The Anti-Defamation League has criticized Sacha Baron Cohen, who is Jewish, for his movie Borat because it says the movie reinforces, or creates where none even existed, stereotypes of Jews. Although a satire, Borat, the ADL says may not be taken as such by unsophisticated viewers and so it's satirical play on Jews as money-grubbing, sinister pariahs is dangerous.
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NOT!
Most venerable ADL misses the points. It is the stereotype of Jews as a tricky, devious people that Borat unwittingly, and therefore all the more believably, reinforces. Borat/Cohen puts people in stereotyping situations created by Corat and then says that when those people go along with Corat's stereotypes they are being anti-Semitic or racist.
The most telling example of Corat's deviousness is--perfectly--a scene that Corat excises out of the theater version. It is Corat in a West Virginia animal shelter attempting to buy a dog. He holds the dog up and examines its anus for suitability for bestiality; he tells the shelter-keeper that he wants an attack dog to go after Jews. She responds that Jews are God's children and her dogs are not going to want to do violence to them.
Corat tries to determine if the dog is suitable as a Jew-hunter. He instructs the shelter-keeper--who Corat addresses only as "woman"- to stand at a distance and put an index finger over each temple in simulation of devil's horns. Corat then puts the dog down and instructs him to "attack the Jew." The woman didn't know that that was what Corat was going to do, that was a situation that was totally the creation of Corat's. And when the woman doesn't play along and instead says that if it is for things like this that he wants her dogs then she is not going to sell them to him--when the mark doesn't behave as wanted the scene gets deleted from the movie!
Naughty, naughty, Corat.
Borat is my favorite movie despite this appalling message. I am not Jewish so I can enjoy the movie unencumbered by ethnic sensitivity to its unwitting anti-Semitic stereotyping. It is riotously funny. It is also unique acting. It is one level of difficulty for actors to act with other actors. Borat is a whole other level of difficulty because Cohen is acting with people who have no idea that he's acting. It's similar to the situation where a police officer has to play an undercover role as a drug dealer or hit man. One can never know when cover is going to be blown and your criminal friend is going to try to put a bullet in your head, or in Cohen's case when the rodeo spectators realize something is going on. This is Public Occurrences.
Pause,
Pause,
Pause,
NOT!
Most venerable ADL misses the points. It is the stereotype of Jews as a tricky, devious people that Borat unwittingly, and therefore all the more believably, reinforces. Borat/Cohen puts people in stereotyping situations created by Corat and then says that when those people go along with Corat's stereotypes they are being anti-Semitic or racist.
The most telling example of Corat's deviousness is--perfectly--a scene that Corat excises out of the theater version. It is Corat in a West Virginia animal shelter attempting to buy a dog. He holds the dog up and examines its anus for suitability for bestiality; he tells the shelter-keeper that he wants an attack dog to go after Jews. She responds that Jews are God's children and her dogs are not going to want to do violence to them.
Corat tries to determine if the dog is suitable as a Jew-hunter. He instructs the shelter-keeper--who Corat addresses only as "woman"- to stand at a distance and put an index finger over each temple in simulation of devil's horns. Corat then puts the dog down and instructs him to "attack the Jew." The woman didn't know that that was what Corat was going to do, that was a situation that was totally the creation of Corat's. And when the woman doesn't play along and instead says that if it is for things like this that he wants her dogs then she is not going to sell them to him--when the mark doesn't behave as wanted the scene gets deleted from the movie!
Naughty, naughty, Corat.
Borat is my favorite movie despite this appalling message. I am not Jewish so I can enjoy the movie unencumbered by ethnic sensitivity to its unwitting anti-Semitic stereotyping. It is riotously funny. It is also unique acting. It is one level of difficulty for actors to act with other actors. Borat is a whole other level of difficulty because Cohen is acting with people who have no idea that he's acting. It's similar to the situation where a police officer has to play an undercover role as a drug dealer or hit man. One can never know when cover is going to be blown and your criminal friend is going to try to put a bullet in your head, or in Cohen's case when the rodeo spectators realize something is going on. This is Public Occurrences.
PUBLIC OCCURRENCES
