Bacchus Posted November 4, 2006 Share Posted November 4, 2006 Washing his face in a toilet. Crapping in a bag and serving it at dinner. Yeah, that's not slapstick humor. Never said that Borat doesn't employ slapstick ... just not stupid slapstick, or rather, just stupid ... like snorting wassabe. Didn't see the episode in question about the toilet, nor the serving shit, but I'm sure it was a little more complex than you are letting on. I did see the one where Borat shows someone pictures of his sister, and he says that they were pretending that they were married, and it was a joke ... which I think is pretty damn funny, and yet again plays on stereopypes. Also it played with the British mans sense of morality vs sensibility. You could see he was outraged, but that he was trying to remain composed. Pretty damn funny. If you have a link to the toilet washing or shit eating insident on u-tube I'd check it out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted November 4, 2006 Share Posted November 4, 2006 Funny movie. I don't know who else saw it but I know I had a good laugh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre the Great Posted November 4, 2006 Share Posted November 4, 2006 I can't wait to see the movie-film tonight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fanpuck33 Posted November 4, 2006 Share Posted November 4, 2006 Instead of going to see this movie, I went to see Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood do live improv comedy. Now THAT was some funny stuff. My cheeks hurt from laughing so much. And they did so without being foul, offensive, or dirty. In my opinion, that is where true comedy lies: when you can make a theater full of people fall over laughing without dipping into visceral material. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre the Great Posted November 4, 2006 Share Posted November 4, 2006 I like Improv and those guys are funny. Watch re-runs on BBC America. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fanpuck33 Posted November 4, 2006 Share Posted November 4, 2006 I like Improv and those guys are funny. Watch re-runs on BBC America. I absolutely love improv. Sketch comedy has pretty much run its course. SNL is boring, they even made Jack Black un-funny, a feat I thought impossible, given how funny JB is. I've seen a few 2nd City shows, and they are pretty much the same as SNL, a laugh here and there, but nothing originally funny. Improv, on the other hand, is always fresh. You can start out with the same premise 100 times and have a different show each time. I've laughed at every Whose Line episode I've ever watched. My favorite is Questions Only. My buddy and I used to do that all the time on AIM. We'd go days at a time conversing in nothing but questions, lol! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre the Great Posted November 4, 2006 Share Posted November 4, 2006 I know I tend to find things fun when they're not suppose to be funny. For example I'll laugh more during movies where the intent was not to be funny for a premise. Like for example SNL not funny Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobRock Posted November 5, 2006 Share Posted November 5, 2006 (edited) I would say that the target of the satire is the average American, specifically; and generally it is the average westerner. I base this on the fact the Borat tends to interview these people. Why does he do this? Well it is probably because many westerners think of people from certain parts of the middle east and other muslim nations as backwards. Also, many westerners are pretty racist, but they pretend not to be. By going to the american mid west and doing a ho-down where he talks about killing jews, and people just sing and dance along, he is exposing their racist tendencies. Then he goes an does another ho-down as the gay german fashion critic and he gets ostracized by the crowd. Furthermore, borat also goes to see people who aren't overtly racist, and by portraying a backwards middle eastern borat actually plays in to peoples stereotypical thinking of small town muslims, and you get to see westerners squirm as they try to keep their composure infront of this Kazakstanian journalist. They don't want to be rude and say, "that is disgusting. I can't believe that you are saying this to me!" and they don't always say "you must be joking!". They take Borat as an authentic Kazaki, which demonstrates that their concept of people from that part of the world is seriously twisted. So, the victim of this satire is infact us ... Westerners. You mentioned the Middle East and Muslim nations twice. Kazakhstan is a former Soviet republic, and it's not in the Middle East. And since I haven't seen the character or the movie, maybe you know if the character Borat is Muslim or not, because in the commercials I have seen, there's no obvious way of knowing if he's Muslim or Christian or atheist or whatever. While it seems like nobody gets the joke, I would doubt that's the case. Anyone who gets the joke and doesn't play along simply gets edited out and left on the cutting room floor. Leno does it on his Jaywalking segment. Rick Mercer did it on his famous "Talking To Americans" segments. If it ain't funny, don't use it. All we see is the stuff they want you to see. That can often result in the satire being lost in the humour. Edited November 5, 2006 by RobRock Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre the Great Posted November 5, 2006 Share Posted November 5, 2006 well not to spoil the anti borat feeling but in the end of the movie he converts everyone to christianity and says hating jews is cruel. The whole point of the movie was to take something 'back to kazakhstan from America". He learned that hating jews was cruel and everyone is a christian now. lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bacchus Posted November 5, 2006 Share Posted November 5, 2006 You mentioned the Middle East and Muslim nations twice. Kazakhstan is a former Soviet republic, and it's not in the Middle East. And since I haven't seen the character or the movie, maybe you know if the character Borat is Muslim or not, because in the commercials I have seen, there's no obvious way of knowing if he's Muslim or Christian or atheist or whatever. While it seems like nobody gets the joke, I would doubt that's the case. Anyone who gets the joke and doesn't play along simply gets edited out and left on the cutting room floor. Leno does it on his Jaywalking segment. Rick Mercer did it on his famous "Talking To Americans" segments. If it ain't funny, don't use it. All we see is the stuff they want you to see. That can often result in the satire being lost in the humour. As far as I know Borat is meant to depict a muslim ... maybe I am wrong. I know Kazakstan is not in the middle east. Never said it was. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre the Great Posted November 5, 2006 Share Posted November 5, 2006 The whole point of Borat is to push anti semitism and racism to the forefront. There was only one time in the movie where the entire theatre did not laugh and it was the rodeo guy. (reminded me of my family no joke) Movie In a nut shell: Borat was sent to America to help Kazakastan become a better nation. At first it was a jew hating place, then Borat found Jesus at the end came back to Kazakastan converted everyone to Christianity and said in the end "Hating Jews is cruel" therefore Borat was changed by his journey through america. That doesn't sound bigotry to me. The character in the movie realizes he's wrong and fixes it. Sorry if I ruined the movie but as judging from the thread I highly doubt any of you were going to see it. Plus Borats language in the film is Hebrew. Which I found hysterical. Cohen who's a devoted orthodox jew speaks fluent hebrew so everytime he was speaking to his handler I couldn't help but not stop laughing, especially at the bed and breakfast scene, thats when the hebrew worked the best in my opinion because it was just too ironic. Got to love the bear though, got to love the bear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted November 5, 2006 Share Posted November 5, 2006 In my theater people laughed their asses off at the rodeo part. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre the Great Posted November 5, 2006 Share Posted November 5, 2006 er Tony are you from Middle America? doubt it. People here knew people like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shu Posted November 5, 2006 Share Posted November 5, 2006 I was watching the Ali G show after the hockey last night, i love him. They had deleted scenes from the Borat movie. God it funny as hell. One part he goes into a county saloon and starts singing about transportation in Kazaksthan (spelt wrong), everybody started singing along and then he started singing about how he hated jews............. everybody was staring at him some kept singing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted November 5, 2006 Share Posted November 5, 2006 er Tony are you from Middle America? doubt it. People here knew people like that. When I was laughing at that scene, it was nothing political. It was more of a "Oh man, I can't believe he just said that. I hope he can run fast because they'll want to kick his ass" type of funny. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psycing Posted November 5, 2006 Share Posted November 5, 2006 Honestly, the movie was halarious, even if all the jokes were "wrong". The idea is to loosen up and enjoy it, lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobRock Posted November 6, 2006 Share Posted November 6, 2006 As far as I know Borat is meant to depict a muslim ... maybe I am wrong. I know Kazakstan is not in the middle east. Never said it was. In your reply to me, you wrote, "a backwards middle eastern borat", and since we all know that the character is from Kazakhstan, it seemed as though you thought that it was in the Middle East. I myself wasn't sure if Kazakhstan was a "Muslim country." I thought perhaps coming out of the Soviet Union, maybe they were mostly Russian Orthodox or some other Christian denomination prevalent in that part of Europe. So I did a little checking, and found that while many of the citizens identify themselves as Muslim, many have never read the Quran, and there are no mosques in the country. They have combined some of the Muslim faith with more local customs and traditions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted November 7, 2006 Share Posted November 7, 2006 If anyone cares, Borat pretty much tricked everyone to be in his movie (not sure about Pam Anderson) but everyone else not an actor was pretty much tricked. If you Google for it you'll find some stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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