comment #1

jeffmcm says ...

Truly she is guilty of the greatest crime in our society: Not Being Hip.

comment #2

Matthew Lucas says ...

I think it's sad that she actually thinks that "the last laugh will be on 'Borat.'"

That just shows how clueless she really is. What Cohen has achieved will be one of the most lasting contributions to popular culture of the decade.

The court of public opinion is on his side.

And does she realize that all her protesting only makes people more curious?

comment #3

crabbieshollywood.blogspot.com says ...

That scene was one of the most effective in the film I thought. Because it really got down to the root of the blind ethnocentrism and ignorance that Cohen is trying to target. The fact that this woman would actually think a grown man wouldn't know how to wipe his own ass - that goes beyond simply not getting the joke. People like her deserve to be derided and ridiculed and everything else short of being stoned (because we're civilized, so we throw stones of satire instead of literal ones; unlike the kind of world we'd have if people like this Streit woman really got their way).

comment #4

Nate West says ...

//The fact that this woman would actually think a grown man wouldn't know how to wipe his own ass - that goes beyond simply not getting the joke. People like her deserve to be derided and ridiculed and everything else short of being stoned...//

When a foreign dinner guest shows up at her table carrying a sack of sh*t, leading said guest to the bathroom is not an outlandish response. Her ass-wiping lesson is a rather sweet gesture, don't you think? Borat is essentially an unsocialized "child" who may do or say something embarassing or inappropirate at any moment. So a proud toddler totes his poop to the dinner table. What do you do? Give him a lesson in flushing and ass-wiping, of course. This is an example of Southern civility. In New York, the response would have been different. This anger at the "Streit woman" I just don't understand.

comment #5

ltlewis3 says ...

I'm happy to be listed as one of the "not very hip." The folks who lied in order to profit from the embarassment and humiliation of others are just not the ones I can spend time empathizing with.

comment #6

corey3rd says ...

Borat will probably be one of the most destructive films in the relationship between a documentary filmmaker and possible subjects. Everyone will fear being deceived when they're asked to sign a model release - knowing that they might just end up in the middle of a porn film - or handed a bag of poop.

I enjoyed the film, but it's a Gotcha Comedy that will do to the documentary filmmaking world what "My Date with Drew Barrymore" did to Best Buy's 30 day return policy on cameras.

The woman has a right to sue for being insulted on camera by this guy and watching him make a fortune off her being handed a bag of crap.

comment #7

Larry says ...

So this sweet, decent woman is intentionally humiliated by an actor, and Wells figures he should pile on, too.

comment #8

Chris Willman says ...

This is where the movie lost me. Some of "Borat's" victims have it coming. Not this poor lady. "Slantingthroughdarkness," you are truly an asshole.

comment #9

Rob says ...

She's just chasing the money, folks. Save your tears.

What makes Borat the first genuinely transgressive Hollywood comedy in memory is that it invites you to laugh at the genuine humiliation of real, unsuspecting, ignorant people. The kind that annoy you every day with their blinkered, "decent" self-satisfaction.

Have they done anything overtly wrong? Not all of them. Does that make the movie any less funny? Not in my opinion.

comment #10

Craig Kennedy says ...

The dinner party sequence was my favorite part of the film (though not the most laugh-out-loud funny). I love the way it escalates. I didn't find Streit to be entirely unsympathetic though so I'm not sure why she's so pissed. Naive? Yes. And while I'm all for common sense politeness, the whole idea of 'etiquette' to me has always been more about separating the upper and lower classes. I saw Borat as puncturing this balloon but I didn't find his victims to be hateful or stupid. Their character was not impugned. I can see why the frat boys are pissed because they looked like complete assholes.

I suppose she has a reason to be upset about being lied to, if that's in fact the case, but I don't see what the harm was. Has she lost friends because of it or suffered economically?

comment #11

The Winchester says ...

The frat boys, though, strike me as genuine assholes. They'd be like that whether or not Borat's cameras were rolling.

comment #12

Nate West says ...

//She's just chasing the money, folks. Save your tears.//

So what is the moral argument AGAINST compensating this woman and other unwitting "actors" for appearing in a 135 million (and counting) picture?

At the very least, Cohen should make a donation to the Pentecostal Church, whose members welcomed this frazzled foreigner without reservation. Although I strongly oppose the social authoritarianism of the fundamentalist movement, I was still touched by this embrace of the wayward Borat.

comment #13

jeffmcm says ...

"What makes Borat the first genuinely transgressive Hollywood comedy in memory is that it invites you to laugh at the genuine humiliation of real, unsuspecting, ignorant people."

Transgressive, yes, but progressive? I don't really think so. Take 'ignorant' out of this sentence (which is really just another way of saying 'hip') and you have a truly vile way to entertain America. Now I know why this movie was made by Fox.

comment #14

Josh Massey says ...

Slanting: "People like her deserve to be derided and ridiculed..."

Thank God you're so cool, though.

comment #15

Rich S. says ...

I haven't seen the movie, but all these people coming forward (real motives aside) makes me curious. His schtick can't have worked every time. Does Borat include any sequences where the joke didn't work, either because the person knew they were being put on or they found Borat's positions vile? Since it's a comedy, I would assume not, and rightly so. It's not funny when your mark calls you out. Candid Camera never pretended to be anything more than it was.

But if Borat is going to be held up as some transcendent examination of human, especially American, nature, then the alternate viewpoint must be seen as well. If we never see that, then the praise is unwarranted.

comment #16

JWEgo says ...

one can always count on the morons on this site to take the same moronic positions they always do as moron.

Sweet or no Miss Cindy signed a release giving them permission to use her footage forever. Now she is mad because she didn't read what she signed, like you morons. Too Bad.

comment #17

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

"Sweet or no Miss Cindy signed a release giving them permission to use her footage forever. Now she is mad because she didn't read what she signed"

If YOU had read the article, you'd see that she's advancing the position that she was deceived about what she was participating in-- and signed a release for. Which, quite obviously, she was, whether or not a court holds that that was serious enough to invalidate the release.

comment #18

Ju-osh says ...

Rich S:
While I agree with you that seeing a few failed attempts at fooling folks would've been fun, I don't think that you can label the film as any sort of failure simply because there wasn't any. Maybe you ought to watch 'Borat' and then post your (informed) opinion instead of guessing at what the picture may or may not be and/or accomplish.

comment #19

Joel says ...

I'm a big fan of Borat ever since I first saw Da Ali G show on HBO. I was disappointed when he brought out the bag of feces, going for the cheap laugh that didn't really prove anything. How is anybody going to react? I thought she handled herself quite nicely, actually.

Finally, if they did actually lie to people to get them to sign the release, they should be sued.

comment #20

Rich S. says ...

Ju-osh

You missed the intent of my post. I have no quibble with the makers of Borat showing whatever they want. And I don't label the film a failure either way. As a comedy, show what's funny, disregard what's not.

My complaint is with the critics who seem hell-bent on portraying this film as some kind of piercing critique of American society and human nature. To a certain extent, it surely is. But you can't get a fully-rounded and fair portrait of either unless you can see the times the act didn't work for the reasons I described above.

If I show Michael Richards' tirade to 100 people, and then I make a movie about the 5 that agreed with it, it might be funny and somewhat insightful. But if I don't acknowledge that 95 found it shocking and abhorrent, then my movie is not honest. I'm sure the Borat ratio is not that one-sided, but you get the idea.

comment #21

Ju-osh says ...

Okay, I gotcha, and I pretty much agree. I just think that S.B.C's main goal in making this film was not to show a well-rounded critique of American culture (as many critics have stated), but simply to make people laugh.

comment #22

christian says ...

chris hitchens gets BORAT the way americans clearly don't. he says the film actually posits a positive view of many americans who try to be tolerant. exactly what liberals demand -- unless you're not hip.

our awful culture of humiliation demands victims, but the woman was showing her non-judgemental side. what a bitch.

comment #23

Haiku Harry says ...

Comedy should not
be polite. Screw you if you
can't take a joke, hag.

comment #24

Josh Massey says ...

Well said, Rich and Christian.

comment #25

RoyBatty says ...

The people who are piling on this woman and all the others who were duped into signing the releases for the film must the type of person who laugh at folks who are conned into signing away their homes by criminals. Ethically, morally and we will soon see legally it is no different: they did it under false pretenses or outright fraud.

Borat does not exist, nor does any organization that he supposedly works for. For all those who smugly claim with confidence that she doesn't have a case couldn't be more wrong or legally ignorant.

Everyone is ignoring the Food Lion vs ABC News lawsuit, which ABC lost. That case was a legitimate news organization investigating something of vital importance to the American public, food safety in a major supermarket chain.

Hence, Fox better settle and settle quick. They lose if they go the "It's a documentary" route and lose BIG if they try the "It's art, freedom of speech route" because that just opens them up to all kinds of lawsuits from the unpaid participants who signed away payment because it was a supposedly a documentary.

I also agree with the point about the hardships it is going to cause others making actual documentaries. It's not hard to see difficult subjects getting even more skittish about signing releases because of this film and the countless ripoffs that are sure to follow. The current renaissance of documentaries could be over soon. Nice contribution to the culture, Sasha.

There's something fundamentally troubling about this because it punishes people for behaving exactly opposite of how "ugly Americans" are supposed to act. Here is a woman and others who go out of their way to accomodate a visitor and try to remain gracious because he is unfamiliar with our customs. And for that, frat boys coast to coast bay at them like real-life Nelson Muntz's.

Gotcha comedy is only funny when the victim brings the joke upon themselves. Figures who deserve to be brought down a peg or two. To otherwise laugh at regular folks like this woman is as disturbing as those who get off on seeing women butchered in horror movies.

comment #26

christian says ...

agree roy. agree. the joke is again on...US.

comment #27

Matthew Lucas says ...

Slate is claiming to have a copy of the infamous release form these people signed. You can look at it here: http://www.slate.com/id/2151990/

comment #28

The Movie Man says ...

Nothing new here, just wanted to give a high five to Roy for perfectly wording and putting a finger on why Borat annoyed me.