He manipulated villagers where the film was made, lied to them, tricked the elderly into posing with sex toys so they would be humiliated, and it just goes on and on.
They claim film-makers lied to them about the true nature of the project, which they believed would be a documentary about their hardship, rather than a comedy mocking their poverty and isolation.
Hey, maybe he should have just pissed in their faces, wow, that would be funny, wouldn’t it?
The villagers plan to sue – as well they should.
Why does anyone think this nasty asshole is funny? Except maybe for neocons, that is, since they appear to enjoy attacking the defenseless and helpless. But rape jokes aren’t funny, they’re diseased. And so are the people who tell them.
P.S. Payback?
The irony is, he’s a white liberal who’s taking the piss out of Americans. Most of the people over here who find his film funny are middle-class white liberals who like laughing at “those stupid Americans”. It’s the conservatives who don’t find him funny (note the papers who printed those anti-Cohen stories you linked – and on another point, it’s really a bit rich that the Daily Mail is championing those Romanian villagers, considering the Mail’s incredibly racist views on Eastern European immigrants. So they’re OK if they’re not over here, then? Hypocrites).
I don’t find Cohen amusing myself. I don’t like the way he portrays Eastern Europeans. it’s like they’re the only ethnic group (along with Gypsies) who it’s still apparently socially acceptable to be racist about. There’s too much malice in what he does. But he’s hardly a neocon. They’re one of his main targets.
As for the link to the Sun site, Oh, I don’t know. A punch in th face is hardly payback.
Actually I find Borat funny and prefer him to Ali G by a long shot. But lets’ say, there are a few problems with his humour
There’s a very good discussion about this on Jim Jepps blog:
The Daily (Maybe). I recommend that you visit it.
Here in Australia and in Britain from the sixties we were exposed to Johnny Speight’s creation Alf Garnett (upon which All in the Family was based) — and theres’ a certain context where the rationale of bigotry is its own worst enemy.I haven’t seen the movie but I’ve seen Borat on Ali G tv shows here.– so I point out that there is a logic there . The problem is with such a thesis is that Speight created Garnett for all the right reasons, whereas Ali G’s AKA proclaims none of that.
Garnett is one of the great television creations without doubt … so the real question is whether Borat is satire or is simply taking the micky.
Opps! The Jepps blog post is here:
Throw Borat down the well
If he’s so liberal and enlightened and it’s a satire, why did he treated the villagers so badly? I mean, he apparently went out of his way to humiliate and exploit them, not something an actual progressive would do.
He, no doubt, will have a bright future producing films in Hollywood, where ritual abuse and viciousness towards those who can’t fight back is considered “normal” by the deformed individuals who generally run the place.
“If he’s so liberal and enlightened and it’s a satire, why did he treated the villagers so badly?”
Because he’s an arsehole. Conservatives don’t have the monopoly on arseholes.
Also… the story was reported by the Daily Mail. Its provenance does matter. Not that it makes Sasha Baron Cohen any less, you know. I’m just saying.