Borat Backlash, Pt. II

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on November 14th, 2006

Alfred Lubrano, writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer, talks to some of the most weakminded, humorless people on the planet in an article entitled “Is ‘Borat’ funny or a hate film?” (We are disturbed by the weenie tendency to frame the “debate” as a question. The other Borat story, from ABC News, was titled “Borat a Bad Influence?” took the same tack, as if naming the piece with a question gets the authors and editors off the hook or automatically implies some sort of objectivity.)

“It’s a funny movie…But it’s perhaps dangerous as well.”

“He [Cohen] creates an atmosphere where it’s more acceptable to make anti-Semitic comments, especially if someone takes what he’s saying out of context.”

“I’m not Jewish, but it’s possible some may see the film and think Jews are like that.”

“…Cohen is obviously ridiculing the anti-Semitism…not everyone… might get the joke.”

“We’re concerned people will use material in the film to create more anti-Semitism.”

“Given a choice, we wouldn’t have asked anybody to produce a film like this. We say beware of potential damage.”

“I think [Cohen] is doing damage to Jews. His aggression reveals self-hatred. He’s getting a cheap laugh. This is the humor of a very callous young Jew with no great depth.”

So, the rules are clear:

1. No joking about anything, lest the morons among us “take the joke out of context”

2. No joking about anything, lest the morons among us “not get the joke”

3. If you make a joke about the ethnic group you happen to be a member of, a humorless academic will smear you by labelling you as “self-hating” (Apparently, she didn’t get the memo that Freud is sooo last century.)

4. Joking about something serious is “dangerous”

That last one should give any comedian pause.

We are particularly struck by how horrified people are that Borat blames the Jews for 9/11. For five years now, we’ve heard and read a non-stop stream of drivel– on startlingly mainstream chatrooms, in books by tenured American academics and from the mouths of comfortable, suburban college students from Austin to Boston that the Jews were in fact responsible for 9/11!

Now, mysteriously, that claim, coming from an outlandish character in an ill-fitting suit with a bushy moustache– in a movie that is clearly a comedy– is dangerous. Suddenly, it gives folks license to kill Jews in the street. Inexplicably it is cause for a lot of warnings and admonitions and dire predictions.

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