Borat...hmmm....
I just got back from seeing Borat, and I took something from one scene that no review I've read has talked about yet:
Spoilers follow
Borat attends a dinner party in the Deep South (on "Secession Drive", believe it or not). All the guests are white and are very, very understanding of Borat's ignorance of American culture. They put up with him calling one of the guests a "retard" and politely correct him as he crashes through one etiquette hurdle after another. They are so unfailingly polite to this bull in a china shop that most of the moviegoers in the theater I saw it in were practically squirming with discomfort.
After Borat crudely asks where he can go #2 and they direct him upstairs, one of the women starts compassionately talking about how vast the cultural differences are between her friends and their foreign guest. She says that with a little schooling, he could be delightful. And here's where I got pissed:
Borat comes back to the table with his feces in a bag, asking where he can dispose of it. Of course, everyone is appalled, but they shoulder on, with one woman taking him to the restroom to show him how to properly move his bowels in a civilized nation. Then, they INVITE HIM TO SIT BACK DOWN TO FINISH DINNER!
Bunch of patronizing, pasty-faced, white folks! I don't care what country you're from, or if you grew up under a rock in the most under-developed country on the planet, no one, and I mean NO ONE, would bring a bag of feces to a dinner table. Especially if that person arrived by driving his own car there! He can drive a car, but he cannot operate a flush toilet?
It was the assumption of superiority on the part of the dinner guests that appalled me, not Borat's crudeness (besides, Borat was very funny). They treated him almost like a pet, feeling sorry for him in his backwardness, much in the way Jim Crow Southern whites thought they were being generous by deigning to let their black lawn workers eat lunch on the back porches of their homes.
Think I'm overreacting? They were willing to put up with a bag of poop at dinner, but when Borat's date, a scantily-clad black woman, shows up for dinner, they call the cops. Apparently, crude sex innuendos and bodily fluids are fine at dinner, but a black woman named Luelle is a deal breaker.
Spoilers End
All in all, this film was a hilarious squirm-fest that made me think and made me laugh. I want to see it again, but I'm going to need two months to think about it and possibly some very heavy drugs before I do.
Spoilers follow
Borat attends a dinner party in the Deep South (on "Secession Drive", believe it or not). All the guests are white and are very, very understanding of Borat's ignorance of American culture. They put up with him calling one of the guests a "retard" and politely correct him as he crashes through one etiquette hurdle after another. They are so unfailingly polite to this bull in a china shop that most of the moviegoers in the theater I saw it in were practically squirming with discomfort.
After Borat crudely asks where he can go #2 and they direct him upstairs, one of the women starts compassionately talking about how vast the cultural differences are between her friends and their foreign guest. She says that with a little schooling, he could be delightful. And here's where I got pissed:
Borat comes back to the table with his feces in a bag, asking where he can dispose of it. Of course, everyone is appalled, but they shoulder on, with one woman taking him to the restroom to show him how to properly move his bowels in a civilized nation. Then, they INVITE HIM TO SIT BACK DOWN TO FINISH DINNER!
Bunch of patronizing, pasty-faced, white folks! I don't care what country you're from, or if you grew up under a rock in the most under-developed country on the planet, no one, and I mean NO ONE, would bring a bag of feces to a dinner table. Especially if that person arrived by driving his own car there! He can drive a car, but he cannot operate a flush toilet?
It was the assumption of superiority on the part of the dinner guests that appalled me, not Borat's crudeness (besides, Borat was very funny). They treated him almost like a pet, feeling sorry for him in his backwardness, much in the way Jim Crow Southern whites thought they were being generous by deigning to let their black lawn workers eat lunch on the back porches of their homes.
Think I'm overreacting? They were willing to put up with a bag of poop at dinner, but when Borat's date, a scantily-clad black woman, shows up for dinner, they call the cops. Apparently, crude sex innuendos and bodily fluids are fine at dinner, but a black woman named Luelle is a deal breaker.
Spoilers End
All in all, this film was a hilarious squirm-fest that made me think and made me laugh. I want to see it again, but I'm going to need two months to think about it and possibly some very heavy drugs before I do.