Cyrus has a post linking to several articles profiling Borat’s unwitting interview subjects. I remember a bunch of these profiles coming out when Ali G got his big DVD-release PR push. Fake production companies, friendly assistants — just insist on meeting the on-air talent before the camera rolls and I think you can escape Mr. Baron-Cohen’s traps.
But, as you might imagine, the people who were duped aren’t entirely happy. To their credit, few seem really outraged. But there is a recurring theme. From Newsweek:
“I was disappointed that Mr. Cohen never let me in on the joke,” says Kathie Martin, who runs an etiquette school in Birmingham, Ala.
From the BBC:
Washington DC public speaking coach Pat Haggerty also appears — and is seen trying to teach humour to Borat…
“About halfway through the session we took a break and I went up to one of the producers and said: ‘This guy can’t be real.
“‘If you let me in on the gag, I will help you reach your goals because I don’t care if you’re from Kazakhstan, nobody is this crazy.’”
From Linda Stein’s firsthand account:
Inspired segments of Borat and me were cut. At one point, Borat declared that men are stronger than women and held up two chairs to prove it. I did, too — although Iâm only half his size
Last night, immediately before the Q&A, John Hodgman forbade any questions that were wacky or funny. It didn’t stop the middle-aged, slightly drunk government lawyers in the audience from defying their embarrassed wives’ pleas and asking questions like, “What is the meaning of life?” But he was still right to try.
What those interview subjects and assistant-counsels-in-charge-of-something-or-other don’t understand is that guys like Hodgman and Baron-Cohen aren’t looking for assistants. It would be nice if they were running a humorist fantasy camp where everyone could feel like part of the action, the same way that many NBA stars spend a few weeks each summer pretending that they enjoy playing games of Horse with aging corporate executives. But that’s not what your ticket or selection as a interviewee gets you. To Hodgman, you’re a customer. To Baron-Cohen, you’re a prop. Just try to turn in a performance half as subtle and unselfconscious as that horse that falls down in the preview.
Which brings me to the other thing about Borat: the exculpatory analyses of him are wishful thinking. Don’t get me wrong — I think the character is hilarious, and by far the funniest of Baron-Cohen’s creations. But the liberal-guilt-inspired line about Borat’s humor being an attempt to lay our own prejudices bare? It’s complete bullshit. Yes, “In My Country There Is Problem” showcases some entertainingly brazen country/western antisemitism. But most of Borat’s interviews just show that Americans are patient, generous hosts. That isn’t particularly funny.
It’s Borat himself that’s funny, because he’s a hilarious oaf. He looks foolish. He does dumb things. It’s fun to laugh at him. But of course, this kind of humor has been employed in awful ways in the past.
Now, the guilt-dodging excuse I favor is that Borat isn’t actually parodying any specific ethnic or cultural group. He’s a hodgepodge of stereotypes we have about eastern European otherness. He’s certainly not a specific attempt to belittle the people of Kazakhstan (their sadly defensive PR campaign notwithstanding) — the only reason Borat hails from a specific country or speaks snippets of pidgin Polish is that he needs to interact with the outside world. These details convey some necessary authenticity; but they aren’t meant to tie the character to any specific group of human beings. I don’t really believe that Borat’s antics are any more detestable than when Homer Simpson visited Crazy Vaclav’s Place Of Cars (or blamed Tibor for his problems at work).
But I may be fooling myself. I’d feel pretty uncomfortable watching a Borat segment with somebody from Kazakhstan, and that may be the real test. I won’t be at all surprised if history judges the character harshly. I’m still going to see the movie, though. Because I’m a monster.
This weekend some friends and I had a pumpkin carving contest. We each drew a noun and a verb (well, a gerund) which we were then tasked with carving. The Borat-obsessed guys made the words to choose from. My team got “reproducing jew.” We put a horn on the pregnant jewish woman — because Borat talks about jews having horns. It wasn’t until a few hours of joking that we realized the only Jewish person in the room didn’t know that Borat reference and thought we were all just being awful.
That’s a long story to say that I see the potential for dangers in this kind of humor. Funny as it may be.
How many anecdotes does it take to equal data? Anyway here’s one. I have a Kazakh friend. She thinks Borat is hilarious.
The only time I’ve ever seen Borat was with a Kazakh grad student. It was interesting.
Interesting. But yeah, I wonder about the sample size. Clearly the Kazakh government, at least, doesn’t think it’s funny.
Word on the academic street is that if your sample size is one, your data’s still valid! You just have to call it an “ethnography.”
Re. the Borat film (Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan), BBC World have just broadcast a news report on the film’s premiere in London. Check out http://www.chrismerriman.com/index.php/archives/209 for a video clip of it…
The thing that kind of bothers me about stuff like Borat is that I really don’t see the need to use actual countries for this kind of thing. I doubt saying you’re from Kablikistan would have much difference in how much the average patsy believes the act, and it would result in fewer pissed-off Kazakhs. Case in point: the aforementioned grad student had never seen the show, but she’d heard about it plenty (it had been a hot topic on Kazakh BBSs for months). She didn’t seem to find it particularly funny, but she wasn’t offended either, and she spent most of the time trying to figure out what exactly his accent was supposed to be (she eventually settled on Russian). Since none of the stuff Borat does has anything to do with Kazakhstan the real country itself, which is nowhere near Eastern Europe, I don’t think the act would lose much without it. But then, I’m not overly fond of cringe-inducing comedy to begin with, so maybe I’m missing something.
Well, you’re right, it has so little to do with the country that the need to tie the character to a specific country is tenuous. But they do have to give some background information before the interview (judging by the descriptions of the process contained in the articles) — enough to withstand light googling, at any rate. That probably requires a real country name.