I just watched the DVD of Borat- I did not see it in the theaters. There are other Borat threads but since they’re months old and this involves some DVD extras I’ll start this one rather than bump the old one.
In fairness, I thought this movie was absolutely hysterical in several places, but I also thought it was one of the rudest and crudest things I’d ever seen. The nude wrestling scene- especially when Borat’s face is covered by probably the ugliest nastiest naked ass ever to appear on screen- was one of the most disgusting scenes in a non-porn ever filmed, BUT it was filmed with two consenting actors. If SBC’s willing to stick his face in a huge hairy ass, it’s his right.
HOWEVER, their (very real) disruption of a banking convention was one of the movie’s many moments that made me think “What total assholes! Do you know how nervous many people already are when addressing a large convention and you’ve just done that to totally disrupt nerves and the point of the convention?” He owed a major apology and monetary damages for disrupting the conference, imo.
The incident at the dining club was one of the most repulsive things I’ve ever seen on camera. Now, I’m an Alabamian of course, but that has little to do with it- the sector of Southern society that hosts visiting foreign filmmakers in rented mansions isn’t a circle I swing in. BUT- if this had been filmed in NYC I’d have been no less appalled. They start by showing the sign to “Secession Drive” to get you all geared up- these are racist Southerners! But- that mansion was nowhere near Secession Drive, Birmingham is in fact a postbellum city (it was built almost from the ground up after the Civil War as a steel producing/coal mining city) and that was one of the least settled and least active parts of the state during the Civil War (in fact north Alabama fielded a Union regiment). Still, if it had been filmed in downtown Montgomery at the White House of the Confederacy at a dinner honoring Jefferson Davis’s birthday it would have not excused his actions.
What infuriated me in reading reviews was the “taken for granted” notion that a “Southern preacher left the dinner when a black woman entered”. The fact that said “black lady” was an obese midriff baring hooker at a party where a guest had just insulted the minister’s wife AND brought feces to the table was unimportant. (I know next to nothing of Kazakhstan- I know generally where it is and that the people are Eurasian- but I know that there’s no way any person from any country who has been in America for even a few days could be so socially inept and ignorant as to think feces at a dinner table was acceptable, so you know then and there that either this is some sort of sick joke or the man is insane or that he’s trying to pull something, and leaving is a good idea. Personally I’d have applauded if he had thrown a chair at the evil bastard.
There is a big gap in that dinner scene- Allred’s apologetic one moment and livid the next- and the missing time is not included on the movie’s extra’s. A pity, because what actress Luenell (the hooker) said in a TV interview made my respect for the etiquette instructor shoot through the roof. Luenell said that the only thing she felt bad about was the embarrassment caused Gloria Allred BECAUSE while furiously throwing out Borat and calling the cops, she was equally loudly insisting that Borat pay Luenell whatever she was owed before he was arrested or left because she (Luenell) had been inconvenienced and had been promised money. (Luenell also improvisationally played this up in a “Gimme my money!” rant that was deleted.) So… a white Southern country-club set etiquette coach (can you get much more magnolia-effete) having been dealt the worst of personal insults and mortally embarrassed in front of her guests- nevertheless defends the rights of a fat ugly middle aged black hooker- gee, you sure don’t want to show that in the movie because it might give people the wrong impression (kind of like the Secession Drive sign).
I had a visceral dislike of the homophobic rodeo manager and the politically incorrect fratboys, and while they knew they were on camera, THEY WERE ON CAMERA UNDER COMPLETELY FALSE PRETENSES AND WERE ACTUALLY BEING NICE TO A STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND. Plus, more than the embarassment aspects to these people was the sheer cheap bastardy: these people were paid a few hundred dollars each to appear in what the contract of release fraudulently calls a documentary style film and were completely unaware that it was in fact a $20 million production that would be released for profit and net Cohen and its distributors $10 millions in profit. That is NOT fair to the participants who should have been far better reimbursed, but none of whom should be faulted for not being experts on British pop-culture personalities (how many Brits would know who Jay Leno or Larry the Cable Guy are? And for those who don’t, does it mean they’re provincial or idiotic) or for trusting the document they signed to be true. (How often in the average life do you have to sign a release for a foreign “documentary style” filmmaker?
He caused enormous humiliation to many people from the people he sexually harassed with his and Davitian’s nudity in the elevators to the masseur (in the deleted scenes) who in crawled on top of while he (Borat) was naked, repeatedly shoved his ass in the face of, and requested several times to go inside of his “ah-noos” or give him a hand job. He caused great awkwardness wherever he went to completely innocent and trusting people, the news producer who believed him because she had no reason not to lost her job over his antics (and to the best of my knowledge has not been reimbursed), and generally made fools of people who, however much I may disagree with their views, had done him no wrong, or the loan officer and grocery store employee on the extras who also had to take time out of their real jobs to be humiliated for false pretenses. The police were called 91 times- that means 91 complete wastes of time and city resources that whether it did or not COULD HAVE delayed their response times to real emergencies. Then there are the Romanians who thought it was a documentary on their poverty who were paid a few dollars per day to be laughing stocks, and I won’t even go into the whole Kazakhstan controversy.
In fairness again, I laughed several times at this movie. Cohen really is a comic genius in characterization, though I disagree with his comparison of himself to Peter Sellers- Sellers was a total asshole on the set but he didn’t go out of his way to humiliate non show biz folk on camera for peanuts. In his interactions with non-actors he was far more Tom Green or Steve-O than Sellers and far more obnoxious than the rodeo promoter or the frat boys or the gun seller.
In my opinion.
Yours?
