tongue speaking mystery and madness
There's a bizarre clip from the Borat movie at this link. It's a group of "tongues speakers" . . . um, slaying Borat in the Spirit, I guess. Sacha Baron Cohen is incredibly cheeky here; as he starts to be overwhelmed by the Spirit he sticks his tongue out and feigns a nascent gift of tongues.
I saw Borat last night. There are scenes in that movie which I never ever want to see again (eeewwwww!), but sadly they remain vividly impressed into my mind.
14 comments:
I found this to be the most disgusting part about that film.
I guess poor Romanians are as easily duped & manipulated as rich Americans. But, really, why in the world would the Romanian guy put the sex toy on his stump? Even if he didn't know it was a sex toy, why would he put anything on his stump? Just because a documentary crew asked him to do so? For that matter, why would people allow village kids (likely not homeless kids either, as they tend to go to Bucharest) to be filmed with guns? Something sounds really weird about that. This is extraordinary naivety, if nothing else.
I think that at some point I'm going to blog on Borat and certain aspects of his film as they pertain to American culture.
It seems, though, that a big part of the movie was the shock factor, which was Baron Cohen playing it low in my opinion. He is an incisive critic of culture and the Borat character is a fun way for him to make his incisions. But there are things in Borat the movie which just don't live up to his own critical standards.
Just saw Brad's comment. LOL! You do have to wonder.
However, it is the naïvete that I thought was worthy of discussion. In particular, I'd suggest that both the people of Glod and the people of NY express wildly different reactions to Borat but that both are as Naïve as the other. One just thinks it's not.
Jamie, I agree w/ your last point. Though I also think, and this may very well rile up Brian, that the legal team for the Romanian village are trying to make them out to be far more naive than they really are. We cluck our tongues at the drunken frat boys in a RV who come off as complete asses in the movie and thus wish to litigate, and yet we are immediately supportive of the poor, victimized Romanian. As my wife said last night, 'Just because you're poor doesn't mean you're stupid.' Then again, maybe I've read too much Zizek.
There are, of course, different levels of naivety going on. The movie is directed to a Western audience -- that is, after all, where the money is. As such, it is seeking to provoke laughs at the expense of Americans who are naive enough to go along with his gags to the extent that they do. Americans are the perfect butt for this joke not because they are stupid, but because they are so surface-level polite that hilarious naivety is not far behind. (See, for example, the deleted scene w/ the grocery manager. That would never fly in, say, Belgium. It is precisely this example, though deleted, that I think his overall joke works -- rather than the gratuitous shock-factor of most of the movie. Andy Kaufman really should've made this movie first, as he is the comic genius that Cohen is not.)
The rest of the the movie's western audience is laughing at America, though completely naive about the fact that a similar movie could be made in their own country -- but featuring an obnoxious American, about which they in general know only a cliché. (Actually, now that I think of it, Michael Moore's last couple of documentaries might be an unintentional version of this.)
And, of course, we're all suckers to the corporate dollar that made the thing in the first place -- willfully oblivious to how rotten to the core the entertainment industry is, and signing off on the increasingly suspicious notion that before we can really deal with social problems we must learn how to laugh at them.
There is a more basic objection to Cohen's portrayal of these Romanians than the level of knowledge they did or didn't have before and during the making of the film to its actual nature. This is that while Americans are parodized by their own oddities, predjudices and false assumptions, these people are laughed at only because they are poor and ignorant. Forgive me, but there seems that there is something essentially unethical about that.
I don't care what lies he fed to some drunken frat boy to get him to say the stupid things that he actually already believes, but surely what he did to those gypsies can't be funny because it doesn't reveal anything absurd about them other than the obvious fact that they are poor and obviously desparate for any kind of extra money.
Except the scenes from "Khazikstan" this was probably one of the funniest films I've ever seen. However, his missuse of these impoverished people for laughs (or even the use of poverty itself for a laugh) is deplorable.
Even if those Romanians had full knowledge about what was being said or implied about them, it still isn't funny because poverty itself is not funny. Funny is seeing somebody reveal their own predjudice and ignorance in a way that later humiliates them. But what's the joke with the Romanians? "You should have known that he was calling you a(n) abortionist, prostitute, invalid, etc!" Or even, "You should have known that rubber fist was a sex toy!" For heaven's sake, I wouldn't have even known it without seeing how it was used earlier in the film.
But yes, the male nudity and was also disgusting.
So, would it have been funny to depict abject poverty if they'd been actors? Is poverty only potentially funny when it is fake poverty? What about old shows like 'Sanford & Son', or 'Good Times'? Or, for more abject, what about the instances of humor found in Brazilian slums in Cidade de Deus?
Obviously, the difference here is that the joke is at the expense of the villagers. But note, I'm not saying that the expense of the impoverished are ethical. The far greater question is whether unethical jokes can potentially be funny.
Oh... and 'ignorant'? Please qualify that. Of what exactly? The English language? Of the complex nuances of the western entertainment industry? Of the vagaries of disclosure agreements? Or just 'ignorant' in general?
There should be a distinction between humor in the instances of an impoverished life (as in the sitcoms you mentioned) and "humor" about the poverty itself.
Furthermore, this "greater question" of whether unethical humor can be funny is dubious. For "funny" is not at all objective. One can only speak for his own self. Although, in a situation that potentiall encompases the abuse and exploitation of other humans, I fail to see how this can be "the greater question."
As far as ignorance, yes, I believe the villagers were ignorant in all the ways you mentioned specifically. This is likely true whether or not their stories have been exaggerated for sensational or legal potency. This particularly serves to aggravate the severity of Cohen's deception. These people were not being irresponsible in their dealings with Cohen, they were actually innocent as to his machinations and were thusly taken advantage of.
Although this is probably not what he meant, I believe this falls under what Jamie said about the film not living up to its own standards. That is, it is guilty of the same things it means to expose.
Re: ignorance, again, I'm just not seeing it w/ quite the same moral clarity as you. I know what you're saying, and on a significant level I agree. But it just doesn't seem so clear-cut -- and not simply in a pedantic way. For example, what did the driving instructor do to deserve his torturous (and dangerous) drive w/ Borat? Or the church? Or the local news (the lady on staff there, btw, whose inadequate research failed to uncover Borat was a hoax lost her job, which resulted in depression)? There is something deeply unethical about even these, is there not? After all, near as I can tell, the disclosure agreements signed even by the Americans indicated it was a documentary, not a comedy. Instead of drawing a distinction between his manipulation of the Romanians, though, I suggest, it all be regarded as finally unethical humor.
Indignance over the manipulation of the impoverished Romanian here simply does not strike me as the primary moral problematic of the film. That it is unsavory is likely beyond question. But if anything Cohen's manipulation here but exemplifies for public exposure the much broader socio-economic powers & manipulative activity that actively render these people impoverished in the first place.
In light of this, I find the 'greater question' is one of morality, that is, an active engagement & investment in one's ethical economy -- which for me (as well as most theologians) is not confined only to matters of subjectivity or personal taste. The question, can we / should we laugh, cuts much deeper than that.
The reason this is the greater question is because it does not simply 'objectify' the object of our laughter / the butt of our jokes -- namely, the fundamentally ignorant, those most crucially w/out any voice in the film (as most graphically depicted in Borat, the poor). Any moral question whose answer is, at its root, to reserve a spot of 'tolerance' or 'respect' is, in my estimation, only cosmetically helpful -- which is to say, the system that actually creates the very conditions for the things we tolerate or respect is never put into question.
The question of laughter, however, is interesting (again, perhaps only for me, though I think it is very much related to Brian's concern) because it goes much further. In placing the relationship with & attention to the poor at the center of our subjective self-awareness (as those who can laugh and find humor), alongside our awareness of 'the poor' as objects we should respect/not treat as means, etc (i.e., those we ought not not mock), the question of laughter calls our own sense of self (& impoverished other) into question. And in the process, I should add, shatters our tolerance for the very socio-economic reality of poverty that gives birth to the impoverished. (/rant)
I'm not sure how many of you have traveled to Eastern Europe or even Khazikstan, (much of central america in ways of thinking would qualify you to see a bit of the mindset of the people). I have had the privlage of spending time in both. I'm sure you arguements have plenty of philosophical merit that honestly I don't have the time to read and try and understand your points (mostly I'm lazy on my time off).
But for an American to go and do this is awful, we wonder why much of the world hates us and it is because we carry ourselves around like we are better than everyone and anyone and everyone should bow to our every whim.
I walked out of this movie, so I'm not sure of all the scenes you all are talking about but I did not find this humorous. I deal with people almost daily that would gladly kill Americans if they had the chace. Why do we need to flame this fire anymore?
Hey there Guy named Courtney,
Just a quick note, Sasha Baron Cohen is actually British. It's also worth noting that he's a Jew (I mention that b/c he rags on the Jews so much in the movie).
It's slightly worrisome to think that there are people out there who think that he's American. Not because Americans aren't guilty of this, but because it's so easy to think that of Americans (since we assume power and money must mean we are also right and good).
It was possibly irresponsible for Baron Cohen to fail to think of the impression that this would give to the non-western world. Because the way the humor works is to play on existing assumptions about Eastern Europeans. But I'd rather lay the blame at the feet of American leadership who have fostered this attitude towards America.
In the end, exercising your right to walk out is the only real kind of protest you can mount. The ideal form of protest, the one to which American leadership responds, is based on money: to demand your money back would be a perfect protest, but fat chance of that happening.
Well, by walking out, means I stopped watching the movie I bought on the black market, that helps fund Al Queda probably...hmmm
Oh, and thank you for the information, always good to be better informed instead of jumping into subjects I feel strongly about without all the information. I'd been holding back all day during some stupid briefings and just let it out, my apologies
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