Left Behinds: As Eustacia says, now I feel bad for laughing

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

As Eustacia says, now I feel bad for laughing

I've prepared a little chart to illustrate what it's okay to make fun of:

The racism of American frat boys	OKAY!
The poverty of Rumanian peasants (while not paying them shit)	NOT OKAY
The homophobia of rodeo performers	OKAY!
The disability of a one-armed man	NOT OKAY

It's kind of surprising that Sacha Baron Cohen didn't get that.

(I know I objected to PC criticism of this very film's humor within the last week. Whatever. Call me a hypocrite. I just think there's a difference between embarrassing people by showing what they actually said and outright misrepresenting them. I honestly thought that village was a Hollywood set. And how hard would it have been to find a village A) with the right look and B) desperate enough to accept being distorted--with full consent--in exchange for, I don't know, a little more than six bucks a head? How about $50 each? For a village of 1,000 that's $50,000, a quarter of a percent of the movie's $18 million budget.)

4 Comments:

At 6:01 PM, Solomon Grundy said…

Fox should really send some funds to Glod. It's pretty horrendous.

However:

But feelings in Glod are running so high that The Mail on Sunday saw angry villagers brandishing farm implements chase out a local TV crew, shouting that they had enough of being exploited.

That's a bit funny.
At 12:02 PM, Solomon Grundy said…

Er, yikes. No, didn't see that. I only skimmed that article, didn't catch the part that they were gypsies.

Gypsies/roma are openly despised by everyone in Europe. Everyone from every group unabashedly mocks/acts cruel to them. It's a bit unnerving.

I finally saw Borat. Didn't really love it. A few chuckles, but a lot of it was pretty predictable, perhaps because I saw it post-hype (though I avoided any direct descriptions of the jokes). There were some funny moments, for sure, though. If it had been condensed into 30 minutes of the best stuff it would have been brilliant.
At 12:04 PM, Solomon Grundy said…

A common word for stupid in London is pikey, which just means gypsy. Everyone from all walks of life uses it. For example.
At 7:23 PM, Avery Baker said…

Thannks great blog post

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Wednesday, November 15, 2006

As Eustacia says, now I feel bad for laughing

4 Comments:

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