Alrighty. So:
Borat. A comedy. Made in 2006. A “mock-umentary” in which actor/comedian Sasha Baron Cohen, pretending to be a TV personality from Kazakhstan, interviews unsuspecting Americans.
Basically, I want the past 2 hours of my life back. I found it shocking what Cohen would say and do infront of strangers, and I found it even more shocking what those strangers would say and do in response to Cohen. I wasn’t sure if I should be offended or smiling. I lean more towards not being amused and feeling rather uncomfortable.
I also really dislike the fact that the people who signed forms, agreeing to be filmed, didn’t know that they were signing away their rights to make any money off of a movie that they had screen time in. (Wikipedia source here.) I get that its all part of the “genre”, but I still think its horrible and knowing that people made asses out of themselves and haven’t gotten a dime out of the millions that have been made off of this film, makes watching it impossible for me to enjoy.
It seems like the kinda movie that a person would enjoy if they had a really weird sense of humor and/or hadn’t been around many ethnic groups other than their own.
But yeah. I generally enjoy offbeat movies, but this one was just not my cup of tea at all. Boo.
Next.
I have not seen Borat but your review pretty much captured what I thought I’d feel if I watched it….based on the clips I’ve seen. Mildly amusing but more disturbing the way people are duped. But then again, isn’t that the whole premise behind the multi-million dollar Girls Gone Wild franchise….???
I actually thought Borat was good. It was good for what it was. I don’t know whether to call it funny or disturbing, but I thought it was good. I found the social experiment aspect of it quite interesting…how people acted in front of a person who they thought was from a foreign country; like when Borat tells the guy in Texas that they hang homosexuals in Kazakhstan, the man tells Borat that we are trying to get that done here. Or how far they would let him go and what their limits were; like the woman at the dinner party who was calm and cordial with him as he insulted her guests and brought a baggie of poop to the dinner table, but when his ‘friend’ (a large, black prostitute) showed up, she called the police. Some people feel that Sasha Baron Cohen showed racism in his portrayal of the character, but in truth, he was never serious. He exploited stereotypes and generalizations and created an over-the-top character through which he could test people. (I mean the fact that not many people called him on the fact that he was down-right ridiculous just goes to show how American’s view people of other ethnicities.)He used that ridiculous guise to reveal some of the real underbelly of racism and ignorance in our own country.
As for the people who feel they were taken advantage of…you should probably read what you sign. That’s just a good rule of thumb. Most all of those people are trying to seek legal action for what that claim to be damages, and if they were legally wronged, I am sure they will get compensated.
Kristin –
There were somethings that I did like about the movie. I think its good for someone to go out there and shed some light on the fact that there is still discrimination out there re: race, sexual orientation, religion, sex. It just kinda bugged me that they only showed the worst of America.. like the guy at the rodeo who was saying that we’re tying to legalize the hangings of homosexuals. I guess that instead of laughing at ignorant people, I’d rather try to educate them or something.
I dunno. Maybe I took it too seriously or something…
But the when they weren’t duping unsuspecting people, I just didn’t find the humor all that hilarious. I Suppose I only find the jokes about naked male wrestling, incest, jews, bathroom humor, etc… funny the first couple of times. And the first once or 2 times they made those jokes, they were hilarious. However, by the 8th joke about having sex with his sister, or greeting men by kissing them, I was just like, come on.
Telgator1 said:
It is, and I’d never want to buy any of their garbage, their business ethic (or lack there of) being one of the reasons.
True, true. The parts of the movie that I thought were the most unnecessary were the “filler” parts where he and his producer/whatever were alone, i.e the naked wrestling and the scenes in his country where he is wearing ridiculous bathing suits or kissing his sister. I suppose they had to be in there in order to make it a cohesive story, but the only thing that kept me interested was when he was dealing with people.
You’d be hard pressed to find a source, whether it be movies, television or the news, that will offer you a completely unbiased, two-sided view of things. Everyone has an agenda to push nowadays.