| 5/13/2008 1:18:33 PM | Borat Meets Archie Bunker | |
soulcitywalker
Lexington, KY
age: 49
| This seems like krupa's sort of film:
Borat Meet Archie Bunker Michael Levy -
Sacha Baron Cohen’s smart, funny Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is the Rorschach test of this generation, and what audiences see in this inkblot is a social commentary worth paying careful attention to, because it can help us understand how both Americans and non-Americans see the country.
Cohen himself is an observant British-Jewish comedian who both keeps kosher and the Sabbath, but Borat is a well-meaning but ignorant misogynistic, anti-Semitic, homophobic character, and much of the movie centers on his travels throughout the United States–under the guise of a Kazakh journalist sent to the country to learn about its customs–and his putting real Americans in situations that expose the racism, anti-Semitism, and homophobia that is often times kept hidden from the surface. (Indeed, much of the conversation after the movie has been about which scenes were real and which were staged.
For an analysis see the research by Salon writers David Marchese and Willa Paskin.)I attended the 11:20 am showing of the movie in Chicago on the day after its release, and much to my surprise, the large auditorium was sold out. Though I had read reviews that given the film high marks, this was the first sense that I had that this film was going to be a juggernaut.
I’ll admit that I laughed–reflexively and sometimes uncontrollably–throughout the entire movie, even during the farcical naked fight and Pamela Anderson scenes, and especially during the “cameo” performances by former Republican Congressman Bob Barr and perennial Republican presidential hopeful Alan Keyes, perhaps because I think there’s nothing funnier than having such a court jester poke fun at people in powerful positions and showing that the emperor has no clothes.
But, I also found myself squirming quite a bit during the film, because underlying the hilarity were the unnerving truths that Borat’s victims were real people saying real things that were really scary–the gun dealer who doesn’t bat an eye when Borat inquires about which gun is best to kill a Jew; the “cowboy” at the rodeo, responding to Borat’s claim that in Kazakhstan homosexuals are hanged, saying ”that’s what we’re trying to do here”; the drunken frat guys who express a desire to return to slavery (they have, incidentally, sued the filmmakers).
So, I left the film wondering why the audience was laughing so hard. Were they laughing because they saw the brilliant, daring, and sophisticated comedy that Cohen pulled off and how this film is a whimsical but pointed social commentary about the country, or were they laughing because they identified with Borat and the comments from some of the more surreal “characters” in the movie. The Anti-Defamation League, recognizing that there was no malicious intent on the part of Cohen to fan the flames of anti-Semitism, they feared that perhaps some filmgoers might not be ”sophisticated enough to get the joke, and that some may even find it reinforcing their bigotry.”
And, therein lies the rub. It is sophisticated humor and is an excellent film, but how many in the audience are in on the joke? It reminded me of a conversation I had while I was in college in North Carolina with some friends of mine. Sitting around one night–as only college students can do, playing cards and drinking cheap beer–we started commiserating about homophobia, racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, and any other -ism out there. One of my friends offered that his father was a huge fan of Archie Bunker, not because the character played by Carroll O’Connor on All in the Family was showing the utter absurdity of Archie’s views on African Americans, Hispanics, Jews, women, and pinkos but because he identified with those views Archie expressed.
Remembering that, it made me think that Borat is indeed the Archie Bunker of our times. He’s all things to all viewers. Some viewers in the United States will get the joke; for others, the laughs come because the jokes tap into some underlying attitudes that they have toward the groups being targeted by Borat’s victims; while outside the United States, the movie can’t do anything but reinforce the views that many there have that America is an unenlightened society where these negative -isms run amok.
Hopefully, though, the vast majority of viewers will understand the biting social commentary, and hopefully most theatergoers will leave the film both laughing and analyzing their own perceptions and placing them into into the context of the society in which they live. If they do so, then this movie might not only be the runaway box office success that it has been but it might actually spark some much-needed dialogue about how we combat these views that people hold but dare not speak.
SCW: I seriously doubt that jcsx, wildgypsy, veteran, twodogs, or dutch would be able to "analyze their own perspectives and place them into the context of the society they live in."
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| 5/13/2008 3:11:16 PM | Borat Meets Archie Bunker | |
twohawks
Bothell, WA
age: 69 online now!
| Oh...now I wouldn't say that SCW. We live in a society that is still reeking of racial bigotry. Some of it is very open and some if it isn't. I have been a victim of this, but I have learned to ignore it and pass it off as ignorance. In my time I've been called "Red Skin" and "Squaw Man" and "Injun". That used to bother me, but it doesn't anymore. I just ignore it and walk on.
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| 5/13/2008 3:15:20 PM | Borat Meets Archie Bunker | |
easygoin68
Crawford, NE
age: 39
| twohawks, that is the difference between maturity and immature....walk on
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| 5/13/2008 3:23:56 PM | Borat Meets Archie Bunker | |
twohawks
Bothell, WA
age: 69 online now!
| Easy: You got that right!
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| 5/19/2008 9:33:09 AM | Borat Meets Archie Bunker | |
twohawks
Bothell, WA
age: 69 online now!
| 
Did some Pinko mention my name?
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| 5/19/2008 9:48:28 AM | Borat Meets Archie Bunker | |
soulcitywalker
Lexington, KY
age: 49
| twohawks: In my time I've been called "Red Skin" and "Squaw Man" and "Injun". That used to bother me, but it doesn't anymore. I just ignore it and walk on.
SCW: Who were the ones doing that, twohawks?
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| 5/19/2008 9:50:25 AM | Borat Meets Archie Bunker | |
soulcitywalker
Lexington, KY
age: 49
| easygoing: twohawks, that is the difference between maturity and immature....walk on
SCW: Hmmmm.
When I IGNORE similar racist terms in these forums, I get charged with "ducking out."
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| 5/19/2008 9:52:35 AM | Borat Meets Archie Bunker | |
towfrogg
Lawrenceville, GA
age: 51 online now!
| SCW,This is DATEHOOKUP,,,Not HATEHOOKUP Nothing to see here folks,just SCW making a fool of himself  :
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| 5/19/2008 9:56:01 AM | Borat Meets Archie Bunker | |
twohawks
Bothell, WA
age: 69 online now!
| SCW.....the ones who called me that were people that I knew, but not personal friends.
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| 5/19/2008 9:58:25 AM | Borat Meets Archie Bunker | |
soulcitywalker
Lexington, KY
age: 49
| 10-4, twohawks.
I see towfrogg is itching for my attention, but I'm not going to bite.
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| 5/19/2008 10:05:31 AM | Borat Meets Archie Bunker | |
soulcitywalker
Lexington, KY
age: 49
| On second thought, in regards to towfrogg, I think I will bite and say "with all the support for the CONfederate flag among dhu members, the use of racial slurs, and their 100-plus threads of anti-immigrant fervor, your term "hatehookup"...is indeed an accurate term for these jaspers' meeting place.
Thanks towfrogg!!! 
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| 5/19/2008 10:13:59 AM | Borat Meets Archie Bunker | |
twohawks
Bothell, WA
age: 69 online now!
| I respect the Confederate flag and what it stood for. Unfortunately the original meaning of that flag has been slanderized and it is now being called a racist symbol. This has been done by the politically correct morons who don't have a clue about true history.
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| 5/19/2008 11:24:17 AM | Borat Meets Archie Bunker | |
ru2timid
Rockford, IL
age: 46
| Todays society is filled with complicated issues.
I have learned to try to understand where ignorance seemingly can not be erased by educated people. In one of the classes I conducted with a group of teenagers, I took a pan of stinking grease that I had fried up some awful stuff in. I painted each one of their palms with the mess. You should have heard the complaints and the vocal cry of the younins wanting to remove it. I did not allow for that readily. We instead sat and discussed some of the circumstances in each of our lives, how injust, how corruptive, and how our own actions brought us and kept us messed up in the negatives. We then dicussed positive ways to clean up our messes without further insueing harm, hatred and negativity towards others.
In the last few years I have run across several of those teenagers. I have been blessed to hear that they often remember, and laugh about the nasty stuff that had been cast upon them, but they thank me that they have a different outlook on life now. Yes, I said laugh!
It's kind of what an educated person ought to be able to do when viewing someone elses ignorance... Especially when we become aware of how pointing a finger can often result in a broken one. Crack a smile, it's more becoming and it will inspire many to change.
I make this entry totally within the context as how I see the movies and shows... it all comes down to ones own outlook.
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| 5/20/2008 7:38:31 AM | Borat Meets Archie Bunker | |
soulcitywalker
Lexington, KY
age: 49
| twohawks: respect the Confederate flag and what it stood for. Unfortunately the original meaning of that flag has been slanderized and it is now being called a racist symbol. This has been done by the politically correct morons who don't have a clue about true history.
SCW: What I like is that many whites also see it as a symbol of a time of blatant oppression.
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| 5/20/2008 8:00:25 AM | Borat Meets Archie Bunker | |
soulcitywalker
Lexington, KY
age: 49
| ru2timid: and laugh about the nasty stuff that had been cast upon them
SCW: Tell that to the family members of James Byrd, a Black man who was dragged behind a pickup truck by 2 white men, decapitating him in the process.
Tell that to the family of Matthew Sheppard, a white gay male who was beaten and then left hanging on a fence....because of his sexual orientation.
Tell that to the members of a synagogue who have just arrived for their religious services only to find "anti-Jewish hate messages" scrawled on their building.
Tell that to Rodney King, a Black man beaten very badly by cops in LA.
Should he have gotten up and said "I forgive you, my brothers?!"
Tell that to Latinos who have become American citizens legally, but are frequently bombarded with anti-immigrant verbalizations.
Tell that to the "inter-racial" couple who wakes up to find a flaming cross on their lawn and racial epithets written on their house.
Tell that to a white couple strolling down the sidewalk and encountering Black youths calling them racial slurs.
Should the girls college basketball team who were called names by Don Imus have simply laughed off those comments?!
Interestingly, how many whites laughed off Rev. Jeremiah Wright's comments?!
All of these examples cleary illustrate how what you wrote is utter nonsense, absurd, and ridiculous....and that's why I replied as I did to the private e-mail message you sent me.
Nothing but a bunch of bullsh*t.
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