Sacha Baron Cohen: Pushing the culturacisexual joke envelope
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Me and my brother finally watched Borat today, or, as it is titled, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan." Hahaha, my brother tells me it's one word short of holding the record for longest movie title ever. Good god.
Anyway, it was funny, in the JackAss- meets- really poorly made porn- meets- Russell Peters (the funny British-Indian dude who cracks racist jokes) kind of way... although for the record, I never really found JackAss funny. Nevertheless, I was laughing my ass off most of the time. Other times I was passed out cause the gallons of salt in my popcorn went straight to my head, incapacitating me for a few blurry moments.
Some of the time, I was covering my face with my cardigan 'cause his faux pas were tooo painful to watch... Like when he tries to marry Pamela Anderson "Kazakh-style." And Especially that part where he naked-wrestles with his "producer/director" with the amazingly grotesque body fat and gooey ass-cheeks. *cringe* And!!! Get this... after they mock gay porno, smashing mirrors and lamps in their hotel room as they go, they STREAK at the hotel's LOBBY and interrupt a CONVENTION stark raving NAKED with gooey ass-cheeks!!!! I read on the film's trivia section that during the filming, the police had to be called on them 91 times. That's gotta be a record.
Up to this point, you may be wondering why it grossed more than Fahrenheit 9/11 on its first day's premiere across the U.S. and why it's currently the number one movie on the ratings. I mean, hairy ass-cheeks = appealing?? Not really. What was striking to me was the GENIUS of it! It's really insidiously humorous in a way that's offensive but revealing of the biases, prejudices, and all-around (shall we say) s t u p i d i t y slash hotheadedness of the average white American.
Borat (a.k.a. Sacha Cohen Baron, British comedian) asks all these questions, testing the limits of his subjects' patience and, with some prompting on his end, makes them say the most outrageous and what-the-f*ck things. Most white Caucasians interviewed by Borat show little tolerance for homosexuals, women, foreigners who "look like they're terrorists", and African Americans. For example, when he tries kiss the manager of the Rodeo on both cheeks (as is the custom in Cohen's idea of Kazakhstan), the dude reacts violently and then at some point later says that in this country (U.S. and A), they want to get rid of gay people. I noticed in the movie that most of the so-called "minorities" were the ones who had more warmth and were more embracing of "Kazakh" culture--like prostitutes, black gangstas, and gay-pride marchers-- than say, the feminist, the politician, or high-society Southern woman.
I watched Sacha Baron Cohen's bits on youtube last night, (and ended up watching till 2 a.m.), starring all his characters [Ali G, Borat the Kazakh journalist, and Bruno the ambiguously-gay fashion reporter from Austria] and it's really really interesting. Pretending to be dumb as hell, unassuming as hell, and ambiguously gay as hell (respectively); he goes around the U.S. interviewing the most intelligent people like politicians, part members, Buzz Aldrin (So, mohn, does the moon exist?). and top personalities. He draws them along his string of seemingly absurd questions, making the pretentious contradict themselves and the ones with anti-semitic/racial/homosexual biases become really violent.
Like this one time , he interviewed a pastor who was also a "gay converter" say that it was forbidden in God's word to eat copious amounts of chocolate and to have brunch with friends. "As long as you have brunch with your Christian friends, that's fine... but if you have brunch leading to homosexual activities, that's nicht nicht. Another time , he made a rodeo bar full of cowboys and girls sing along with him to a racist (but catchy) song of "Throw the Jew down the well/ so my country can be free." But you guys should see it for yourself.
Although he makes really bad Jew jokes, gay jokes, women jokes, Kazakh jokes, Sacha Baron Cohen is actually a Jew... (but he's not gay nor is he a woman or Kazakh...).. it's all subtle smiting at its best-est. Like a social critique only with props and lots of jelloid man-wrestling and noisy expletives. And that's what's so COOL about it.
Right now, though, Borat's got a ton of lawsuits against him from parties alleging they'd been exploited or had lost their jobs because of Borat's wild antics (the frat boys and the high-society Southern woman, to name a few). He's even got the REAL Kazakh government after him. And you know what he did? He aired a response , in full Borat regalia and his intentionally unwashed gray suit, and said he was in full support of the charges against Sacha Baron Cohen (him!).
Basically, what I'm trying to say is that what he's doing, making the film and all and never missing a beat when he's in character, takes some BALLS. And, if the scene of naked wrestling and the shot of him in a neon green manhood-clutching thong stands testimony, he's got some BIG-ASS BALLS on him.
Me and my brother finally watched Borat today, or, as it is titled, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan." Hahaha, my brother tells me it's one word short of holding the record for longest movie title ever. Good god.
Anyway, it was funny, in the JackAss- meets- really poorly made porn- meets- Russell Peters (the funny British-Indian dude who cracks racist jokes) kind of way... although for the record, I never really found JackAss funny. Nevertheless, I was laughing my ass off most of the time. Other times I was passed out cause the gallons of salt in my popcorn went straight to my head, incapacitating me for a few blurry moments.
Some of the time, I was covering my face with my cardigan 'cause his faux pas were tooo painful to watch... Like when he tries to marry Pamela Anderson "Kazakh-style." And Especially that part where he naked-wrestles with his "producer/director" with the amazingly grotesque body fat and gooey ass-cheeks. *cringe* And!!! Get this... after they mock gay porno, smashing mirrors and lamps in their hotel room as they go, they STREAK at the hotel's LOBBY and interrupt a CONVENTION stark raving NAKED with gooey ass-cheeks!!!! I read on the film's trivia section that during the filming, the police had to be called on them 91 times. That's gotta be a record.
Up to this point, you may be wondering why it grossed more than Fahrenheit 9/11 on its first day's premiere across the U.S. and why it's currently the number one movie on the ratings. I mean, hairy ass-cheeks = appealing?? Not really. What was striking to me was the GENIUS of it! It's really insidiously humorous in a way that's offensive but revealing of the biases, prejudices, and all-around (shall we say) s t u p i d i t y slash hotheadedness of the average white American.
Borat (a.k.a. Sacha Cohen Baron, British comedian) asks all these questions, testing the limits of his subjects' patience and, with some prompting on his end, makes them say the most outrageous and what-the-f*ck things. Most white Caucasians interviewed by Borat show little tolerance for homosexuals, women, foreigners who "look like they're terrorists", and African Americans. For example, when he tries kiss the manager of the Rodeo on both cheeks (as is the custom in Cohen's idea of Kazakhstan), the dude reacts violently and then at some point later says that in this country (U.S. and A), they want to get rid of gay people. I noticed in the movie that most of the so-called "minorities" were the ones who had more warmth and were more embracing of "Kazakh" culture--like prostitutes, black gangstas, and gay-pride marchers-- than say, the feminist, the politician, or high-society Southern woman.
I watched Sacha Baron Cohen's bits on youtube last night, (and ended up watching till 2 a.m.), starring all his characters [Ali G, Borat the Kazakh journalist, and Bruno the ambiguously-gay fashion reporter from Austria] and it's really really interesting. Pretending to be dumb as hell, unassuming as hell, and ambiguously gay as hell (respectively); he goes around the U.S. interviewing the most intelligent people like politicians, part members, Buzz Aldrin (So, mohn, does the moon exist?). and top personalities. He draws them along his string of seemingly absurd questions, making the pretentious contradict themselves and the ones with anti-semitic/racial/homosexual biases become really violent.
Like this one time , he interviewed a pastor who was also a "gay converter" say that it was forbidden in God's word to eat copious amounts of chocolate and to have brunch with friends. "As long as you have brunch with your Christian friends, that's fine... but if you have brunch leading to homosexual activities, that's nicht nicht. Another time , he made a rodeo bar full of cowboys and girls sing along with him to a racist (but catchy) song of "Throw the Jew down the well/ so my country can be free." But you guys should see it for yourself.
Although he makes really bad Jew jokes, gay jokes, women jokes, Kazakh jokes, Sacha Baron Cohen is actually a Jew... (but he's not gay nor is he a woman or Kazakh...).. it's all subtle smiting at its best-est. Like a social critique only with props and lots of jelloid man-wrestling and noisy expletives. And that's what's so COOL about it.
Right now, though, Borat's got a ton of lawsuits against him from parties alleging they'd been exploited or had lost their jobs because of Borat's wild antics (the frat boys and the high-society Southern woman, to name a few). He's even got the REAL Kazakh government after him. And you know what he did? He aired a response , in full Borat regalia and his intentionally unwashed gray suit, and said he was in full support of the charges against Sacha Baron Cohen (him!).
Basically, what I'm trying to say is that what he's doing, making the film and all and never missing a beat when he's in character, takes some BALLS. And, if the scene of naked wrestling and the shot of him in a neon green manhood-clutching thong stands testimony, he's got some BIG-ASS BALLS on him.