Well, he's playing a cartoon character based on a comedic stereotype of a nationality that most people today don't know that much about. Which was also true of Mickey Rooney 60 years ago
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020)
- swo17
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Re: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020)
The original British TV series also played into a genre that is fairly popular in the UK - of personalities (either comedians or documentary filmmakers, i.e. Louis Theroux) going to America and 'discovering' how strange and weird it is.MichaelB wrote: ↑Wed Oct 28, 2020 7:53 am(Although, that said, a lot of the original Borat material was filmed in the US, albeit intended for British consumption - I suspect SBC calculated that Americans would be more likely to be polite and accommodating towards even the most outrageous behaviour, provided it could be explained away as being "foreign". I'm not convinced that that formula would work quite as well in Britain.)
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Re: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020)
It seems to me that the crucial distinction is that Mickey Rooney was sincerely trying to play a convincing Japanese character (even if he missed by miles, by his own subsequent admission), whereas Sacha Baron Cohen is deliberately playing a "generic foreigner" who very pointedly has pretty much nothing in common with a typical Kazakh. And there's no "cultural appropriation" because I don't think he's appropriated anything authentically Kazakh apart from the country's name - indeed, I suspect he's been very careful not to do so. (I gather his "Kazakh" is a combination of Polish and Hebrew, which of course sounds nothing like actual Kazakh.)
And there's also a question of motivation: at his most effective, Borat exposed racism - I'm thinking of him persuading people to join him in a rousing chorus of "Throw the Jew Down the Well". So trying to lump him together with someone in blackface seems ever so slightly wide of the mark - or rather, if you can fairly compare him to a blackface performance at all, it's with Robert Downey Jr's in Tropic Thunder, which was also used to make a specifically anti-racist point.
And there's also a question of motivation: at his most effective, Borat exposed racism - I'm thinking of him persuading people to join him in a rousing chorus of "Throw the Jew Down the Well". So trying to lump him together with someone in blackface seems ever so slightly wide of the mark - or rather, if you can fairly compare him to a blackface performance at all, it's with Robert Downey Jr's in Tropic Thunder, which was also used to make a specifically anti-racist point.
Yes, that's an excellent point.
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Re: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020)
Really? I haven't read much on the subject but I always assumed he was going for comedy, and did just find this quote from a Google search:
Mickey Rooney wrote:Blake Edwards, who directed the picture, wanted me to do it because he was a comedy director. They hired me to do this overboard, and we had fun doing it.
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Re: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020)
A part of Kazakhstan is considered to be in Europe.
Culturally it's tied to Russia; ethnically central Asian traditionally, but as noted, lots of Russians and others Europeans throughout the Soviet Empire were brought in. Borat is certainly not playing an Asian in the way you mean. He's just a euro-Kazakhstani, inasmuch as he's from there. It's more a generic poor country that's backward and prejudiced.
Otherwise, I think that if you support blacks and gays and other minorities, you can be much more easily forgiven a transgression, than if you commit the same while being racist and discriminatory. Context and intentions matter.
Culturally it's tied to Russia; ethnically central Asian traditionally, but as noted, lots of Russians and others Europeans throughout the Soviet Empire were brought in. Borat is certainly not playing an Asian in the way you mean. He's just a euro-Kazakhstani, inasmuch as he's from there. It's more a generic poor country that's backward and prejudiced.
Otherwise, I think that if you support blacks and gays and other minorities, you can be much more easily forgiven a transgression, than if you commit the same while being racist and discriminatory. Context and intentions matter.
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Re: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020)
I don't know if the Europe/Asia distinction really matters as much as some of you think it does. See nearly every Arab or Persian role in Hollywood history.
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Re: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020)
I suppose I am not seeing the distinction here. Help me parse this out.
The stereotype seems to be of a Eastern European and not indigenous Kazakhstani people, which is why I used the term 'citizen' (approximately 30% of Kazakhstanis are not indigenous Kazakhstanis). I simply laid out how his "cartoon" character could work within the context of Kazakhstan, and isn't analogous to the Rooney example given in the original post I was responding to. It just struck me too that most (all?) of the people you see in his home village are not asiatic, but of Slavic descent. I think that aids the joke anyway because as you noted, westerners don't know anything about Kazakhstan, and anyone who does, knows that most Kazakhstanis don't look, act, or speak like Borat. Further, I think that in a way helps Cohen get around any perceived racism. He isn't doing "black face"(or Rooney) here.
Agreed. Intention and previous work/action is important in this analysis.Otherwise, I think that if you support blacks and gays and other minorities, you can be much more easily forgiven a transgression, than if you commit the same while being racist and discriminatory. Context and intentions matter.
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Re: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020)
She's the film's standout - I barely remembered that anyone could be so decent.
- knives
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Re: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020)
She really is just impressively good though it’s her normalcy that takes me back.
- whaleallright
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Re: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020)
You really have to be a bit special to pull something like this off, engaging in elaborate deceptions —with the marks being not only the obvious ghouls, but some decent people. That's not exactly a criticism, just an observation. I certainly wouldn't have it in me, whatever "it" is.
As for the Kazakh thing. The character (and the mythos SBC has developed around him) is an amalgam of stereotypes—including of people from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The actual nation of Kazakhstan has nothing to do with it, even less than Ruritarian fantasies have anything to do with a specific country from central Europe. Indeed, Borat's place of origin was chosen precisely because 99% of British and American folks know essentially nothing about it, or any other country in Central Asia for that matter (remember the late, lamented Herman Cain's dismissal of "Uzbekibekibekibekistanstan" in 2016?). Indeed, I imagine SBC knew little about Kazakhstan either—just that it was sort of a "blank slate" for his audience. Also, choosing it meant, as folks point out above, avoiding some of the minefields of ethnic and racial insensitivities prominent in Europe or America. (It would have been awkward to locate the character from a place, like Azerbaijan, recently embroiled in sectarian strife, or of an ethnicity, like Polish or Pakistani, prominently represented in the British Isles.) J. Hoberman has written extensively about how some of Borat's shtick derives from stereotypes of Jews, or even from actual Jewish and Israeli culture. Borat's spoken language, which is definitely neither Kazakh nor Russian, often incorporates Hebrew words and Hebrew-sounding phonemes.
The fact that there is a real country of Kazakhstan that might have something to say about any of this was probably not much on SBC's mind when he first came up with the character in the mid-'90s. To a great extent, that fact is inconvenient for the Borat mythos, and every time SBC tries to incorporate the actual country and its politics into it, the satire seems to become much more pedestrian and toothless, like Austin Powers or something.
To me, SBC's shtick is at its funniest when it tests the limits that people will go to remain hospitable and avoid confrontation—which is more a satire of civilization than of any particular political ideology. Occasionally he hits the motherlode, as with that Republican state legislator whom he goaded to run around screaming epithets with his pants down. That was good TV. But generally, American politics is so brazenly broken and malevolent that Borat's "exposure" of it has, for the last five years if not longer, seemed pretty redundant.
As for the Kazakh thing. The character (and the mythos SBC has developed around him) is an amalgam of stereotypes—including of people from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The actual nation of Kazakhstan has nothing to do with it, even less than Ruritarian fantasies have anything to do with a specific country from central Europe. Indeed, Borat's place of origin was chosen precisely because 99% of British and American folks know essentially nothing about it, or any other country in Central Asia for that matter (remember the late, lamented Herman Cain's dismissal of "Uzbekibekibekibekistanstan" in 2016?). Indeed, I imagine SBC knew little about Kazakhstan either—just that it was sort of a "blank slate" for his audience. Also, choosing it meant, as folks point out above, avoiding some of the minefields of ethnic and racial insensitivities prominent in Europe or America. (It would have been awkward to locate the character from a place, like Azerbaijan, recently embroiled in sectarian strife, or of an ethnicity, like Polish or Pakistani, prominently represented in the British Isles.) J. Hoberman has written extensively about how some of Borat's shtick derives from stereotypes of Jews, or even from actual Jewish and Israeli culture. Borat's spoken language, which is definitely neither Kazakh nor Russian, often incorporates Hebrew words and Hebrew-sounding phonemes.
The fact that there is a real country of Kazakhstan that might have something to say about any of this was probably not much on SBC's mind when he first came up with the character in the mid-'90s. To a great extent, that fact is inconvenient for the Borat mythos, and every time SBC tries to incorporate the actual country and its politics into it, the satire seems to become much more pedestrian and toothless, like Austin Powers or something.
To me, SBC's shtick is at its funniest when it tests the limits that people will go to remain hospitable and avoid confrontation—which is more a satire of civilization than of any particular political ideology. Occasionally he hits the motherlode, as with that Republican state legislator whom he goaded to run around screaming epithets with his pants down. That was good TV. But generally, American politics is so brazenly broken and malevolent that Borat's "exposure" of it has, for the last five years if not longer, seemed pretty redundant.
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Re: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020)
Well, this sounds truly awful:
https://www.thewrap.com/debunking-borat ... theorists/
https://www.thewrap.com/debunking-borat ... theorists/
For a new documentary short series called “Debunking Borat,” the “Borat” filmmakers meet up with Jim and Jerry again, and they sit them down with experts who try and debunk the conspiracies they believe and explain the ways they’ve been misled and misinformed. And a first teaser for the series shows that Jim and Jerry even come face to face with none other than Hillary Clinton herself.
“Debunking Borat” is a six-part documentary short special featuring Borat’s two roommates, and each episode focuses on a different idea that they shared with Baron Cohen during the course of the film. Among the conspiracies they hope to debunk are whether the vaccine includes a microchip, whether mail-in ballots were a scam, whether the coronavirus was manufactured in China, whatever is going on with Bill Gates and George Soros, and most of all the Clintons.
Baron Cohen has said on numerous occasions that he got to know Jim and Jerry well over the five days that he remained quarantined with them, and though they’re friendly people, he observed how they’ve been led down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories spread through social media. The new special aims to bring them back to reality.
- therewillbeblus
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Re: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020)
Jesus, it's like they took Baron Cohen's humanist position towards these guys that highlighted their morals divorced from specific beliefs and decided, 'Nah, we're gonna shift our focus and condescend to our opinions of their faults, and play like we're doing them a favor as progressive saviors'. Sounds about right.
- Never Cursed
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Re: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020)
Reminds me of the one time Jimmy Kimmel did a video of health care workers insulting people who refused to take the COVID vaccine. Obviously everyone should get the shot, but this kind of self-righteous posturing (expressed both in the video and the Borat show description):
1. Does nothing to convince skeptics to get the vaccines. As Brexit and Trump taught us, there is no worse a strategy for a certain type of collective action than for a bunch of people who can be coded as "elites" or "intellectuals" to get on the soapbox, flaunt their fancy (expensive) college degrees, and condescend to the imbecilic plebs.
2. Isn't even really intended as a PSA - it's at least as much an exercise in self-righteousness.
No wonder Hillary is included among the participants. What a crock of shit.
1. Does nothing to convince skeptics to get the vaccines. As Brexit and Trump taught us, there is no worse a strategy for a certain type of collective action than for a bunch of people who can be coded as "elites" or "intellectuals" to get on the soapbox, flaunt their fancy (expensive) college degrees, and condescend to the imbecilic plebs.
2. Isn't even really intended as a PSA - it's at least as much an exercise in self-righteousness.
No wonder Hillary is included among the participants. What a crock of shit.
- furbicide
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Re: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020)
Oh wow, I hadn't seen that Kimmel video; it really couldn't be more tone-deaf if it tried. "Look at all of my diplomas", lol.
- hearthesilence
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Re: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020)
I agree it's not helpful, but bear in mind that a lot of doctors got a TON of hostile shit from people from the very beginning, especially Trump cultists, and I know this from friends of mine who have been harassed for doing their job ethically and well. I even have a former colleague who's been giving friends who are trying to help him the same conspiracy shit, and sadly his extremely condescending attitude is on the "nicer" side of the spectrum. So in that context, it's likely anti-vaxxers would have that negative opinion of doctors regardless, and having this bit is more of a chance of allowing doctors to let out steam. It can't be anything but stressful and aggravating to have people do whatever abusive shit they want towards you out of willful ignorance and paranoia, and then being forced to suffocate your reaction into a milquetoast response out of professional obligations.Never Cursed wrote: ↑Thu May 20, 2021 8:31 pmReminds me of the one time Jimmy Kimmel did a video of health care workers insulting people who refused to take the COVID vaccine. Obviously everyone should get the shot, but this kind of self-righteous posturing (expressed both in the video and the Borat show description):
1. Does nothing to convince skeptics to get the vaccines. As Brexit and Trump taught us, there is no worse a strategy for a certain type of collective action than for a bunch of people who can be coded as "elites" or "intellectuals" to get on the soapbox, flaunt their fancy (expensive) college degrees, and condescend to the imbecilic plebs.
Last edited by hearthesilence on Fri May 21, 2021 12:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
- therewillbeblus
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Re: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020)
The most irritating aspect of that Kimmel video is the doctor who complains that he will be paying off student debt for the rest of his life. Yeah, while living a life of luxury most of us will never know, especially some of the working class conservatives you're condescending to, you poor soul.
That video triggered an impulse in me not get the vaccine just to spite that crew, so I can't imagine how well it went over on the general public
That video triggered an impulse in me not get the vaccine just to spite that crew, so I can't imagine how well it went over on the general public
- hearthesilence
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Re: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020)
This is also condescending to them on the same level. A lot of doctors do make high salaries, but "living a life of luxury most of us will never know, especially some of the working class conservatives you're condescending to" also seems to suggest a lot of wrong things:therewillbeblus wrote: ↑Fri May 21, 2021 12:04 pmThe most irritating aspect of that Kimmel video is the doctor who complains that he will be paying off student debt for the rest of his life. Yeah, while living a life of luxury most of us will never know, especially some of the working class conservatives you're condescending to, you poor soul.
That video triggered an impulse in me not get the vaccine just to spite that crew, so I can't imagine how well it went over on the general public
1) besides paying off enormous loans, residents make pretty modest salaries in the beginning, they don't enjoy that "life of luxury" all that quickly
2) not all doctors indulge in a life of luxury, especially if they're dedicating their life to humanitarian endeavors, and it would seem especially arrogant if someone like that has his pleas/advice dismissed or attacked due to that presumption
3) becoming a doctor can be pretty fucking hard, even if you're already a brilliant, hard-working straight-A student! So if they get a high salary out of it, it's not like they inherited it or coasted into it without dedicating more hours and experiencing more academic and professional pressure (like not wanting people to die under your hand) than most people will ever know.
- therewillbeblus
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Re: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020)
Trust me, I have close friends who are in the field and I'm not suggesting that their salaries are not earned, or that they're sky-high from the get-go, or that they all choose a path of materialist measurements of success. I didn't go into viewing the video with a chip on my shoulder, my point is that this doctor in particular is issuing a self-pitying statement that discounts his privileges- or opportunities- as a doctor by stressing his socioeconomic problems while condescending to others. If you're gonna have a case of the Poor Me's, maybe know your audience, and when your audience is likely 95%+ making less than you, don't make it about money problems.
Your counterargument is too broad in attempting to usurp the value of my specific critique, and your third point is altogether focusing on other things they said like about "saving lives" and such, none of which I'm taking issue with.
Your counterargument is too broad in attempting to usurp the value of my specific critique, and your third point is altogether focusing on other things they said like about "saving lives" and such, none of which I'm taking issue with.
- Never Cursed
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Re: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020)
I'm appreciative of the emotional labor that comes with working in the medical field (especially in the era of COVID), and there's no doubt in my mind that hardcore antivaxxers/Trumpers have been viciously unfair in their treatment of doctors over the course of the pandemic. I do not begrudge anyone in the profession the chance to vent a little or a lot after the chaos of the past fifteen or so months. That said, these doctors and nurses in the video (which are the people to whom I'm referring) are using the ostensible platform of public service to condescend, and I do have an issue with that because it almost inherently defeats the point of public service (which is to say that it's for everyone within a jurisdiction equally). Sorry, someone may have very justified anger about a person they know, or a group of people they know, or a political movement or its leaders, but that doesn't give them the moral high ground if they co-opt a platform of public service to air their personal grievances behind a false wall of social superiority. This "eye for an eye" nonsense should not be tolerated in isolation, but it especially shouldn't be tolerated when one side is delivering their cheap shots with an unearned and superficial sense of moral authority bolstered by the resources and platform of a high-profile television show.hearthesilence wrote: ↑Fri May 21, 2021 11:58 amI agree it's not helpful, but bear in mind that a lot of doctors got a TON of hostile shit from people from the very beginning, especially Trump cultists, and I know this from friends of mine who have been harassed for doing their job ethically and well. I even have a former colleague who's been giving friends who are trying to help him the same conspiracy shit, and sadly his extremely condescending attitude is on the "nicer" side of the spectrum. So in that context, it's likely anti-vaxxers would have that negative opinion of doctors regardless, and having this bit is more of a chance of allowing doctors to let out steam. It can't be anything but stressful and aggravating to have people do whatever abusive shit they want towards you out of willful ignorance and paranoia, and then being forced to suffocate your reaction into a milquetoast response out of professional obligations.
- hearthesilence
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Re: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020)
That's a point I agree with - nobody should be condescending to anyone, that's just plain shitty to do - and glad there wasn't anything broader that was meant to be implied.
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Re: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020)
See also lawyers. In Britain, a barrister specialising in legal aid cases earns far, far less than a top-flight QC, especially over the last few years. And it takes years before you even start to earn a basic living wage - one of the problems that my late father was wrestling with when he was trying to encourage people from less obvious backgrounds to consider a legal career.hearthesilence wrote:
1) besides paying off enormous loans, residents make pretty modest salaries in the beginning, they don't enjoy that "life of luxury" all that quickly
2) not all doctors indulge in a life of luxury, especially if they're dedicating their life to humanitarian endeavors, and it would seem especially arrogant if someone like that has his pleas/advice dismissed or attacked due to that presumption
3) becoming a doctor can be pretty fucking hard, even if you're already a brilliant, hard-working straight-A student! So if they get a high salary out of it, it's not like they inherited it or coasted into it without dedicating more hours and experiencing more academic and professional pressure (like not wanting people to die under your hand) than most people will ever know.
- Never Cursed
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Re: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020)
Well there was (not that you, like, missed it), but not at all in the direction of doctors/people in the medical profession - a couple of them are just (some of) the bad actors in this case.hearthesilence wrote: ↑Fri May 21, 2021 1:13 pmThat's a point I agree with - nobody should be condescending to anyone, that's just plain shitty to do - and glad there wasn't anything broader that was meant to be implied.
- therewillbeblus
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Re: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020)
Right, but unless I'm misreading your post, you're being a bit condescending yourself by diluting the worth of someone taking issue with a point by widening the margins and not meeting that criticism where it's at, and then instead of engaging with a clarified response, issuing a statement of superiority that indicates it was wrong to imply the specific problem in the first place when that wasn't even addressed in the vacuum it was presented in. I realize that writing doesn't always translate well, but that last line reads sarcastically like a parent saying, "Well I'm glad you didn't do anything 'else' wrong," probably due to a lack of acknowledgement that you took an earnest insulated concern and defensively expanded and twisted it to become an indictment on a generalized lack of empathy for the medical profession- which was (I thought quite obviously) not my intention, and a wild leap to make.hearthesilence wrote: ↑Fri May 21, 2021 1:13 pmThat's a point I agree with - nobody should be condescending to anyone, that's just plain shitty to do - and glad there wasn't anything broader that was meant to be implied.
- hearthesilence
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Re: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner, 2020)
Just to be clear, re: "it was wrong to imply the specific problem in the first place when that wasn't even addressed in the vacuum it was presented in," that's what I meant by "I'm glad there wasn't anything broader that was meant to be implied," as in I misinterpreted an implication in your "life of luxury" remarks, so I'm glad that wasn't actually what you meant as mentioned in your first response.therewillbeblus wrote: ↑Fri May 21, 2021 1:24 pmRight, but unless I'm misreading your post, you're being a bit condescending yourself by diluting the worth of someone taking issue with a point by widening the margins and not meeting that criticism where it's at, and then instead of engaging with a clarified response, issuing a statement of superiority that indicates it was wrong to imply the specific problem in the first place when that wasn't even addressed in the vacuum it was presented in. I realize that writing doesn't always translate well, but that last line reads sarcastically like a parent saying, "Well I'm glad you didn't do anything 'else' wrong," probably due to a lack of acknowledgement that you took an earnest insulated concern and defensively expanded and twisted it to become an indictment on a generalized lack of empathy for the medical profession- which was (I thought quite obviously) not my intention, and a wild leap to make.