# Let the retarded complaints begin \[Borat DVD\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 3, 2007, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-retarded-complaints-begin-borat-dvd/394469 "2007-03-03T22:10:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2007, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-retarded-complaints-begin-borat-dvd/394469/1 "2007-03-03T22:10:19Z")
This is gonna be HILARIOUS. We have a DVD buffer? to take scratches out of DVDs? cuz our customers treat them like crap? Every day someone goes, “Oh, so you burn a copy for every rental?” or “Is that machine for destroying DVDs?” or some such stupid question. The \*Borat \*DVD is packaged–once you remove the cardboard sleeve, which of course we must to put rentables on the shelf–completely without any English. It’s designed to look like a cheap bootleg, and all the writing is in Cyrillic. The disc itself looks like a cheap knockoff of a blank DVD (“Demorez. Is live? No, is Demorez.”) with the single word “BORAT” inked by Sharpie (R reversed Cyrillically). I cannot wait to see what kind of bewilderment this is going to bring about in our customers. ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-retarded-complaints-begin-borat-dvd/394469/2 "2007-03-04T00:11:12Z")
That’s pretty clever. Although I’m curious- does the DVD have the standard things such as a Fox logo and copyright, FBI logo and piracy warning\*, and R-rating logo? I would be surprised if it didn’t. \*According to _Entertainment Weekly_, there’s an additional warning on the disc itself after the FBI warning: “Selling piratings of this videodisc will result in punishment by crushing.” ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-retarded-complaints-begin-borat-dvd/394469/3 "2007-03-04T00:18:01Z")
[QUOTE=mobo85] That’s pretty clever. Although I’m curious- does the DVD have the standard things such as a Fox logo and copyright, FBI logo and piracy warning\*, and R-rating logo? I would be surprised if it didn’t. [/QUOTE] I’ve seen other less high-profile ways to do this while not ruining the unofficial/amateur appearance. The easiest is for the ‘American’ necessities to be added to the case on an adhesive label. And if the curious want to see what’s underneath, maybe have a meaningless alternative barcode, meaningless rating system and nonsensical pricing on the box itself. ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-retarded-complaints-begin-borat-dvd/394469/4 "2007-03-04T00:19:38Z")
Not on the packaging- I mean the real disc itself. ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-retarded-complaints-begin-borat-dvd/394469/5 "2007-03-04T00:26:10Z")
The [packaging itself](http://www.slashfilm.com/2007/02/27/borat-dvd-looks-pirated/) is all in Cyrillic, albeit with English credits and a real bar code. (There is an English slipcover, however.) ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-retarded-complaints-begin-borat-dvd/394469/6 "2007-03-04T02:47:01Z")
I answered my own question: I saw a picture of the disc itself online, and on the right-hand side are the words “WIDESCREEN (or FULLSCREEN, as the case may be, I guess) ©2007 FOX.” I wouldn’t be confused if I saw that (along with the fact that “Is life? No. Is Demorez” is an obvious play on “Is it real or is it Memorex?”). ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2007, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-retarded-complaints-begin-borat-dvd/394469/7 "2007-03-05T00:08:01Z")
[QUOTE=mobo85] \*According to _Entertainment Weekly_, there’s an additional warning on the disc itself after the FBI warning: “Selling piratings of this videodisc will result in punishment by crushing.” [/QUOTE] Moderately funny hijack - I have a recently immigrated Ukranian friend who spontaneously decided to complain to me about his computer by saying “My laptop. It makes me so mad, sometimes, I want to crush it!” (complete with waving his fist in the air threateningly). And he was completely genuine. Later I told him that in our fiction, Eastern Europeans are portrayed as having a propensity threaten to crush things/people. He said he had no previous knowledge of that stereotype, but laughed “I guess they got that one right”. BTW, Borat, despite supposedly being Kazakh, is of course more of a caricature of Eastern Europeans (and has threatened to crush people). ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2007, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/let-the-retarded-complaints-begin-borat-dvd/394469/8 "2007-03-05T08:26:44Z")
A guy I work with put a copy of the Borat DVD on the counter, since Friday, with a little sign that says– **“Rent it today–_NOT!_”** (It doesn’t “drop” till Tuesday.) Biggest surprise of my week? Not a single customer who noticed it didn’t get it. Weird.