Roger L. Simon: Sacha Wacha

My positive review of Sacha Cohen's Borat on Pajamas generated quite a discussion. A number of folks, many of whom evidently had not seen the movie, were angry with Cohen (and by extension me for praising him) for exploiting innocents from Romania to Texas. I see their point to some very minor extent. It's nice to be nice, I suppose. Only art isn't nice, particularly comic art. Aristophanes wasn't nice. Rabelais wasn't nice. And even Groucho wasn't nice to poor Margaret. He was brutal, in fact.

And Cohen is deadly serious in his brutality. But what fascinates me is how many people completely misconstrue him. I heard the same thing on Larry Elder's radio show the other night on my way home from work. Elder had seen the film and liked it, but some of listeners were registering the same PC objections I read on PJ. One woman was complaining that Borat was being anti-Semitic in his treatment of a kindly Jewish couple at a bed & breakfast, when it was Borat's primitive anti-Semitism itself that was being lampooned, not the couple. (The film goes so far as to show a crazed and terrified Borat throwing dollar bills at cockroaches he thinks are the incarnation of the kindly couple.)

It's almost as if these people didn't realize Borat was a satirical character and identified him one for one with the actor. Scary. Anyway, the film's popularity continues unabated. That's reassuring.

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OK I found the movie hilarious. If every one of those scenes had been scripted instead of being candidly captured, then I'd be in 100% agreement with you.

Remember the Picasso painting Guernica? A magnificent work of art, certainly. Was it worth the cost in human misery required to inspire its creation? Of course not. Would it have been worth one life? I'd say no to that also, though in a Joe Frank program one of his friends says that maybe it would have been worth it. Of course, the air strike wasn't Picasso's fault; he was taking advantage of something that was already a fact.

Borat is a different story. Of course, noone died or was physically hurt. Some property was damaged maliciously (though paid for). Reputations were shattered and people were taken advantage of. The difference here is that Sacha Baron Cohen harmed these people himself, specifically to create a work of art. Going back to Guernica, imagine if Picasso had paid the Nazis to attack specifically so he could get a good sense of the human misery of war for a great new painting he was working on.

Margaret Dumont was an actress. The producer of that local TV news program, the guests at the etiquette dinner, the people in that Romanian village, even those drunk, racist @*$hole kids in the winnebago, none of them had anything approaching informed consent. They were deceived and manipulated, then humiliated in front of millions of people.

I totally get what Cohen is trying to do. I paid my 10 bucks, laughed until my face was sore, and appreciated his point about the power of apathy to allow horrors to happen. I have very little empathy for some of the people who were humiliated (the guy in the rodeo and the kids in the winnebago come to mind); but what about the TV show producer whose career was ruined over it? What about the antique store owner, or that entire Romanian town? They were lied to, and their good names were destroyed.

As a reviewer, Roger, what I'm seeing is that your audience is reacting to you either ignoring or approving of Cohen's methods. I think that the methods he used to create the movie were unethical. It's just as simple as that. Sure killing people and humiliating them are on two totally different planes, but his methods were still wrong.

I also found the movie hilarious, but Wellspirng's point is well taken. A memorable line from The Simpsons captures it: On seeing some people get involved in an accident, he mutters, through his laughter, "I'm laughing 'cause I don't know them."
If any of his duped and innocent victims was my friend or relative, I would certainly feel a little differently about it.

I prefer when he takes on public/famous people, but if the "victim" is suckered into showing his true bigoted self rather than simply being made a fool of, I'm fine with that too, regardless of who it is (the elder cowboy and the shmucky kids in the RV, for example).

I grew up Jewish (now I'm "post-Jewish" and anti-religion of all kinds). I happen to have bright red hair, and sometimes, because people assume I'm Irish, they'll say ugly things about Jews. I think this is the same sort of thing, and I don't see a thing wrong with him exposing ugliness -- in fact, I think it's a righteous thing to do. If you're ugly inside, maybe that should come out. When ugly is kept under the rug, it's easier to maintain. I heard Larry Elder's show, too, and I thought his position was perfectly reasonable. If you're duped because you're mentally retarded, that's one thing. If you're duped because you're a hater...go Borat!

I agree entirely with Wellspring. I have two answers for Amy. First, the people at the dinner party were not humiliated because they were racist, they were humiliated because they wanted to help someone and made the mistake of helping a person of ill intent (Cohen).

The kids on the bus were mostly just stupid kids, products of their environment. Many many people think like them, they were taught to think the way they do, but they, personally, are made representative of aspects of a cultue we don't like. Which would be fine if they weren't real people, but they are.

Our anger at a culture is now focussed on them as individuals. Have you, or Roger, or any of Cohen's defenders thought about the real world consequences that will befall these kids simply because of the atmosphere in which they grew up?

A local reviewer who hated the movie (I laughed all the way through, even at the parts I'm offended by) summed up this objection well by pointing out this movie is not satire, it's exploitation:

"As Borat Sagdiyev, Cohen pretends to document the habits of fly-over America; his red state debauch ultimately pandering to Liberals' worst instincts...Borat doesn't dare degrade N.Y./L.A. media-centers or their social presumptions." (Armond White, New York Press.)

I'm not as smart as the reviewers in the PJ review. Just a plain old big city guy that had tears in my eyes from the laughing. My wife had to ask if I was okay a couple of times. Let them sue!!!

To all those brighter folks than me or is that I. I have a question??? I have watched all the interviews on the Ali G show and can't imagine if anybody showed up on my doorstep as a Staines Rapper or as a Kazakh Borat I would think they were for real.

So how do those super bright guys like Sam Donalson, Boutros Boutros Gali (sp) fall for them, let alone some stupid feminists in New York.

Lets see. Man with a camera wants to film you in this day and age. You know you're on camera and you either rise to the occaision (and are perhaps edited out) or you make a fool of yourself and millions pay good money in the hope of getting an hour plus of laughs and, for the most part, move on to something else once they've been, or not been, entertained. I was entertained and, in my view, if they can't take a joke...

Okay, the local news producer who's claiming she was fired... first of all, that's her allegation. We don't know the facts. But if she booked Borat on the local news show and didn't do her due diligence, checking out who he really was - one Google search would have done it - then she's incompetent. She's producing a TV news show!
The people at the dinner party? Humiliated? On the contrary, they came off as remarkably tolerant and gracious. I can't imagine taking a stranger into the bathroom and showing him proper toilet usage. So they ended the dinner party when the hooker showed up... who wouldn't?
The antique store owners... They asked him to pay up for all the stuff he broke. He obviously didn't have enough cash to compensate them, but they didn't take it any further. They just tossed him out. Again, who wouldn't?
The frat boys... Sorry, but being "products of their environment" just doesn't cut it. So are we all. It's 2006. You have to be living in a cave somewhere to think that attitude towards the opposite sex is acceptable. But if it is where they come from, why are they so humiliated?

I saw Borat with my sisters, one of whom said that nothing is sacred to such a good humorist. I disagree. Borat made no jokes at all about Islam or Communism, the two forces that have kept Kazakhstan ignorant and benighted. He wouldn't have dared to lampoon Mohammed. He's a coward and a twit. He just likes to embarrass people who take him for a sincere traveler. He winds up embarrassing his audience. I've noticed this trend lately. Adam Sandler, John Candy, Michael Moore and a bunch of other no-talent goofs think that saying somthing that embarrasses decent people is ipso facto uproariously funny. I barely laughed at all. I thought Borat was just an unfunny, obscene, poorly directed and vicious remake of "Moscow on the Hudson", right down to the ghetto kid "homey" jokes. Robin Williams has more comic talent in his little finger than Cohen does in what is generously called his mind. Pathetic.

I couldn't agree more. In fact, if anything, his humor is too cerebral for mainstream.

In BORAT, innocent people (in the sense of not being in on the joke) are deceived and humiliated before our eyes, and we laugh at them. Is this not the definition of schadenfreude?

Tim, I haven't seen the movie yet, and I don't think it's fair to use minors...still, if there's anything that can dislodge impacted racism, perhaps it's this?

If you behave unimpeachably -- ie, the same whether you know people are looking or not -- there's no embarrassment.

There are a lot of issues in this wild and crazy world we live in that I simply don't care about, don't have the time to think about and take a stand on. So I breeze through them on blogs and even in friendly discussions.

However, the extent of our evolving and humorless political correctness truly concerns me--no matter what issues it manifests itself in.

To wit, this Borat business is telling in how far we have come as a society in not being able laugh at ourselves and others. Oh yes.... others too. Because we often see ourselves in others more easily than in our self deluded selves.

When we lose our sense of humor, we are in deep, deep trouble. And I for one, reserve my inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of laughter (and gun ownership) no matter what the cost.

I'm with you, Webutante Jane...although, perhaps, self-servingly so, as my column gets dropped from newspapers when the humorless complain. For example, there was the time I suggested that a woman shouldn't gain an enormous quantity of weight then expect her husband to love her "for what's inside" (a dozen donuts, a...nevermind!). Anyway, my response started out:

Oh yeah, and there was the Ithaca Journal and the St. Cloud Times (daily papers being terrified of the angry letter), for:

And, then, of course, I'm banned from the LA Times, my local daily (I'm not kidding!...they sent me a letter), for making a joke about my breasts in a piece I once wrote for them -- a popular-with-readers piece -- about recovering my stolen pink Rambler:

Personally, I think if you aren't laughing, you aren't living. Just what the world needs is more dour-faced people who can't take a joke. PS When the joke's on me, I laugh, too.

Oh, PS I got FIRED from those papers -- Ithaca and St. Cloud -- for the bit about sex.

Laughed a lot at Borat... and thought most (but obviously not all) of his unwitting co-stars sustained some semblence of their dignity. But there's a big subject that hasn't come up here: money.

Bottom line here is that Borat is on track to gross about $200 million at the box office and then take hundreds of millions more in DVD, broadcast and other ancilary areas. Sacha Baron Cohen will make millions, the producers of the film (most of whom are well-known Hollywood establishment types like Jay Roach) will make millions more, and 20th Century Fox will make many many more millions. Meanwhile Cohen's co-stars are getting a few hundred dollars -- or less -- each.

The compensation these duped people got -- after signing releases presented before them under false pretenses -- was stingy even if the film had wound up playing art houses and church basements rather than becoming a worldwide hit. If actors had been hired to play the parts they played, each of those actors would have been paid thousands of dollars. And besides supplying thier "acting" talents, these people also supplied sets, set decoration, catering, and a lot of improvised dialog. They deserve to get a lot more money then they have.

I don't know how robust the releases signed by these co-stars were or if any of them have viable legal cases against the production. But considering this films astonishing financial success, the producers should be writing anyone whose unwitting involvement contributed to that success a generous check simply out of decency.

In the UK the hot new pastime among Ali G's peers is "Happy slapping." Set up a confederate shooting video, usually from a mobile phone. Then grab someone at random and hit them. Usually with an open hand, but not always. If they do nothing, you stand and laugh at them. If they defend themselves you edit off your initial response and sue them and take their house.

That's what Borat is. Insult someone at random, if they don't respond escalate. If they STILL don't respond, you have "Comedy Gold". If they do, you have "Comedy Platinum."

I hope the people who are suing him take every cent he has. Until then, the only good way to respond to him is the way the guy does in NY - just run away.

Given that the status of Picasso's 'Guernica' painting as a work of art was raised, I feel it necessary to point out that the painting was a work of political propaganda; a deliberate distortion. In carrying out a high-altitude bombing raid, the Condor Legion accepted that innocent civilians, and quite possibly some cattle and horses, would be killed, but the target was not a farming community, as I presumed from viewing the image, but an industrial city. The purpose of the attack was to destroy the factory from which much of the armament of the Loyalist forces was coming.

Wellspring assumes a great deal, as none of the allegations against Baron Cohen & Co made by any of the complainants has been proven.

I'd be curious to find out how the pay to the various Romanian extras compares to the compensation extras in other countries compares. Possibly, the three or four UK pounds is comparable to the current going rate. I certainly don't know. As for the indignation about "being made fun of" now being expressed by the Romanians, the facts are that as the town is a stand-in for a non-existant locale in Khzakstan and the locals themselves call the place "Mud", just who is making fun of whom?

How much of the contraversy is actually about Baron Cohen "exploiting" the supposedly hapless and how much arises from the fact that he's a Jew playing a Muslim and making pots of money out of his schtick remains to be seen.

November 16, 2006: Sacha Wacha

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