Word: borat
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...this followed an election whose lowlights were the macaca incident, an ad playing off miscegenation fears and a radio host mocking a disabled man. It's as if the U.S. were experiencing collective Tourette's, regurgitating decades of dutifully sublimated hate--Borat, with real people. As disturbing as the bigotry was the role of the people expressing it. Politicians and entertainers, after all, succeed by knowing our hearts and minds. We are, in a real way, implicated in their achievement and their disgrace. So you'd think this explosion of public ugliness might spur some kind of national soul searching...
Nevertheless, the movie would not have worked as well if Borat were merely a generic Third Worlder who did not remind audiences of a Muslim in any way whatsoever. If Borat had been an African tribesman, people may have found his backwardness funny, but not in the same way. Americans would have felt a little guilty laughing at this generic Third Worlder, whereas Americans felt no guilt in laughing at Borat...
...those who have not seen the movie, the basic conceit of the film is that Borat, a reporter from Kazakh television, is visiting the U.S. in order to make a documentary. His hope is that by learning from America, the greatest country on earth, Kazakhstan might learn to deal with all of its problems—problems that Borat neatly divides into “social, economic...
...might be expected, Borat has a difficult time understanding American customs and hilarity ensues as he consistently fails at navigating the waters of social interaction, notably by telling feminists that women have smaller brains and by bringing a bag of his own excrement to a dining room table during a formal dinner...
...unlikely that Sacha Baron Cohen designed his Borat character in order to capitalize on this anxiety. He introduced the character several years ago on “Da Ali G Show,” before Islam had become a major part of the political discourse. But if America were not mired in Iraq and if Muslim relations with the West and the War on Terror—or as Borat calls it, the “War of Terror”—were not so important, “Borat” would not have sold as many...