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Joe:the one about how working class and black people talk funny, the one about how people from Eastern Europe talk funny, and the one about how gay European men talk funny?
I wouldn't say that constituted any kind of prejudice on its own. This is, after all, comedy, and it has a long history of people talking funny. Cohen also talked funny in Talledega Nights, where he played a Frenchman who confirmed to all the redneck racecar drivers's worst fears. It could be that he just thinks talking funny is, like, funny.
And I'm not sure his characters conform so well to very current British national figures of fearful obsession/ridicule as you say; the stereotype of the white-boy gangsta is middle class, the fear of Eastern Europeans seem to have faded now the Mail readers have realised they'll do plumbing jobs for cash, and we're not particularly obsessed with Euroboys. Obviously all the roles he plays have been the subject of prejudice at some point, but that's part of what he uses them for; to expose prejudice and the fear of prejudice in others. Apart from the magisterial Tony Benn, very few people had the courage to confront Ali's ridiculous worldviews.
When Ali G first aired - before he got his own show, when it was just skits on The 11 O'Clock Show - I used to enjoy those sketches, and the 'point' of them seemed to be what people who defend Borat often describe - i.e., fooling politicians or celebrities into revealing their own prejudices in unstaged interviews.
It's not coincidence that all Cohen's characters come from the same place - a mask to wear to fool others and trick them into agreeing with stupid statements. They develop during these interviews because of what they say, and the cartoonish world they come from is slowly fleshed out. The Ali G movie, which I honestly quite enjoyed, went full-on for this and was essentially a live-action cartoon. It didn't vilify either the character or his world, though, and it's crucial to the plot that at one point Ali remembers his white indie-boy roots. So it's a satire of a middle-class stereotype, not of a British Asian, and it's an affectionate one. As for Bruno, apart from once when he poked fun at the pretentiousness surrounding a fashion show, I don't think I've seen him do anything but expose homophobia in others.
Do you honestly think people sit around going "remember that time Tony Benn said 'ganj' on the 11 O'Clock show?", or do you think maybe they're saying "is it because I is black?" and "me Julie" at each other? Do you really think anyone who's seen the Borat movie will come away examining their misogyny and antisemitism - or will they come away going "Is nice! Kazakstan people talk funny!"?
They sure don't come away examining their misogyny and anti-semitism. It's a Saturday night comedy movie. They come away laughing at the misogyny and anti-semitism of others, which they consider to be ridiculous. I don't think that's actually a bad thing, myself. There might be a certain self-congratulatory element in there, but I'm not convinced liberal self-examination and laughter really mix.
I hate the assessment of audiences on the internet - there's far too much "I stood up in the theatre at the end of Attack of the Clones and said 'Lucas, you have despoiled my childhood,' and everyone there agreed with me," - but subjectively, from when I saw Borat, it was the people we talked about. The Frat Boys who appeared to need no prompting to reveal their astonishing misogyny, and seamlessly moved to comforting Borat when he was upset about Pamela's sex vid. The Christians who initially seemed too easy a target and then began to exorcise him, hands on the forehead, the whole bit. The driving instructor who manfully challenged Borat's statements about rape, saying "In America, women choose who they sleep with, and I think that's a good thing," and came away with credit.
It wasn't all about the talking funny. In fact I, and the people I've spoken to about the film since, seemed to react just like you used to watching the Ali G segments on the 11 O'Clock Show. |
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