Charles Petzold analyzes Borat

Charles Petzold has posted a small analysis of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. He makes some good points about the movie, and the way that Borat can make anyone look bad, but concludes by saying "Obviously, Borat might be much funnier if you resist analyzing it".

I think this last line applies to many films. I'm kind of a movie freak, and I have a pretty broad taste. I like classic master pieces, independent movies, but also action films and the lighter comedy that is often frowned upon by connaisseurs. Not every movie has the same purpose. I can really enjoy a good thriller, an epic movie with a great cast, but sometimes I just want cheap laughter and fart jokes.

I think Borat: CLoAfMBGNoK was a great comedy, that obviously wants to shock people, in a Jackass kind of way. His hate towards Jews and his ignorance is sometimes hillarious (especially if you know that the actor is Jewish himself). The fighting scene with his producer will probably make some people very uneasy (especially macho types), but I thought it was hillarious. I have been to the movies a lot, but I have never experienced the entire audience laughing so hard with a particular scene.

What do you guys think about the movie?

I've made a point of avoiding it to be honest. Cohen has been somewhat over-exposed here, especially in his Ali G incarnation and there's a thin line between laughing WITH people and laughing AT them. I have no interest in the latter, and for me Cohen crosses the line far too often.

Of course the media here, desperate to appear "cool" keep pointing out how the joke is on those who criticise Cohen. His racism, and in particular his anti-Semitism is "acceptable" because he himself is Jewish. And yet when you get a "closet" gay MP voting against gay marriage the world is up in arms. Where's the difference?

Now of course the press are hinting that Cohen has a hidden agenda. They point out he wrote several papers on racism at university and is therefore considered an "expert" on the subject. His films aren't just comedy, but "clever" insights into the whole subject or racism. Yeah, right!

Well, sorry to disagree, but the humour is dumb for the most part. Sure it's hard not to laugh at times, but it encourages the mean kind of humour that is all too prevalent in our society today in my view.

What's really sad is the way Cohen is just repeating the same simple joke over and over and over again. He appeared on a chat show over here last week (Jonathan Ross BBC 1) supposedly in character, but all we got was the same stand-up act we've seen from him countless times before ("You want see pictures of my girlfriend?") - no other "comedian" would be allowed to get away with just performing their stand-up act on Ross' chat show, but Cohen gets away with it because of the hype he's built up.

If you want to see how clever he really is go see the Ali G movie he made (it's REALLY REALLY bad!). His Borat character was a great idea for a half-hour TV show, but we've had endless episodes of him and although I haven't seen the movie, I've seen enough excerpts to think "I saw all that in his TV show".

It'll be interesting to see what he does after his next film (featuring the gay Bruno character doing what Borat does for racists, but for homophobes) because he doesn't seem to have anything else up his sleeve other than those three characters, all of whom have been over-exposed by now.

irascian wrote:

Well, sorry to disagree, but the humour is dumb for the most part. Sure it's hard not to laugh at times, but it encourages the mean kind of humour that is all too prevalent in our society today in my view.

You're right, the humour is usually dumb, but like you said: it's hard not to laugh at times. And that's why I went to see the movie last saturday. I didn't go watch it to be intellectually stimulated. I just wanted a laugh. And I had more than 1 laugh.

irascian wrote:

If you want to see how clever he really is go see the Ali G movie he made (it's REALLY REALLY bad!).

I trust your judgement on this, and don't have to see his Ali G movie. The Ali G character has its moments, but it's not really my cup of tea.

Cohen is making hay while the sunshines, this is the last outing for Borat as the char has been around since '97 so he's obvious going out with as much exposure as he can ... and why not?!

Cohen has also made strides in writting recently and I believe that this will be the direction he will now take after the Borat Buzz has calm down.

Have any of you any idea were Borat's village is You know what music is on the soundtrack ? I am rather embarassed knowing

irascian wrote:

there's a thin line between laughing WITH people and laughing AT them. I have no interest in the latter, and for me Cohen crosses the line far too often.

Yeah, I do like both "Ali G" and "Borat", but sometimes the humour seems to be caused by laughing at someone, which isn't really just. I wouldn't like to be laughed at, so I expect the people on these shows don't either.

Angus Higgins

well for me the borat movie is something like a field experiment. petzold's comment at the top of his post is relatively valid, i'd say though: those people appearing in the movie were caught by suprise and were completely unsuspicious at first. that in itself creates an imbalance. but i say this is exactly the method of borat's experiment.
cohen once (i think it was on late night with conan o' brien) said that the only way to a) get together with the people he wanted to meet for his borat "series" / movie  and b) to have them lower their defences is to create selfconciousness and unsuspiciousness (??) so his interviewees wouldn't act but rather say whay they actually think.
that said, personally i don't think that we shouldn't elevate borat's work near the realms of science. i think he just tries to expose some of the traits of a few individuals (i don't mean this in a pegiorative way) living in certain parts of the country which might be fun to watch for people in other parts of the country with different backgrounds and, of course, especially non-US viewers.
for me it's basically like with political caricatures in newspapers. they hurt and even offend some people (see recent incident with the mohammed caricatures), they make others laugh a bit but if you distill their content down to the one or two essential things you might gain some insight - let it even be biased insight - into an area you might not have see that way before. the key to understanding the movie and not being offended by it even if you are a US citizen is to realize that borat doesn't offend the nation. a movie by a comedian is too insignificant for that. he merely takes a look at various individuals who sometimes do exhibit a strange attitude, sometimes don't.

http://www.ikissyou.org/   Claims Borat idea was stolen from his website.

Borat is funny in that cringing kind of voyeristic type of humour... for a couple of minutes... but there is only so far you can go with the one joke, and a movie is WAAAAYY too far.

MB, thank you so much. I've seen this site a few years ago, and I've been searching it this week. I knew Borat looked very familiar.