Larry Charles to direct Borat movie

yeah otm re:secret footage and story. agree that this had some laughs but felt like neither fish nor fowl. I would have preferred if it was all hidden cam/prank stuff (even if didnt all hold together with a coherent story), or if they just went all-in on making a narrative film that didnt interact with the 'real' world at all - most of the laughs for me were all from lines and bits during the 'story' parts anyway. the reality-doc conceit seems to have outlived its usefulness.

i thought the actress playing his daughter was really good, funnier than him most of the time in their scenes together tbh. (on that note, giuliani obviously just tucking in his shirt but w/e, still a dirtymind creep in that scene.)

By the way, any guess what the set up pitch to hang with the Qanon dudes could have been, to explain the cameras? Those guys seemed too good to be true.

p sure they were actors - it's not plausible that they'd take in a complete stranger AND a film crew during the pandemic, especially for five days.

I think the story element is key to this*. He seems to have only been motivated to make another Borat in order to be about the intersection of Trumpism / QAnon / child trafficking / sexual exploitation by male power structures, not because he had a strong motivation to use the character for a bunch of unconnected prank sketches. Nearly every setpiece runs on those themes, and most of them lead to another sequence, instead of being lightly strung together with B-roll of his car driving (or w/e it was in the first one?).




*first movie credited four w/ screenplay, three of those +1 on story, and 8 longtime comedy writers get "thanks" for, presumably, punch-up or breaking story in a writers' room. new one has the same four on screenplay, plus another four on screenplay, three of those +1 on story, and at least 31 notable comedy writers, many of whom are major studio directors or TV showrunners, in the "thanks."

the intersection of Trumpism / QAnon / child trafficking / sexual exploitation by male power structures

In some ways it is (ironically) kind of subtle about this, imo. For example, it takes plenty of shots at Trump, but they're almost always fleeting or indirect by way of those themes you underscored. Which is to say, it's kind of a bait and switch, in that Trump looms over the whole thing (like everything) so you think he's the ultimate target, but it's not really about Trump. In that sense it's probably prescient, and certainly ahead of the curve, in illustrating what will surely be the enduring, pervasive problem of Trumpism itself, even when the man himself is gone.

The thing I mentioned about the QAnon guys being too good to be true, it really would have been great if they *were* real (assuming they aren't). I don't remember much about the first movie, but I do remember it showing, however unintentionally, that ignorant or uneducated or horrible people in the end can still be generous, friendly, patient and polite even in the face of Cohen's exploitation of said characteristics for laughs. In this one, you get the babysitter and the Holocaust survivors as moral anchors, and also the hapless but patient guys at the cell phone place and the FAX station. Could he really have found an equivalent kindness or acceptance among the armed right wing loonies, or is the level of anger and distrust too great? I have no idea. Certainly the All Gas, No Brakes guy is kind of doing his own Borat in that atmosphere, but he's threatened all the time in his bits, iirc.

Incidentally, now I'm wondering who else must/might have been "in on it." Certainly after the fact, since there weren't many blurred faces. But the babysitter ... was she a set up? I wish not, but same thing, how did they explain the cameras?

My favorite joke, by the way, was one that was off camera, when that person had to count out $20,000 in small bills.

this didn't do much for me

My wife kept asking about the cameras and my assumption is that the cameras are so small in 2020 that they were hidden. Is that a dumb assumption given the quality of the footage?

Regardless, the more I thought about this the less I liked it. It's only strength is in showing the regressive elements (Q, anti-semitism, anti-science, etc.) lying barely below American conservatism, which isn't much of a strength given you can just read Trump's twitter feed instead. And yes, AGNB does this straighter, better, with more humor and humanity.

the whole thing of the first one was seeing mask off racism in America, which...uh... isn't exactly novel these days

i was going to watch this but apparently it's only available to amazon prime members?

I won't see this as I dislike the reactionary comedian sasha baron cohen and his racist character borat but sic's description sounds like they better realised the part that really sunk the first film for me (aside from just not finding it that funny, after the insane 'most hilarious film ever made, you will throw up your spleen with mirth' critical hyperbole) - the plausible deniability irony cloak relies so much on the ambush comedy aspect but the biggest chunk is the story part so the audience is mainly laughing at *extremely brown guy voice* maaaa waaf lol I'm a barbaric Asian who hates women and Jews wawaweewa but fyi there is no racial aspect to this please never look up the demographics of Kazakhstan on wikipedia yeah baby yeah

Borat is a racist depiction?

Speaking of which, there were the usual specific warnings under the rating as the movie started, and they included "Sexuality, drug use, foul language, nudity, blackface." Was there drug use? Was there blackface?

buddy

I meant literally, as it's (still too) commonly depicted. Oh, wait, there's the picture of Trudeau! That's why the warning is there.

The blackface was the Justin Trudeau picture.

wins otm

I mean clearly there is a US/UK divide here given the confused face ppl are making when we bring this up, but if you look at the thread ‘borat upsetting people’ this isn’t new. Can’t think of a single reason Americans might have a blind spot here obv

Fun fact also, Cohen isn’t American he’s welsh

Welsh/Israeli, born in London.

who thought he was American?

Got me.

Incidentally, while I have never been to Kazakhstan, I *have* been to Uzbekistan, which has I think somewhat similar demographics to Kazakhstan, and he (predictably) does not really look or sound like anyone I met there at all. He does, however, kind of remind me of the folks I met in Albania, who were among the nicest, friendliest, most welcoming people I've met anywhere. I never thought of his depiction as being specific enough to be racist, though it is a generally, generically offensive ethnic/foreigner/other stereotype. Like Balki in "Perfect Strangers."

Nobody thinks he’s American just stressing the point that Cohen will not at all be unaware of the context through which we view these things. And also like, having contempt for racist American “white trash” and also for the backwards inhabitants of a central Asian country, these are not at all difficult positions for an oxbridge Brit to hold simultaneously

The general, generic specific country of Kazakhstan

um....Balki was a stereotype

One of these days I’ll let this board in to the problem with apu

xpost Balki was totally a stereotype! But a generic, generally offensive one. I think ostensibly he was from a fictional place in Greece? But there was absolutely nothing Greek about him. Whereas Apu is a very specific caricature of a very specific ethnicity. I suspect Sacha Baron Cohen picked Kazakhstan because most people know absolutely nothing about Kazakhstan, so any caricature would do.

I don't know, they're all offensive. That's the whole point.

phew!

seems relevant:

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20161028-what-kazakhstan-really-thought-of-borat

I had never read this before and what the fuck

The isolated Romanian village of Glod had been picked to stand in for Borat’s home town – and Borat’s ‘neighbours’ are actually Roma, the people who Borat derides as “gypsies” throughout the rest of the movie.

i would say about 70% of new movie...

... is nice

xpost Good article, thanks.

An interesting and germane anecdote for the thread. My daughter and I watched "Blazing Saddles" a few weeks ago. Obviously the intent of that movie *is* to offend, it's sort of the grandaddy of that sort of comedy. But when Mel Brooks showed up as a Yiddish-speaking Native American, that's where my daughter flat out said "that's inappropriate, it's cultural appropriation." I found it interesting that *that* was the one moment of being intentionally offensive that she found unforgivably offensive. I tried to contextualize it, the ridiculousness of the "Native Americans" clearly the Jews, with Brooks going full broad Catskills in Yiddish, but she wasn't quite buying it. Don't entirely know what to think of that, but good for her for being so aware as a teen.

And yet, we've been watching some Arrested Development, which I'd never regularly watched, and I am absolutely shocked at the persistent degree of cringe ironic racism, but my daughter hasn't said anything yet.

See also:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2006/nov/15/news

2xp

xpost yeah, the ironic racism is like a relic at this point

Excerpt from my L*tt*rb*xd review:

A lost transmission from the Mind of Mencia era to our strange new world. Just tonally different than, like, every piece of comedy made in the last half decade. Like hearing a new Pussycat Dolls song or something.

Nobody thinks he’s American just stressing the point that Cohen will not at all be unaware of the context through which we view these things. And also like, having contempt for racist American “white trash” and also for the backwards inhabitants of a central Asian country, these are not at all difficult positions for an oxbridge Brit to hold simultaneously

― Gab B. Nebsit (wins), Saturday, 24 October 2020 15:21 (forty-five minutes ago) link

Otm. ‘Borat’ is contemptible.

xpost yeah, the ironic racism is like a relic at this point

Excerpt from my L*tt*rb*xd review:

A lost transmission from the Mind of Mencia era to our strange new world. Just tonally different than, like, every piece of comedy made in the last half decade. Like hearing a new Pussycat Dolls song or something.

South Park actually had a really good reckoning with City Wok guy a few seasons ago

lol good for them. Did they decide herro egg flied lice was good or bad in the end

I wish I could find the clip online, it's p great. Season 19, ep 3 if you're bored

Not gonna look that up so I can only imagine what conclusion they draw after much soul searching, given our conclusion 5 minutes ago that racism is bad

I mean clearly there is a US/UK divide here

My God, yes, I can't believe in 2020 anyone's giving this loathsome arsehole any credit whatsoever. By the way, he isn't "Welsh/Israeli", he's English, just another privileged public school/Oxbridge twat of the type people in the UK are only too familiar with. Lest we forget:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/mar/17/punching-down-sacha-baron-cohen-and-working-class-cinema

public school

This will never not be weird to me.

public schools means something different in the uk, pom

I know.

And maths are pluralized.

Welsh/Israeli

He may be public school twat, but ... wasn't his dad Welsh and his mom Israeli?

English Public Schools: Lord Snooty + Billy Bunter + the compulsory wearing of blazers. American Public Schools: Bash Street Kids + compulsory wearing of military-standard body armour.

I disagree with you all, I found it to be quite masterful.

He may be public school twat, but ... wasn't his dad Welsh and his mom Israeli?

And he's English. His father grew up in Wales but is English too.

Whiney's "lost transmission" otm. Honestly the thing that caught me most off guard and really made it feel like something from another time is that he really cant seem to shake the gay-panic elements out of that character. All the peepee-poopoo-vagine jokes obviously feel like a relic from teen comedies of another era, but theres also a baseline homophobia to a lot of grossout stuff and its weird to me that Cohen still goes there.

Like obviously rudy's hand in the pants is the big news story, but as its depicted in the movie the part of the scene thats clearly intended to be the actual punchline, the big climactic "i cant believe he went there" belly laugh for the finale, wasnt rudy trying to fuck a reporter, but borat bursting in dressed in a bra and panties talking about having gay sex.

And like I get that a lot of those kinds of jokes are intended to be confronting bigots with extreme versions of their stereotypical fears or whatever. But idk, theres also no getting around the fact that at some level we're also clearly supposed to be laughing at the 'ridiculousness' of this guy, this craaazy coocoo-for-cocoapuffs Borat guy who's just so outrageous, talking about having sex with another guy, like can you even believe it folks??

Right after watching this we watched Dave Chappelle on the new Letterman show and he talked about the famous moment when he decided to quit Chappele's Show when he realized he was he was deluding himself about fighting racism while literally dressed up in minstrel makeup for white people to laugh at, it felt like kind of the same thing. I dont know if Cohen is as in-control of the satire as he thinks he is.

And yet, we've been watching some Arrested Development, which I'd never regularly watched, and I am absolutely shocked at the persistent degree of cringe ironic racism, but my daughter hasn't said anything yet.

― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, October 24, 2020 12:03 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

there was a lot of "ironic racism" in the 00's but borat took it to a new fucked up level by exploiting actual villagers in Romania, many of whom felt humiliated byhis portrayal of them:

https://abcnews.go.com/International/Entertainment/story?id=2659018&page=1#:~:text=The%20Romanian%20village%20of%20Glod,Cohen%20and%20his%20production%20company.

his sanctimonious excuse for this type of behavior -- that he is simply "exposing" the racial hatred of the american proletariat -- makes it worse.

And like I get that a lot of those kinds of jokes are intended to be confronting bigots with extreme versions of their stereotypical fears or whatever.

like i said, if anything, this aspect of borat makes it even more unbearable. he is profiting from racist and homophobic humor and yet retains the moral high ground by scapegoating his targets. and in the first borat, like, half of the people he targeted were actually bigoted iirc and the other half were just baffled by his antics and trying to be polite.

if he was just a racist comedian, like jeff dunham or something, he would be safely and rightly ignored. but instead he does the equivalent of the jeff dunham terrorist puppet routine but then goes around and gets interviewed by npr and the new york times and calmly explains that his purpose was to highlight the prejudice of american society -- that he has come to teach us, and to shame us. it's sociopathic basically.