Seeing the initial outrage in this thread and then noticing the positive reviews generated so far from the critics; it reminded me of the kind of reaction Andy Kaufman generated. Both their schtick involves a performance art type of comedy that involves people who are not in on the joke. You could even take the comparison as far as both comedians have a eastern European “character”: Latka, Borat.
Am I off-base? Or am I merely stating the obvious?
The connection occurred to me the other day too; the big difference is that the audience and socio-political climate isn’t the same today as it was when Kaufman was in his prime.
I’m not sure if Cohen is as versatile and creative as Kaufman, but there certainly are similarities.
Nah. Andy Kaufman was often actually funny.
[sub]Heeeeeeeere I come to save the daaaaaay[/sub]
Cohen is funnier, and it’s not even close. He just hasn’t died yet, so a lot people don’t realize it.
The comparison seems *somewhat *apt.
I think Cohen’s humor has been more socially satirical, whereas Kaufman was (mostly) simply absurdist. That’s probably why I don’t feel a strong connection, but certainly the “guerilla comedy” is similar.
Some of the interviews that Cohen has down with fashion execs, dignitaries, blowhards are hilarious and revealing at the same time.
She is a pretty good figure skater but I fail to see how she is liike Andy Kaufman.
Trunk’s got a good point about Kaufman being an absurdist, and Cohen being a satirist, but another key difference is that what made Kaufman unique was that he never let the audience in on the joke. Cohen fools the people he talks to, but expects the people who watch to understand what the gag is. Kaufman’s modus was to mindfuck the audience, to never let them in on what was the act, and what was the reality.
And that’s why everyone loves Ali G and Borat, and everyone (at the time) hated Andy Kaufmann. With Cohen we’re in on the joke. Kaufmann’s speciality was fucking over the audience for his own twisted amusment.
I’m not sure Kaufman’s more advanced stuff was really “comedy” in the sense the word is usually used. (Obviously, I’m not talking about his more conventional work, like on “Taxi.”) Cohen, however, is straight up, satirical comedy. I really don’t see them as being much alike.
Let’s take perhaps the most famous Kaufman stunt -him getting slapped by wrestler Jerry Lawler on the Letterman show- and examine how this qualifies as comedy.
From what I read, Kaufman and Lawler were set to do their interview segments, Lawler would apologize for the pile driver he had previously given to Andy and then the two were to sing “What the World Needs Now (is Love, Sweet Love)” as a duet. Cite: Lost in the Funhouse: The Life and Times of Andy Kaufman by Bill Zehme
Instead, Andy proposed that a more interesting take would be for Lawler to slug him on the air and for them to continue their feud.
Still uncertain whether to go through with it, Lawler does indeed slap Andy hard across the face who tumbles out of his chair -cut to commercial- then reappears and delivers a profanity-laced diatribe which concludes with him throwing coffee on Lawler and then running away back stage.
Though nobody was in on the “joke” --which works better as comic fodder? The clichéd kiss-and-make-up-and-let’s-sing-a-horrible-duet-together or a WTF-just-happened???- moment that to this day is a fascinating study?
To be honest, I thought you guys were talking about The O.C. actor…
However, looking at the film trailer, it looks pretty funny…one question, are the other people in the film in on the joke, or was this filmed as a documentary with the others actually thinking the guy is for real?
Sorry for the stupid question, but have never seen the Ali G show and know nothing about this guy.
Sacha Baron Cohen has built a career ripping off smarter people who did it better. Particularly Chris Morris and the terrible Dennis Pennis.
They aren’t in on it. this thread here talks more about his routines, and has links to more video clips of him in action.
The whole deal with Lawler and Kaufman on Letterman was a wrestling angle. Any comedy found therein was a bonus. The point was to draw more money in the Memphis area. It worked, too. Lawler/Kaufman milked that cash cow for all it was worth. Funny thing is that most people, including Letterman, thought the incident on the show was a shoot–ie, an unscripted “real” incident. Lawler finally broke kayfabe on it while filming the movie. I never much cared for Kaufman’s comedy, but he was a natural for the wrestling world. Obviously, he was never going to be much good in the ring, but he was great at working the crowd into a frenzy–and he was willing to take a bump to send the crowd home happy.
I haven’t watched the show either, but I read an article in Newsweek about Cohen and Borat- the interviewees are paid, and had no knowledge of what Borat was going to ask them. Unlike other programs (Ken Jennings commented on his website that he was told Stephen Colbert’s act is all a joke when going on The Colbert Report), the interviewees have no idea that Borat is really a British guy attempting to con them. And they don’t have a chance to find out- Borat and his crew disappear as soon as the interview is finished.
One of the Kaufman’s key inspirations was professional wrestling. Not the wrestling itself, but the particular convention of trying to get “heat” from the crowd. That is when the “bad guy” wrestlers would deliberately try to provoke and insense a crowd in order to make them want to buy tickets to see them get their asses kicked. The whole idea of a performer intentionally trying to enrage his audience was something that Kaufman found fascinating and (to him, at least) hysterically funny.
I think there are occasionally some elements of that with Cohen (like the rodeo bit) but for the most part his goal is to test and/or expose individual targets for the benefit of an audience.
Even if his subjects respond well to his tests it can still be illuminating. For instance, on one episode of Ali G, we saw two very different responses to the same character from Pat Buchanan (fairly quick to get it, good humored once he caught on, played along) and Andy Rooney (utterly humorless douchebag). Both results really revealed something about the subjects and both interviews were funny.
I don’t see the comparison- Kaufman was avant-garde, doing things in comedy that were borderline that they were even comedy- Mighty Mouse, Reading to an audience, etc. Bizarre, surreal stuff.
Sascha is in a long line of witty, intelligent humorists.
Sascha did at least one thing that was very kaufmanesque. It was in the MTV awards, he staged a performance of the national anthem of kasakhstan, which consisted of some old men dancing squaredance, and it had seemingly infinitive verses. The MTV audience didnt seem to like it much.
Well, Buchanan seemed nice, but I dont think he “got it”. He also never seemed to understand that Ali was talking about sandwiches the whole time.
Oh yeah, Kaufmann on “Friday’s” is awesome though- off to Youtube to see if its there.
I saw an interview in which someone asked Pat Buchanan about the Ali G interview. Buchanan admitted he had no idea who Ali G was, and initially thought he was just an idiot. But shortly before Cohen and his crew were about to start filming, Buchanan made an arcane joke that he thought would go over Ali’s head. Cohen stifled a laugh for just a second… and that was what tipped Buchanan off. Buchanan immediately thought, “Oh, you understood that, eh? You’re not really as dumb as you’re pretending, are you? This is some kind of a put-on. Okay, I can go along with a gag.”