The skillful exploitation of anti-semitic stereotypes – Charles Krauthammer peels away the layers of the hypocrisy of the “elite snobbery” class. (Or is it stupidity? When the irony’s this thick, it’s hard to know which plays the largest role);
Can a man that smart (Cambridge, investment banker and now brilliant filmmaker) really believe that indifference to anti-Semitism and the road to the Holocaust are to be found in a country and western bar in Tucson?
Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world.
With anti-Semitism re-emerging in Europe and rampant in the Islamic world; with Iran acquiring the ultimate weapon of genocide and proclaiming its intention to wipe out the world’s largest Jewish community (Israel); with America and, in particular, its Christian evangelicals the only remaining Gentile constituency anywhere willing to defend that besieged Jewish outpost — is the American heartland really the locus of anti-Semitism? Is this the one place to go to find it?
Well, it is if your real objective is to cash a class of bigotry in for a more lucrative and socially acceptable one.
Leave it to George Saunders in The New Yorker to really bring it home;
“GANGSTA” SECTION: The scene where Borat says something intentionally offensive to the inner-city black guys—where is that scene? I have been unable to find it. Here I definitely suggest a reshoot. In the attachment, I have provided a list of common racial slurs that Sacha could try out on “the brothers,” just to see what they do to him. My thought is, that seems to be the ethos of the rest of the film—i.e., Sacha saying/doing the most offensive things possible, in order to elicit a reaction—so I sense a little inconsistency here. Thoughts?
wow…and all this time I just thought it was a really funny movie!
-But it is a sign of the disorientation of a distressed and confused people that we should find it so difficult to distinguish our friends from our enemies.-
I think Krauthammers’ last sentence sums it up.
Especially after reading the following in todays Mop&Pail…
EU official debriefs Khadr about CIA flight
MP probing agency’s rendition trips, including ex-detainee’s travel in Europe
-snip-
European politicians have become increasingly concerned about suggestions that “ghost planes” are used to move kidnap victims to alleged CIA-run “black-site” prisons. The fear is that EU member states who facilitated these flights are complicit in major human rights abuses.
Investigative journalists, Amnesty International and EU politicians have been digging up flight information to map out covert CIA practises.
“Portugal was part of the circle of rendition,” said Ms. Gomes, as she listened to Mr. Khadr’s story. “I’ve been pushing since I heard about your case, to have your name included in the list of victims.”
Cohen might be good at prodding people for a reaction, but he’s not stupid enough to actually push people that are going to kick him senseless and leave him in a dumpster; hence, he’ll bring a bag of #2 to the table at a dinner party, but not at a McD’s.
Borat must have hit a nerve, it’s getting deconstructed out the ying yang by the humour impaired.
So Jose, do you laugh at Borat’s anti-semitic jokes because you totally agre with them?
Answer: YES. If you try to answer otherwise, then you are mentally impaired.
The joke’s on you.
Borat is brilliant and the satire is directed at the Euro-snobbery. By getting stereotypical rightwhing Americans to bloviate about Juuuus, Borat is taking a direct shot at the Euro mentality. How? Because the Euro-snobs look down on American conservatives… yet here you have American conservatives … those neandrithals of culture, echoing the same anti-semitism that is seen as “higher order” reasoning among the EU-snob classes. You need look no further than Noam Chompsky… darling of the EU elite, to see what it’s all about. Borat is brutally (funny), and brutally honest.
I bet the Euro-snobs who watch and laugh, don’t realize that they are laughing at themselves.
sarge here, you kids is purty damn funny. their should be a canadian versiuon of borat…only call it “beaver chopper”
It was a hilarious movie. Why are people so upset about it portraying America for what it is? For a Canadian board you folk sure seem to take a lot of offense at whats happening not just south of the border, but in teh American nationalist land to boot. Whats with Canadians being offended by a movie about America?
My son and I attended his flick, ( we were gonna walk out half-way through it- the only reason why we stayed, was because we paid money to see it: Potty humour, (appealing to a ten year old)- although the part where he attempted to marry Pamela Anderson- the ‘Kzakstan way’- was hilariously funny. (is it true, that Pammy’s husband is divorcing her over that?)
It was only later, that I learned that Borat CONNED EVERYBODY to make that flick !?!
That part where he is at the banquet in the stately home, learning American ‘kulture’, ( and the black hooker shows up-that he had invited- and they toss them both out! Haw!
I’ve seen the movie and I thought it was alright.
Obviously America is not the enemy of the Jews. Most lefties draw pictures of a swastika American flag beside an Israeli flag. Ok, scratch the intro for this paragraph. Obviously logical Americans are not the enemy of the Jews.
“Why are people so upset about it portraying America for what it is?”
Jagshemash, you assume America is exactly as seen on CBC state media. They have more minorities than us and from a wider base of immigration. To say all Americans are racist because you can find one backwoods Joe to make a disparaging remark is to say you are also a racist because of obvious racism here in Canada.
I dont watch the CBC. I do occasionally visit the American south. Those minorities you re talking about – the wide base.. they tend to stay in urban areas along the east and west coast, not in the American south. And yes there is racism in Canada. Theres MPs in Alberta who actually like it. Some of those Reform folks are genuinely racist. Canada is for white folk blah blah blah.
Always interesting to learn about my own country from folks like Jagshemash. I was fascinated, for instance, to find out that the American South lacks minorities.
That would come as a surprise to former governor Doug Wilder of Virginia, to Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez from Texas, to Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, to Congressman Bobby Jindal of Lousisiana, and to many others — but what do they know?
Thanks, jagshemash, for this information, which I think I will quote — with approval, of course — on my web site.
As a Tennessean, let me say that there is very little racism in the South, and almost no anti-Semitism. Certainly nothing like there is in the Northeast and on the West Coast, as even a casual acquaintance with all these places will show.
As for Southerners being “cultural Neanderthals”, I beg your pardon. Not only is it untrue, but this is a bigoted thing to say. Indeed, bigotry is virtually a northern monopoly nowadays, which is one of crowning ironies of our age.