Borat (2006) - LightShed 5

People were crazy to see Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.  Theaters were packed. 

And have you seen the average critics rating for Borat?  The average is A- according to Yahoo!Movies.  That means the critics think the movie is "almost perfect."  I would certainly not go that far, but the movie is good.  You will laugh hard, even if self-consciously and with guilt, quite a few times.

In Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen plays an idiot from Kazakhstan.  He is sent to the U.S. to survey the way of life of the American people for a Kazakhstani TV show.  He arrives in NY and after watching an episode of Baywatch, he falls in love with Pamela Anderson.  He goes on a quest from NY to L.A. to find her and marry her.

The movie is not a substantial improvement over the Borat skits you see on the Ali G series (which you can watch on DVD).  I actually like the disconnected skits, so, I think that trying to give the movie a plot was not really necessary.  Jackass worked out great without a plot.

Borat is deeply disturbing and deeply disturbed.  He is full of prejudice against a lot of people, but he clearly concentrates on the Jews.  I think Sacha chose the Jews as a big target because he is Jewish himself and thinks that that gives him some sort of license...Some people say his jokes would not be funny if he were not Jewish.  And I have to agree, but does that give him a license to make fun of other groups as well?  Should Gays, people of African descent, and women be offended since Sacha is not gay, black or female?

In this kind of movie, the light on the gays would be positive if the main character (Borat) was actually homophobic.  Remember, he is an idiot.  Completely clueless.  Every single thing he does and thinks is wrong.  So, were he to like gays, or be gay himself (even worse), would actually work against us.  That's my theory anyway.  That of course needs to be coupled with movie-goers actually having some sense of right and wrong to be able to tell that the joke is on the racist, homophobic and intolerant.  The whole thing is a harsh criticism.  Right?  And people should be able to see that.

Having said that, my assessment of the movie's gay content is actually slightly positive, although I am still a little unsure about that.  My biggest concern on the matter was voiced by The New York Times: "some people are too stupid and too racist to understand that the joke is on them".  And that might very well be true.  I don't doubt there will be copycats playing out Borat's ignorance like that was something to be proud of.

Anyway, we did have quite a bit of gay content, which I will discuss after the jump.

[SPOILER AHEAD]

On his way to L.A. Borat first stops in Washington, D.C.  There, Borat hooks up with gay guys at the D.C. Pride Parade, and after the parade we see that he goes back to his hotel room with a few gay guys.  And there's fisting involved. 

Since Borat is so clueless, I guess it's not that surprising that Borat does not see his homosexual hook up as being a gay activity.  So that is kind of weird and a little negative (Borat, the idiot, is gay).  I guess that with some stretch you could think of Borat as a bad case of closeted bisexual, you may think of him as being affectionate with women but liking sex with both men and women.  Granted, in a few of the times in which he's had sex with men, he actually believed he was picking up women.  And his explanation is that women in Kazakhstani look like men.

Also, there's a very funny and disgusting naked fight between Borat and his producer Azamat, played by Ken Davitian.  It's really repulsive.  For me it was repulsive because the two guys were just disgusting.  I don't know if most straight guys would feel the naked fight was disgusting for the same reason though.  I think that for straight guys the disgust will stem more from the guy-on-guy part.  So again, a little negative.  You will laugh though.  I did, and felt sort of guilty.

But I decided to give the movie a positive light because of one particular scene.  Borat goes through middle-America on his journey to meet with Pamela Anderson.  On one of his few stops he is supposed to sing his national anthem in a rodeo.  Just before he goes into the rodeo to sing, an older redneck racist cowboy is suggesting Borat should change his appearance so that he doesn't look like a terrorist.  As a way of thanking the cowboy and saying goodbye, Borat moves to kiss him and the cowboy pushes him away saying that that is something left to the gay guys.  Borat is unsure about the meaning of the word "gay" and when he is made to understand the meaning of "gay", he says something like "oh hell no, in Kazakhstan we put them in prison and kill them." The redneck guy agrees with Borat and says something like "that's what we are trying to do here [in the US]." 

That was harsh, as harsh as Borat's stance on the Jews and woman and people of African descent.  So, in that sense, having two complete assholes being homophobic actually throws a positive light for us.  I hope people will be more likely to side with the gays than with those two idiots.  I hope.

Comments

[Queer Beacon]

;-)

[maria]

thanx.

and one more thing. as near-the-mark the film is, i found myself laughing madly at some points. as uncomfortable as some scenes are, how can you NOT laugh at non-pornographic naked wrestling????

[Queer Beacon]

I agree, Maria, the joke is on the bigots (that's why I gave the movie a LightShed score), but that fact is not clear to all (that's why the LightShed score was low).

Thanks for your comment ;-)

[maria]

i think its very easy to mis-understand baron-cohen's message. am i the only one who saw what he was really trying to do? he was showing you the narrow mindedness and darker side to middle america.
i was horrified at that cowboy, it got me so angry that in this day and age a person could be so medievel. i myself am a bi female, but even if i wasnt, i was disgusted. but not at sasha, at that cowboy. borat is simply a character who holds all of the owrlds worst opinions.

[Queer Beacon]

Hey Sean! I agree that people can't really be duped into being an asshole.

We just saw that in the Mel Gibson anti-Semetic rampage. To me, the alcohol just brought out the Jew-hating person that he is. That personality full of hatred is there already, dormant or tamed, alcohol or provocation just brings it out of hiding...

[Sean Wells]

BeatingBorat
Thought you would enjoy this because it is true and verifyable.
Blog Archive

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+ How I survived Borat

About Me

TheKarateGuy
Waco, Texas, US
I'm a martial artist with 35 years experience in Texas. My website is www.passmoreselfdefense.com I have another one which is www.niceninjas.org

View my complete profile

Saturday, November 18, 2006
How I survived Borat

I feel bad for those whom Borat tricked into being on his movie, but I don't believe some will win their law suits for it. To me (and please tell me why you agree or disagree) it's about integrity and character. You either have it or you don't. They were being themselves.

I was tricked into an interview on D Ali G's HBO show a couple of years ago. It was very well staged and even after qualifying them with an internet search, they appeared to be legitimate. We filmed for over 3 hours and he asked very racist and sexist questions. I just responded very honestly and tried to help him understand why the questions were not the way to treat people. Then he started attacking me!! On one attack, I put him in a choke hold and took him down. That's the one they showed over and over on HBO.

I mean, I was a complete sucker! I bought it hook, line and sinker. Boy, did I feel like a fool. But, it was all in good fun and I can enjoy a good joke, even if it was at my own expense.
The episode I was on was in season 2: guide to hobbies (I think, I'll check and make sure).
You can see it by going to youtube and looking for the hobbies segment. Or, go to http://youtube.com/watch?v=Rq5lWasddGq

You can also read a follow up interview I did with his fan club at www.webgeordie.co.uk/borat/behindscenes.htm

If you're really into this, please answer me this: Do you think anyone would be interested in reading a short book or booklet about beating borat? I've written a book before about emotional self defense. It's like a book on how to develop integrity and character as well as how to spot potentially abusive relationships and physical dating self defense techniques. Anyway, I thought I could call this book: Beating Borat: The Survival of Integrity in America.

Tell me your thoughts. I really want to know. Thanks

Posted by TheKarateGuy at 12:59 PM 0 comments

Labels: Movies

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*By the way I found out The Karate Guy is Really Grand Master Danny Passmore of Waco,TX and his website is http://passmoreselfdefense.com and his e-mail is on there too and I contacted him and bought his book positive defensive behavior ... I honestly have never read a book like this before it was really good.

[Queer Beacon]

Hey RIC. That's a start!

[RIC]

CONGRATS!!!
DIVINE VICTORY!!!
I'm very, very happy for you all «over there»!!!
That's the way I like it!

[RIC]

... And the homophobic, stupid cowboy (what a concept behind this word...) was saying the plain truth: «put fags in prison».
The word of a fool is often the wisest one...
Thanks, Augusto!

[marcus]

LOL
This must be funny!
I wanna see it.
I'm goig to see Saw III today, any comment?