comment #1

Roddy Reta says ...

There will be a major backlash against this film once people understand how Cohen manipulated and lied to people to take advantage of them. I can't wait for this anti-semitic, sexist film to get its due.

comment #2

travis b says ...

how is it anti-semitic when cohen is jewish? are you saying the people who respond to his character are anti-semitic? or the movie in general? i'm not trying to bait you, but i've seen you post similar comments on a couple of the stories around here, and i feel like you're just saying this to get a rise out of people. so, do you really feel this way and if so, feel free to contribute something to the conversation besides the same old.

comment #3

Alex says ...

I saw it last night in a sold out theatre in a small town in Minnesota. I don't think most people there got it that the joke was on them. They were just like the people in the rodeo.

comment #4

Todd says ...

"how is it anti-semitic when cohen is jewish?"

Gee, then how can a Homo be homophobic? Ask Carl Rove or Ted Haggard or Ken Mehlman?

Borat is boorish, So is Cohen. He exploits bigotry of his self for personal profit. Just like the three aforementioned closet cases did.

comment #5

James says ...

To Todd and Roddy (who based on their names are obviously W.A.S.P.s) and any other numbskulls who think Cohen's humor is sexist or racist or anti-semitic:

Get a grip... Have you seen the movie or any of Ali G or are you just winging this p.c. tripe based on reading a couple of articles in the NY Times? And if you have seen some of Cohen's work, I want you to give me an explicit example of something racist or sexist or anti-semitic. I guarantee you've got no examples or you have totally misunderstood what's going on in his humor.

Privileged and guilty-feeling white people charging Ali G of racism or anti-semiticism remind of the privileged and guilty-feeling white people charging Chris Rock with racism when he hosted the Academy Awards a couple of years ago and asked questions of black movie-goers about which nominees they preferred. (Few of those black movie-goers knew anything about the nominees--a critique of the ivory-tower nature of the Awards, not a critique of the black folks.)

They also remind me of the silly white people who charge Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn with racism and try to get that great novel banned from their kids' lily-white suburban private schools. Why do well-to-do, guilt-ridden white people always have to be so dang humorless?

comment #6

travis b says ...

todd...

your examples are completely different from what cohen and borat are about. how is a group of closet case, self-loathing homosexuals the same thing as cohen, who is jewish (who wrote his thesis on the role of jews during the civil rights movemen, thus is not ashamed in any way of his religion or heritage) playing the role of an anti-semitic foreigner designed to goad people into revealing their own prejudices? i don't really see the connection.

comment #7

Todd says ...

James
For your information I'm mixed race. So you think a name can identify a race. Clearly you have a knowledge deficit to think a last name identifies a race. Your rant doesn't change the truth of what I said. I think you might want to do some reflection on why you protest my opinion so much.
Have a good day and chill.
Todd

comment #8

Todd says ...

Travis,
To put it in a generic form.
I only responded to the question of how someone of a minority group could be antithemselves. My answer was that these type of people will do this for personal gain. It's quite possible that Sacha Cohen on an intellectual level named his character Borat because he is boorish.

comment #9

Dixon Steele says ...

Karl Rove is gay?

comment #10

Hallick says ...

"There will be a major backlash against this film once people understand how Cohen manipulated and lied to people to take advantage of them."

Why a backlash? Because they were so stupid they couldn't see that with their own eyes?

comment #11

Todd says ...

Dixon Do some web searches start with these. http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=2895
http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/09/090506rove.htm
http://blog.radioleft.com/blog/_archives/2005/2/15/325256.html
http://kerchenko.newsvine.com/_news/2006/10/07/390374-radical-left-karl-rove-known-in-gay-circles-as-miss-piggy
http://newsbusters.org/node/8980

comment #12

Todd says ...

BTW I have nothing against homosexuals just hypocrits.

comment #13

d manhattan says ...

"Borat is boorish, So is Cohen. He exploits bigotry of his self for personal profit."

Todd, do you really think so? To judge Cohen's work as Borat you should really see some of it. When you've seen a few clips and read a few interviews or, you know, seen the movie, I think you'll notice Cohens technique of taking a misconception or prejudice towards an ethnic group and then making a statement about it to show the outrageness of it or to bring forth prejudices in others.

This might be a small SPOILER: In the movie Cohen shows an old jewish couple and the they are portrayed as very nice. But Borat the character is scared of his life and obviously and completely paranoid. Some people watching this will obviously just laugh at him without understanding the message, but no thinking man can reasonably question Cohens intent with scenes like this.

You know the gypsies that "Borat" hates and fears just as much as the jews - In the movie, the soundtrack from the movie "Time of The Gypsies" is used several times as an emotional soundtrack supportive of Borat. They basically pretend that it's khazakstani music, Borat's music. But in reality, it's from the one movie, Time of the Gypsies, that truly shows the beauty and hardships of the gypsy culture.

Time of the gypsies, by gypsy director Kusturica, is told from an insider's perspective to show us the bittersweet fate of a flawed culture (like all of our cultures are, by the way). It's basically a very intelligent and beautiful love letter to the gypsies. You think a bigot would have made that choice, to include that in his movie? Or might you consider interpreting this detail and the rest of the movie as intentional irony?