Left Behinds: Oh yeah, I saw Borat

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Oh yeah, I saw Borat

Everyone who's followed Sacha Baron Cohen from way back will just have to deal with the fact that it's not exactly like the show and yet it's still really damn funny. Not as uncomfortable as some of the most audacious stuff from either the British or American Ali G Shows, and in some ways it's like the best Yakov Smirnoff ever, but it still made me laugh a lot.

6 Comments:

At 11:59 AM, Solomon Grundy said…

This review is worth reading. I think he gets too prim and moralistic, but what are we laughing at when we laugh at Borat? I know with Sarah Silverman the jokes aren't racist, they're about racism, but I'm not so sure with Borat.

I still have to finish it (I have a bootleg copy and only watched the first 20 minutes so far).
At 1:22 PM, Antid Oto said…

God that Goldstein piece was annoying. You couldn't have written a more stereotypical tiresome-leftist-who-insists-on-policing-humor piece if you tried. Andrew Dice Clay eventually went away not because leftists got all shocked and appalled about him but because his act didn't hold up for more than five minutes.

FWIW, Borat isn't about insulting Americans and making anything like real antisemitic jokes (his antisemitism is so broad it's ridiculous), nor is it about getting people to laugh at the immigrant. It's about getting Americans to reveal their bigotry by creating a "safe" setting. Plus really insanely crude physical comedy.
At 2:21 PM, Solomon Grundy said…

Yeah, and Beavis and Butthead was a critique of couch potato losers and Dave Chapelle is a critique of white liberal racism. Yet in each case the fans were overwhelmingly brohans.

I know what you and I are laughing at, but what are the brohans laughing at?
At 2:24 PM, Solomon Grundy said…

What I really didn't get in the Goldstein piece was the bit about "try to experience Borat with Cohen's whiteness in mind and it's just not funny."

Errrr, how is it any more or less funny? You'd have to be retarded (and missing the point) if you didn't realize that the person leading "Throw the Jew Down the Well" is in fact Jewish.
At 2:30 PM, Antid Oto said…

I know what you and I are laughing at, but what are the brohans laughing at?

I'm can't have that conversation. You worry about that shit too much and it becomes stifling. No one can ever make comedy or art or anything else about anything that matters for fear that hoi polloi will take it in the wrong spirit. It's the very definition of PCism, and it's what drove me so nuts about the Goldstein piece.
At 4:46 PM, Solomon Grundy said…

Bigot!

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Sunday, November 05, 2006

Oh yeah, I saw Borat

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