*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Sacha Baron Cohen's film "Borat" is being used as a litmus test. If you
like the film, you are hip, cool, and part of the new in-crowd immune
to the silly dictates of common decency and Political Correctness.
If you don't like "Borat," you are an old fuddy-duddy or spinster
schoolmarm.
I laugh at dead baby jokes. I was a nurse's aid and then a Peace Corps
volunteer, and I learned to laugh at death, bodily fluids, pus-filled
sores, and intestinal parasites.
I cannot tell you how much I hated "Borat." I would have walked out,
but I had to keep watching because of my field of study.
Based on reviews, I expected a penetrating, edgy critique of Political
Correctness that would make me laugh out loud. I did not laugh once.
(Full disclosure: others in the theater did.) I'd like to offer you
samples of what passes for humor in "Borat," but if I did so, this site
would not run my review. That's because just about every joke - - not
just some of them but just about every one - - is made at the
intrusively graphic expense of women or homosexuals, and/or it involves
bodily excretions.
An example. Baron Cohen is a guest at the home of a genuinely charming
woman. After defecating, he hands her his fecal matter. That's a big
joke. If you are laughing now, this movie is for you.
In another scene, Baron Cohen, without any clothing on at all, wrestles
with another undressed man who is grotesquely obese. During this
wrestling match, they assume poses for activities I can't name; if I
did, this site would not run this review. If jokes at the expense of
fat homosexual men are your cup of tea, this movie is for you.
I've never seen such a hateful movie in a mainstream theater. Again, I
know full well that I sound like a schoolmarm when I say that. Sacha
Baron Cohen, I would have to guess, based on this movie, hates the
human race, including you, the ticket buyer. He is willing to exploit
everyone he encounters, to humiliate them on camera, to get you, the
ticket buyer, someone he also hates, to laugh at others' suffering.
Once you do that, he can laugh at you. If watching decent people doing
their best to deal with an obnoxious creep is your cup of tea, then
this movie is for you.
I feel like repeating over and over: I laughed at Todd Solondz's
"Happiness." I laugh at politically incorrect humor. And I hated this
movie.
There's more going on here, and I know I'm risking a lot by pointing
this out.
Borat speaks Polish. Only speakers of Polish will get that. He says
"Dzien Dobry," "jak sie masz," "dziekuje" and other Polish phrases. The
film's opening and closing scenes were shot in a real Eastern European
village. Real Eastern European folk music is played on the soundtrack.
With "Ali G," Baron Cohen exploited vicious stereotypes of Blacks. With
"Borat" Baron Cohen is not targeting Kazaks. He's exploiting a
centuries-old, contemptuous and hateful stereotype of Eastern European
peasants that can be found in various Western cultures - witness the
American "Polak joke" - - and is common in one thread of Jewish
culture. In this stereotype, Poles, and, by extension, Eastern European
Christian peasants, are, like Borat, ignorant, bestial, and disgusting.
A good précis of the stereotype can be found in a famous passage in
Isaac Bashevis Singer's "The Slave." It can be found in the "Golem"
article on my website.
In fact, "Borat" has a lot in common with Marian Marzynski's
controversial film "Shtetl." In both, cameras invade an impoverished
Eastern European peasant village. Villagers who are not sophisticated
or worldly are conned into appearing on camera to perform for us as if
they were trained monkeys. We laugh at them, or feel disgust at them,
because they are dirty, because they are poor, and because they keep
pigs. In any case, gazing at these lesser peasants, we know that we are
superior. Perhaps Baron Cohen will try this technique next in a Darfur
refugee camp or a homeless shelter. Poor, unsophisticated people can be
so amusing.
Baron Cohen speaks of women as if they were less than dirt. Don't
misunderstand him. He's not mocking misogyny. He's milking misogyny.
The things Baron Cohen says about women in this movie are grotesque;
they are brutal. He makes fun of mentally retarded people. He makes fun
of white, Christian Southerners, a group everyone feels safe mocking.
Reviews, and no doubt many viewers, are telling you that "Borat" is a
fearless laugh riot that punctures political correctness and makes you
laugh till you cry. It's that very description that made me want to see
it. I thought I'd be getting something like the Colbert Report.
I've gotta think I'm not the only one, though, who found looking at
Baron Cohen's hatred for an hour and a half to be an icky, profoundly
unfunny experience.
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