blood-shot) eye.

[MichaelB]

And here's Hitchens being reviewed in turn - which may explain why he's turning to film criticism (which, as we all know, is much easier to write than almost any other literary form).

[tavernier]

And here's Hitchens being reviewed in turn - which may explain why he's turning to film criticism (which, as we all know, is much easier to write than almost any other literary form).

Hey, he wrote the Paine book while on a bender, so who cares if he plays fast and loose with the facts (again!)?

[Barmy]

`Borat' long on laughs, short on cultural lessons

Jonah Goldberg is an editor at National Review Online: Tribune Media Services

Published November 24, 2006

Sacha Baron Cohen, the Orthodox Jewish comedian from England, has an uncanny ability to make suckers of us all. Case in point: I'm giving even more free publicity to "Borat," the most overpublicized comedy in modern memory.

As you undoubtedly know by now, Cohen plays Borat, a television reporter in Kazakhstan--absurdly depicted as a land where the mentally handicapped are kept in cages, all sisters are for sale (Borat's is the "No. 4 prostitute in all of Kazakhstan"), and fermented horse urine is the cocktail of choice. Borat is asked by his government to visit the United States and report what he finds for the betterment of all Kazakhs. Hence the full title: "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."

So Cohen, never breaking character as a sexist, anti-Semitic yokel from beyond the Urals, catches unsuspecting Americans off guard.

His fumbling antics are inflicted on Americans desperate to be accommodating and polite, even when that means overlooking boorishness to the point of tolerating (alleged) bigotry.

Though with the exception of some fraternity brothers from South Carolina, he seems unable to elicit a single American actually saying anything horribly racist or sexist. His hapless victims merely commit the sin of not sufficiently correcting the foreign naif with a thick accent.

Some of the scenes are hilarious, others not so much. But none of it approaches "revolutionary" status, as several critics have suggested. Rolling Stone magazine wonders whether Cohen has created a "whole new genre of film." We are now well into the second decade of the reality-TV era. MTV's "Punk'd" and "Jackass" play many of the same bull-in-a-china-shop pranks as "Borat." Michael Moore rose to fame catching people off guard and pulling similar stunts. Hidden cameras and undercover reporters are staples of newsmagazine shows and have been for a generation.

I'm still confused about why so many people think reality TV itself is new. Does no one remember "Candid Camera"? As for the wide-eyed immigrant in a foreign land routine, that's hardly a new act either. Andy Kaufman's Latka Gravas, made famous on "Taxi," beat "Borat" to the punch by decades.

Cohen does put a funny new twist on the routine, and he can be brilliant at it, but judging from the reaction to "Borat," you'd think he'd invented the comedic equivalent of warp drive or something.

Cohen's success stems in part from the fact that he never lets on what his movie is really about. Unlike Michael Moore--who, just for the record, isn't a fraction as talented as Cohen--Cohen never made himself available to interviewers when promoting the movie. He always appeared as Borat, which made it impossible to ask Cohen what he really thinks of America, what the message of the film is or how realistic his reality film is. This was a brilliant marketing ploy, and the TV press eagerly played themselves for suckers. Imagine if, say, Cookie Monster started spewing racial epithets on "Sesame Street" and, in response to the controversy, the producers allowed Cookie Monster to do all the talking at the press conference. Similarly, Cohen refuses to divulge his methods--an easy trick when Cohen rarely appears as himself at his own interviews--so audiences and critics are free to believe that "Borat" is far more real than it really is.

Some of the scenes in the movie are transparently staged. Others must be highly pre-produced. All of it is heavily edited for effect. Yet some people, including European critics, delight in how "Borat" reveals the bigoted underside of the real America.

This is nonsense on stilts. Cohen undoubtedly shot thousands of hours of footage, and he picked the funniest bits, not the most representative ones. Even so, as Christopher Hitchens noted recently in Slate, most of the Americans--save for some cranky feminists--are polite to a fault with Borat. One Southern lady takes her guest to the bathroom to explain how to use the toilet and toilet paper--only after Borat has brought a plastic bag full of what those tools are intended to deal with. Do we really believe the French would be even more accommodating?

Meanwhile, Borat's more conservative defenders hail the film's allegedly implicit critique of political correctness. But this is a hard case to make when Borat's victims are almost all demons in the politically correct pantheon (Christians, rednecks, et al.). Borat never visits, say, Muslims who might sincerely return Borat's high-fives for Jew hatred.

In short, "Borat" isn't as revolutionary or transgressive, as its fans claim. It's just a funny movie. And that should be enough.