Sacha Baron Cohen's first and best character was Ali G, a Muslim. (He later claimed Ali G was short for "Alister Graham," but that can't be squared with Ali G's references to his "Uncle Jamaal.")
Baron Cohen's second, and second best, character was Borat, a Slav. (He's based on a Russian, was originally portrayed as a Moldovan, then an Albanian, and finally wound up being attributed to far off Kazakhstan -- i.e., Cossackstan in Baron Cohen's imagination.)
Bruno, his third and worst character, is an Austrian.
It's remarkable how the creative imagination works. What possible common denominator could there be among Muslims, Slavs, and Teutons? We shall probably never find out.
Baron Cohen's second, and second best, character was Borat, a Slav. (He's based on a Russian, was originally portrayed as a Moldovan, then an Albanian, and finally wound up being attributed to far off Kazakhstan -- i.e., Cossackstan in Baron Cohen's imagination.)
Bruno, his third and worst character, is an Austrian.
It's remarkable how the creative imagination works. What possible common denominator could there be among Muslims, Slavs, and Teutons? We shall probably never find out.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Posts
92 comments:
There's that paleo Can't-do attitude again.
Why don't you write 3 movie length comedy scripts featuring yourself portraying a member of each of 3 ethnic groups that have killed paleos, and make sure there are lots of scenes where you take off your clothes.
Then produce it and show clip from it on the internet.
If you're unwilling to do that, you can hardly blame Baron Cohen for doing what he does.
You just gotta love that culture......that culture of critique.
Steve, I don't know why you make such nefarious intimations.
Don't you know that bloggers like mencius moldbug and larry auster are going to be all over this and rationalize/justify everything away and reveal how wrongheaded you are?
I always thought Borat was based on Mahir, the mustachioed Turk who was one of the first internet celebrities.
http://istanbul.tc/mahir/mahir/
"I like sex!"
I think Steve is implying that SBC's next target will be a redneck or a Harvard-educated, golf-crazy, monocle-wearing WASP.
Steve, Cohen creates characters that are annoying--it's not complicated.
I think Bruno is pretty funny, but the gag does not a feature make.
Cohen's next character will also be annoying. Think Quaker lesbian trying to get a gig in the Peace Corps.
nah i think you're just reading too much into it
Don't you know that bloggers like mencius moldbug and larry auster are going to be all over this...
If the aforementioned bloggers annoy you so much, perhaps you shouldn't read them. Why bother with anything that might challenge your received opinions on Jews anyway?
I believe John Derbyshire put forth the Sailerian theory with regards to 'Borat' on NRO's The Corner.
HE WAS NEVER HEARD FROM AGAIN!!!
One thing though is there are not many groups that have not engaged in fierce ethnic competition with Ashkenazis. I suppose perhaps we could say Asians ethic groups are an exception, but Cohen would have a hard time playing an Asian.
If the aforementioned bloggers annoy you so much, perhaps you shouldn't read them. Why bother with anything that might challenge your received opinions on Jews anyway?
Aren't you being a tad touchy, Anonymous?
That Moldbug and Auster are so duplicitous on the Jewish Question is no reason not to read them.
Moldbug is a good diagnostician of the current situation, and an excellent miner of memory-holed books and perspectives on history and politics.
His prescriptive writings verge on the lunatic, and regarding the poltical behavior of organized Jewry - and its extent - he's an outright liar.
But as they say, nobody's perfect. This shouldn't be taken to mean, as you imply, that imperfect people shouldn't be tweaked occasionally.
Or, if that offends you - and your received opinion on Jews -why do you come here?
As to Auster, he's a fine blogger, one of the very best of the conservatives who have gone beyond faileocon status. I recommend him without reservation. However, he is a habitual dissimulator on the subject of Jewry. So what? If I tuned out all news sources that were habitual dissimulators on Jewry, I wouldn't be able to use any print, broadcast, or online news sources whatsoever.
Finally, anti-Semitism is over with as an internet meme. One of its staunchest defenders, Freidrich Braun, has recently capitulated totally on the question, as have most of the writers on Majority Rights, the only readable WN source on the web. Ian Jobling and American Renaissance have capitulated. Whatever direction American pro-White advocacy travels from here, it will be effectively neutral on the JQ, with occasional grumbling - a la this site. We can call it the BNP model.
Anyway, since there's been a sort of collective decision made, you should really chill out. Jews and their advocates aren't above a few well placed one-liners.
I went to see Borat with my closest friend, a jew. He saw right through the comedy before it happened. Borat's character was a straight man (I have not seen Bruno but my guess is that he is a gay straight man). In comdey the straight man or straight line is what sets up the punch line. In other words, the joke was not really on Borat but on the rednecks (read white chirstian mid america) who went along with the odd ball Kazak. It would be like a movie where a really dumb racist white guy was mixed in with politically correct black people trying to figure out how to be like blacks because they can get away better at being racist (the joke is on black violence, affirmative action, black IQ, etc.) If the guy was a pc liberal it would not work unless the joke was on him.
A N L - Finally, anti-Semitism is over with as an internet meme. One of its staunchest defenders, Freidrich Braun, has recently capitulated totally on the question, as have most of the writers on Majority Rights, the only readable WN source on the web. Ian Jobling and American Renaissance have capitulated. Whatever direction American pro-White advocacy travels from here, it will be effectively neutral on the JQ, with occasional grumbling - a la this site. We can call it the BNP model.
Well for now anyway.
Re Majority Rights.
Wint...er, sorry, I mean Col.., no I mean Prof...er whoever, you should comment there (and here) more often. Otoh maybe you do and I'm not reading carefully enough.
All three came into conflict with the British Empire?
Muslim Muslim Muslim
Slav
Teuton
I suppose this means his next persona will one of: Spaniard, Frenchman, American, Irishman, Maori, Zulu, Boer, Kikuyu, Malay, Turk, Egyptian, Hindu, Bantu, Chinaman, Zionist Jew, Australian Aborigine, Afghani, Burmese, Somali, Berber, or Sri Lankan (Let me know if I missed any).
In regards to Bruno:
I think all those flyover country whites actually came off as rather tolerant and welcoming. For instance at the dinner, when he left to go to the bathroom (and later bring over a prostitute and bring his stool in a bag), they were commenting about how nice he was and how the differences were merely cultural. When he double kissed the driving instructor on the cheeks, the guy didn't call him a f*g and run away. And the guys at the bullriding event suggested to him that he could look more American if he shaved off his moustache, instead of calling him a damn foreigner and telling him to leave.
Some of this may have been due to the presence of cameras, but none of them knew how widespread the movie would be. I imagine they were acting genuine for the most part and I think it actually portrayed America in a positive light.
Maybe it's because all three displeased Revilo Oliver. Uh, wait-Oliver didn't like the versipellous tribe either. Lessee, maybe it's because none of the above had any fashion sense and his next target will be Oliver himself?
Maybe he'll play Oliver in a cheesy tux and have Grace Needham dolled up like Marilyn Monroe. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Sailer's made this point before, and as a Jew I have no problem saying it sounds plausible, except for two questions. The first is why make Bruno Austrian and not German? Hitler was an Austrian, of course, but Nazism was far more popular in Germany than Austria, wasn't it? The other question is that, given Cohen's background, as an Iranian Jew, he may have a different perspective on this than an Ashkenazi Jew would.
Shalom “Anony-mouse”!
Speaking of Larry Auster, I notice that his sharp edged commentary is rather limited when it comes to films. While Auster found the Passion of the Christ evil, he hasn’t uttered a word about Borat and Bruno. Auster did however find time to attack that influential movie “The History Boys.”
BTW, anyone know why Borat/Bruno/Ali G has gone after both Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan? Has it been because Ron Paul’s or Buchanan’s ancestors “killed” Borat’s ancestral group? I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that both of them suggested that American foreign aid be phased out.
"What possible common denominator could there be among Muslims, Slavs, and Teutons? We shall probably never find out."
AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!
HA HA!
Interesting theory. Ali G may have been from a muslim background, but um, it's easy to make fun of rappers. Because they act so dumb.
Your pattern recognition thing might be in overdrive here. In any case, movie review should be about the movie, not your pet theories.
(Though maybe the Jews made me say this.)
" . . . Nazism was far more popular in Germany than Austria, wasn't it?"
Sort of depends on whose version of history you go with. The Anschluss was eagerly received by many, though by no means all, Austrians. After the Second World War, the Austrians were understandably eager to portray themselves as victims -- rather than perpetrators -- of Nazi aggression (this victimization thing is really getting out of hand!).
" . . . why make Bruno Austrian and not German?"
A couple of guesses:
1. The German weirdo/perv/evildoer has been done to death. I found Mike Myer's "Dieter Sprocket" pretty damned amusing, but the one German I knew at the time certainly didn't. Which brings us to . . .
2. Audience numbers. There are a lot more Germans than there are Austrians. And while the Germans may not be much inclined to laugh at themselves, they cetainly enjoy laughing at the Austrians.
German joke: "Q: What does the Austrian battleflag look like?"
A. "A white eagle on a white background."
3: The Austrians can be pretty strange.
"The other question is that, given Cohen's background, as an Iranian Jew, he may have a different perspective on this than an Ashkenazi Jew would."
He's not an Iranian Jew. He's Ashkenazi.
"If the aforementioned bloggers annoy you so much, perhaps you shouldn't read them. Why bother with anything that might challenge your received opinions on Jews anyway?"
Yeah, take that, dude!
Muslims, Slavs, Teutons - all people that conservative Anglos hate and have slaughtered? Did I get it right?
Bruno's mostly a gay joke but he does have a tendency to say "get rid of them, put them all on a train."
Perhaps Steve, but it's notable HOW the characters were received, and what Cohen did with them.
Ali G was dropped. Because making fun of Muslims is both Un-PC, and can get you very, very dead. Both are pretty powerful reasons not to continue the character, and it's notable that Cohen had done nothing to mine the Ali G character or exploit/sell his old shows with the character.
Borat made fun of middle-class, flyover state Americans, and the market for that was not Jews, because they were not big enough to prople the movie to about $120-$130 or whatever it did (somewhere in that range I think).
What's remarkable is that Cohen, making fun of Blacks (he baits a Black audience with his adopted African baby he calls OJ) and Gays has gotten bad reviews this time ... for violating PC. Meanwhile ads are all over Spike TV, not known for it's sensitivity, pushing the line that it mocks gays.
Cohen is not the first guy to make fun of gay Austrian fashion designers, IIRC Ben Stiller and Will Ferrell did the same with "Mugatu" in Zoolander. After Arnold, after all, Austrians are considered funny in a way that say Italians are not (and avoids any lawsuits by the gay Italian fashion designers).
Probably most American's image of Austrian, German, and Scandinavian men would not be Nazis, Vikings, or what have you but metrosexual to gay guys.
It will be interesting to see how much money is made by Bruno, and who goes to see it. Straight White guys being allowed to laugh at Blacks, Gays, and Foreigners plus celebrities suggests that if the movie does make money, it will make it from an entirely different gorup of folks who went to see Borat.
[Borat probably won't last well, most people's images of Slavs are smoking hot women, and dangerous gangster guys. Cohen's stupid-rube Slavs flies in those perceptions, that seem strongly rooted amongst most Americans.]
Steve's commenters stand on their heads to find a common denominator to Cohen's oeuvre and it is that he makes fun of antisemites. For the sake of their moronic argument they are ready to turn Kazakhs into Slavs. They are not. They are a Turkish people. And they are very friendly to Jews and always were. Borat hurt them very much, they did not like it all, they took offense, but still are very pro-semite aka friendly to Jews. Their president-dictator has developed a Kim Il Sung-like personality cult but I for one like him.
The NY Times review of Bruno is up:
http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/07/10/movies/10bruno.html?hpw
Is the reviewer, A. O. Scott, one of your readers? Inquiring minds want to know.
Uncle Jamal notwithstanding, Ali G was not so much Arab, or English, or what not, as chav.
Borat and Bruno are ethnic caricatures. Ali G is more of a cultural caricature.
Personally I though the Ali G interviews with stuffy intellectuals (like Gore Vidal) were hilarious.
From Wikipedia:
Regarding his portrayal as the anti-Semitic Borat, Baron Cohen says the segments are a "dramatic demonstration of how racism feeds on dumb conformity, as much as rabid bigotry", rather than a display of racism by Baron Cohen himself.[28] "Borat essentially works as a tool. By himself being anti-Semitic, he lets people lower their guard and expose their own prejudice"
-------------------
Yes, indeed, a "tool." Just say it whitey! Admit it now and this can be over! You're a Nazi! And a pervert! I need to hear it!
Freud, etc.
An old story. Displacing natives, redistributing their property, and destroying their traditions is always hard on the conscience. Unless you KNOW that they are EVIL.
I think Steve is implying that SBC's next target will be a redneck or a Harvard-educated, golf-crazy, monocle-wearing WASP. --anonymous
Yes, and one whose name begins with an A. That way he can combine all four characters into a fusion band called ABBA.
"Their president-dictator has developed a Kim Il Sung-like personality cult but I for one like him."
If you're interested, I can sell you the deed to an earthquake in San Francisco. Or a fire in Chicago.
AO Scott won't like it because Bruno mocks Gays, Blacks, and SWPL yuppies.
Gays are alaready up i arms.
"I always thought Borat was based on Mahir, the mustachioed Turk who was one of the first internet celebrities."
I used to think so too, but SBC actually debuted Borat a couple of years before Mahir launched his website.
" . . . Nazism was far more popular in Germany than Austria, wasn't it?"
I may be wrong but in the last Austrian elections before Anchluss the Nazi party did better percentage wise than in the last elections in Germany.*
Only last week on the BBC I saw a documentary on Vienna. The Jewish presenter mentioned that his (Viennese) father's strongest memory was of hearing his neighbours weeping for joy the day Anschluss was announced.
The presenter was at pains to remind us that Austrians are much more at ease today with a more vibrant society. Though, oddly, never to the point of actually weeping for joy about it.
*I've heard that the Austrian parliament itself voted for Anschluss in 1919 after the Empire was dismantled. Disallowed by the allies of course.
One of his best characters is the French formula one racer who becomes a NASCAR driver to defeat Ricky Bobby.
Another amusing bit is the voicework he did as King Julian in Madagascar movies, although I am uncertain what group he is parodying.
The "Italian" in Sweeney Todd is a good role too.
He probably considers himself the second coming of Peter Sellars. It would be interesting to see if he could pull off a roles like Sellars work in Strangelove, Lolita or Being There.
- Chris in Texas
Not that it means anything, but in his "interview" with Andy Rooney (look it up in YouTube), Ali G accuses Rooney of being "racialist" when Rooney calls an end to the interview -- because he's "black."
J said:
Steve's commenters stand on their heads to find a common denominator to Cohen's oeuvre and it is that he makes fun of antisemites. For the sake of their moronic argument they are ready to turn Kazakhs into Slavs. They are not. They are a Turkish people. And they are very friendly to Jews and always were.
Cohen himself turned Borat into a slav by having Borat actually speak Polish. Did you think Borat was speaking Kazakh?
Why didn't I think of that? Thanks.
If he thinks he can pull it off - I think non-Americans are easier for him to play because he's English, and of course they work perfectly in his setups - I can see him doing a redneck or WASP character in his nasty 'Candid Camera' films.
It also makes his attempt to trap/embarrass/make fun of Ron Paul make sense. Paul's against the US propping up Israel so to him Paul's one of the enemy.
Your Borat review from nearly three years ago also finally clued me in on why there are put-down Polish jokes - about one of the nicest immigrant groups - in America. But many of those are recycled put-down Irish jokes in Britain (as with putting down Poles there's more than a whiff of anti-Catholicism) and I imagine put-down Flemish jokes (which exist) in Belgium and put-down Norwegian jokes in Sweden. Henny Youngman must have used those sources but the intent as you describe makes sense.
Although Kazakhs aren't actually Slavs, I suspect the average American just sees the alphabet and immediately thinks of Russia.
I think all those flyover country whites actually came off as rather tolerant and welcoming.
You mean, passive, race-whipped, and unwilling to resist their imminent cultural, political, and demographic destruction?
The Ali G. character appears to be making fun of hip hop culture as well according to many interpretations.
"Nazism was far more popular in Germany than Austria, wasn't it?"
No. No real difference - you could argue that Nazism was actually more popular in Vienna than in Berlin (where it was never very popular). And even today there are probably more Nazi sympathizers in Austria than Germany, which may be why Bruno is "Austrian." And Austrians are Germans anyway, in the ethnic sense. "Austria" vs. "Germany" is an arbitrary political distinction that arose from the Hohenzollern - Hapsburg rivalry. Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Westphalia, Bohemia and Austria were all considered "German" states at the beginning of the 19th century. Bohemia and Austria got left out of Bismarck's German Empire because they were firmly entrenched in the Hapsburg Empire. In that sense Hitler's desire to reincorporate Austria and Bohemia into Germany really was not that unreasonable.
J has obviously never seen "Borat" if he still thinks the "Kazakhstan" of Borat bears any relationship to the real country.
Several years ago there was a scandal in Europe when some Austrian winemakers added antifreeze to their cheap wine to make it taste like the more expensive stuff. Some of this wine was mixed with wine from Germany and plenty of people were sickened and some died. There was a massive, expensive wine recall which prompted a German winemaker to say: You've got to hand it to the Austrians - they turned Beethoven into an Austrian, Hitler into a German and now they have turned poisoned Austrian wine into poisoned German wine!"
On a serious note, "anti-Semitism" is played out because Jews largely control discourse in this country and quickly respond to objections to Jewish behavior with accusations of racism (you don't like us because you don't like our DNA - you're a crypto-Nazi). These accusations (and the Jewish financial and cultural power that back them up) have driven most critics of Jews (except for real Nazis) into silence. E. Michael Jones has written extensively on this subject in his magnum opus "The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and Its Impact on World History". It is that spirit that should be the focus of critique and not whether or not Jews are really Khazars or non-Aryans, etc..
Steve, you'd probably be interested to know that Cohen ridicules Ron Paul in his latest film. I'm sure there's many better targets for humor in Congress than Rep. Paul, so why go after him? Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but Paul is arguably the most anti-Israel (or more specifically, anti-fighting-Israel's wars) member of Congress.
Cohen is indeed Ashkenazi, certainly not an Iranian. From Wikipedia:
Sacha Baron Cohen was born in London, England,[1] the youngest of three sons in an Orthodox Jewish family.[4] His mother, Daniella (née Weiser), is a schoolteacher who was born in Israel. His father, Gerald Baron Cohen, was originally from Wales.[5][6][7] Baron Cohen's paternal grandfather was born in Pontypridd, and his maternal grandmother, who now lives in Haifa, Israel, was an acclaimed ballet dancer from Germany.[8][9][10][11][12] His paternal great grandfather was born in Kaunas, Lithuania.
It's true that Borat was inspired by Mahir for at least one line in the movie: "I like sex. Is nice."
Zoolander was funnier.
J,
"For the sake of their moronic argument they are ready to turn Kazakhs into Slavs. They are not. They are a Turkish people."
Umm...did you even read Steve's post? Steve has also mentioned this fact in the past in previous posts. The character didn't start out as a Kazakh. And no, it's not our anti-semitism that's making us "turn Kazakhs into Slavs."
Your blog is devoted to "noticing" certain un-PC things about various cultural/ethnic groups. But if others "notice" certain things about your cultural/ethnic group, you immediately point and suggest we're crazy, mean-spirited, hateful, anti-Semitic etc. Just because one notices these things doesn't mean that they're hateful anti-Semites.
You're hypocritical. You reserve the right to "notice" things about others, but condemn others doing the same about your own group.
Also, you qualify your point by suggesting that it's only directed at "Steve's commenters" but it's clear that it would apply to Steve as well. I suppose you don't want to directly critique Steve, so you do so indirectly. Passive aggressive, are we?
The ways of Sacha Baron Cohen: straight outta K-Mac's playbook.
For the record, I don't buy MacDonald's stuff -- at all. But guys like Baron Cohen sure ain't falsifying his case.
Baron Cohen said in an interview with Terry Gross that he got the inspiration for 'Borat' from a Russian man he met.
Not to go OT,but I'm still trying to figure out why Hollywood is pushing that ugly little Shia LeBouef(sp?). He seems to be stuck into what are expected to be blockbusters,esp with young males,in roles where the leading man could just as easily be a mannequin. First the execrable Indiana Jones flop,but then the huge boffo hit "Xformers". Then they plant a tale of Shia dating Megan Fox! Riiiiiiight!! (Of course megan would---well,lets say "cooperate fully" for the chance to get good roles.) I cant imagine what characteristic Shia has that would make Hollywood push him so hard! Borat is onto a good thing. He prob gets along well with Bill Maher,that courageous outspoken defier of religion,who warns us of the perils of...Christianity! Better to be safe than sorry!
All three originate in areas of the world that produce what most Americans regard as 'funny' English accents. Cohen can't pull off the other two -- India and China -- because of his appearance.
It might be as simple as that.
PR
Some of this may have been due to the presence of cameras, but none of them knew how widespread the movie would be. I imagine they were acting genuine for the most part and I think it actually portrayed America in a positive light.
I've had a couple conversations with nice normal people outside of the US who saw Borat and had the following reaction - wow, Americans have really good manners and will put up with a lot, that comedian was a mean guy.
I think we as Americans forget that the rest of the world isn't infected with irony and self-hate.
Heard an Exquisitely Correct review on NPR this morning. Summary: Sticking it to the Correct Targets? Bigot-busting comic genius! Having a larf at the expense of a Protected Class, like, say, blacks? Bad "gratuitous" Sacha!
"I've had a couple conversations with nice normal people outside of the US who saw Borat and had the following reaction - wow, Americans have really good manners and will put up with a lot, that comedian was a mean guy."
I guess I don't get it either. What's so funny about good manners? A much better subject for satire is the dopey American desire to be famous. Watch Peter Sellers' subtle use of ridicule in this scene from Lolita.
Wikipedia has some interesting tidbits on Sacha Baron Cohen:
Baron Cohen, the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, says he also wishes in particular to expose the role of indifference in that genocide. "When I was in university, there was this major historian of the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw, who said, 'The path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference.' I know it's not very funny being a comedian talking about the Holocaust, but it's an interesting idea that not everyone in Germany had to be a raving anti-Semite. They just had to be apathetic."[10] Regarding the enthusiastic response to his song, "Throw The Jew Down The Well", he says, "Did it reveal that they were anti-Semitic? Perhaps. But maybe it just revealed that they were indifferent to anti-Semitism."
and
Baron Cohen first acted in theatrical productions featuring the Socialist-Zionist youth movement Habonim Dror.[52]
He spent a year in Israel at Kibbutz Rosh HaNikra and Kibbutz Beit HaEmek as part of the Shnat Habonim Dror, as well as taking part in the programme "Machon l'Madrichei Chutz L'Aretz" for Jewish youth movement leaders.
Hmmm... strong sense of Jewish identity, radical criticism of gentile culture, and a perception of his work as fighting anti-Semitism and promoting Jewish interests... a particularly good example of Kevin MacDonald's "Culture of Critique", although nothing too shocking since by this point this culture dominates the mass media and intellectual circles of America, even of the "conservative right".
Simon Baron-Cohen is this generation's critical theorist of the Frankfurt School.
I've seen none of Cohen's work yet, & none of the remarks here makes me want to see any of them. You make him sound inevitable, but it's worth remembering that any comic will go away if everyone just avoids watching his films long enough.
"In that sense Hitler's desire to reincorporate Austria and Bohemia into Germany really was not that unreasonable."
HATER! LIAR! CRIMINAL!
"For the record, I don't buy MacDonald's stuff -- at all."
Oh. Whew. You're still morally okay then.
The problem with your theory is that Ali G wasn't making fun of Muslims, he was making fun of wiggers, and Bruno isn't making fun of Germans (or Austrians), he's making fun of gays and Eurotrash in general.
"The problem with your theory is that Ali G wasn't making fun of Muslims, he was making fun of wiggers, and Bruno isn't making fun of Germans (or Austrians), he's making fun of gays and Eurotrash in general."
please tell me, how are these things mutually exclusive? because the fact is that they aren't.
according to you, it's impossible to rationally believe that SBC can do both, that is make fun of those mentioned in your quote while at the same time holding and suggesting other views. to do so requires a tremendous leap of faith, the faith being rabid anti-Semitism of course, and only irrational hate filled people do so.
it's like bizarro world, where the simplest, most reasonable, and common sensical explanations for things are rejected and thrown out.
GLAAD is now claiming that "Bruno" reinforces negative gay sterotypes.
Universal Pictures responds by saying that the film "uses provocative comedy to powerfully shed light on the absurdity of many kinds of intolerance and ignorance, including homophobia."
"While any work that dares to address relevant cultural sensitivities might be misinterpreted by some or offend others, we believe the overwhelming majority of the audience will understand and appreciate the film's inarguably positive intentions, which we've seen demonstrated whenever we have shown it."
I wonder if GLAAD members will picket or protest at theaters showing the film, and if so, will Baron-Cohen show up in a pair of leather hot pants to join the demonstration?
Referring to "Uncle Jamal" is consistent with trying to "act black." It does not by any stretch demonstrate that Ali G is really Muslim.
"Oh. Whew. You're still morally okay then."
Hey, I don't know how to answer this. Either you're an anti-Semite who thinks I'm lying because I want to be morally pure and pass as a race realist liberal. Or you're some touchy liberal or Jewish individual who believes all things racial should be beyond discussion course.
Now I'm just joking here.
It's pretty funny, in my own private sick PoV, that the anti-anti-Semitism of a guy like Baron Cohen seems to confirm Kevin MacDonald's theories. Even if you don't buy the group selection idea -- which I don't believe because I think gene selection seems more plausible to me -- this still seems like an ironic observation of Steve.
Dude, don't be so serious. Laugh a little. It's only life, you know.
"MacSweeney said...
It's true that Borat was inspired by Mahir for at least one line in the movie: "I like sex. Is nice."
Again, SBC debuted Borat a couple of years before Mahir launched his website, and Borat used his catchphrase "I like sex!" in Borat's "Guide to Britain" back in 1997, two years before Mahir’s website became famous.
Either you're an anti-Semite who thinks I'm lying because I want to be morally pure and pass as a race realist liberal. Or you're some touchy liberal or Jewish individual who believes all things racial should be beyond discussion course.
Obviously the former.
"Dude, don't be so serious. Laugh a little. It's only life, you know."
What a bizarre statement, based as it is on seven words whose meaning you admit you can't quite fathom.
Ali G, Borat, and Bruno are gross and just unbearable to watch.
I wonder what sort of self centered horrid person you have to be to go around acting the way SBC does. He must be both completely lacking in self consciousness and very mean spritied too.
I enjoyed reading "most memorable quotes" of Ali G on imdb, but I can't bear to actually watch him on screen. Ugh.
One example of grossness: in the Ali G trailer, a dog is performing oral sex on Ali G. I thought I was going to throw up.
Even if you don't buy the group selection idea -- which I don't believe because I think gene selection seems more plausible to me -- this still seems like an ironic observation of Steve.
"Group" selection and "gene" selection are the same thing. Read David Sloan Wilson.
"it's like bizarro world, where the simplest, most reasonable, and common sensical explanations for things are rejected and thrown out."
The delightful Rube Goldberg.
"Not anti-Semitic and not stupid" might not be anti-Semitic but is definitely stupid. No, these things are not "mutually exclusive" as a matter of logic, but that doesn't mean they're all true as a matter of fact. Please post a link to an Ali G transcript or a youtube in which Ali G's supposed Islam is the butt of the joke. I didn't even know Ali G was supposed to be Muslim until I read it here.
"Steve, do you have any evidence for the claim that Jews are the engine behind Polish jokes?"
Because if you did present it, ILB would immediately say, like Blusterin' Barry, "Oh, oh I see, you have a point, yeah that makes sense."
If you're concerned, ILB, or genuinely interested in such things, what's stopping you from doing a little research yourself, like many others have?
I don't think ILB is being disingenuous, I think its an attempt to get some concrete information onto this thread.
Why should he search for said info if someone here already has it in a usable form.
"I don't think ILB is being disingenuous, I think its an attempt to get some concrete information onto this thread."
Perhaps if it were the latter paragraph alone one could make that assumption. However, ILB has written two paragraphs. The first shows that he has no real interest in the request he makes in the second.
It's a standard technique from a standard type.
It's a standard technique from a standard type.
The same could be said of your comments.
Goyish Atheist writes:
“Speaking of Larry Auster, I notice that his sharp edged commentary is rather limited when it comes to films. While Auster found the Passion of the Christ evil, he hasn’t uttered a word about Borat and Bruno. Auster did however find time to attack that influential movie ‘The History Boys.’”
When the commenter says that I found The Passion to be “evil,” the implication is that I was attacking it as anti-Semitic. In fact, in the long debate at my site about The Passion, I repeatedly said that the problem with the movie was not that it was anti-Semitic, which I emphatically said it was not; I said that the problem with the movie was that it was a terrible movie.
There were two main camps on The Passion: that it was an anti-Semitic movie, and that it was a great Christian movie. I said that both camps were wrong.
“[Auster] hasn’t uttered a word about Borat and Bruno.”
What an odd statement. As though I were a movie reviewer (like, say, Steve Sailer) who comments on every movie that comes out, but that for some suspect reason (the suspect reason being that there Auster goes again covering up for the Jews), I haven’t commented on this movie. In fact, I go to a movie theater to see a new maybe twice a year. Virtually all my movie viewing is limited to DVDs. Furthermore, from the ads I’ve seen of this bizarre and off-putting Sacha Baron Cohen character, about whom I know nothing, why would I want to see his movies? (As an indication of how out of it I am with regard to contemporary movies, I still haven’t figured out how someone with the ridiculous name Sacha Baron Cohen is also called Borat. Furthermore, I don’t want to know.)
“Auster did however find time to attack that influential movie ‘The History Boys.’”
I fail to see the relevance to this discussion of my article on “The History Boys,” unless it’s to suggest, “Auster will criticize some movies, but he won’t criticize pro-Jewish or anti-anti-Semitic movies.”
What we see over and over in this discussion is the premise that because I oppose anti-Semitism, which I do oppose, that means that I oppose criticism of Jews. Nothing could be more false. The irony is that certain Judeo-critical persons—exactly like the liberals and Jews who silence them—cannot conceive of any criticism of Jews that is not anti-Semitic. They cannot conceive of rational and legitimate criticism of Jews which can be made and successfully defended as such in modern society. So, since anti-Semitism is largely forbidden in our society, the anti-Semites think that all criticism of Jews is forbidden, and so they hunker down into endless whining about how no one will allow them to criticize the Jews. If the anti-Semites would renounce their anti-Semitism, they would discover that it’s possible to make all kinds of criticisms of Jews and to oppose the anti-national Jewish agenda without being anti-Semitic, as I have done in many articles.
See the collection of my articles on my approach to the Jewish issue, particularly, “The anti-Semites and me; and my solution to the Jewish problem.”
As for my supposed cover-up of anti-anti-Semitic movies, see my entry on Gentleman’s Agreement and Crossfire.
Goyish Atheist writes:
“Speaking of Larry Auster, I notice that his sharp edged commentary is rather limited when it comes to films. While Auster found the Passion of the Christ evil, he hasn’t uttered a word about Borat and Bruno. Auster did however find time to attack that influential movie ‘The History Boys.’”
When the commenter says that I found The Passion to be “evil,” the implication is that I was attacking it as anti-Semitic. In fact, in the long debate at my site about The Passion, I repeatedly said that the problem with the movie was not that it was anti-Semitic, which it was not; I said that the problem with the movie was that it was a terrible movie.
There were two main camps on The Passion: that it was an anti-Semitic movie, and that it was a great Christian movie. I said that both camps were wrong.
“[Auster] hasn’t uttered a word about Borat and Bruno.”
What an odd statement. As though I were a movie reviewer (like, say, Steve Sailer) who comments on every movie that comes out, but that for some suspect reason (the suspect reason being that there Auster goes again covering up for the Jews), I haven’t commented on this movie. In fact, I go to a movie theater to see a new maybe twice a year. Virtually all my movie viewing is limited to DVDs. Furthermore, from the ads I’ve seen of this bizarre and off-putting Sacha Baron Cohen character, about whom I know nothing, why would I want to see his movies? (As an indication of how out of it I am with regard to contemporary movies, I still haven’t figured out how someone with the ridiculous name Sacha Baron Cohen is also called Borat. Furthermore, I don’t want to know.)
“Auster did however find time to attack that influential movie ‘The History Boys.’”
I fail to see the relevance to this discussion of my article on “The History Boys,” unless it’s to suggest, “Auster will criticize some movies, but he won’t criticize pro-Jewish or anti-anti-Semitic movies.”
What we see over and over in this discussion is the premise that because I oppose anti-Semitism, which I do oppose, that means that I oppose criticism of Jews. Nothing could be more false. The irony is that certain Judeo-critical persons—exactly like the liberals and Jews who silence them—cannot conceive of any criticism of Jews that is not anti-Semitic. They cannot conceive of rational and legitimate criticism of Jews that can be made and successfully defended as such in modern society. So, since anti-Semitism is largely forbidden in our society, the anti-Semites think that all criticism of Jews is forbidden, and so they hunker down into endless whining about how no one will allow them to criticize the Jews. If the anti-Semites would renounce their anti-Semitism, they would discover that it’s possible to make all kinds of criticisms of Jews and to oppose the anti-national Jewish agenda without being anti-Semitic, as I have done in many articles.
See the collection of my articles on my approach to the Jewish issue, particularly, “The anti-Semites and me; and my solution to the Jewish problem.”
As for my supposed cover-up of anti-anti-Semitic movies, see my entry on Gentleman’s Agreement and Crossfire.
I don't think ILB is being disingenuous, I think its an attempt to get some concrete information onto this thread.
His semantic game in the aforementioned first paragraph is blatantly disingenuous.
Officially speaking, Ali G is not a Muslim British minority but is rather a white boy wigger from the middle class suburb of London, England called Staines. If you’ve ever seen the 2000 movie in Da House (which unfortunately wasn’t that good), you will see that he lives with a clearly white grandmother and hangs out all day with his “crew” the West Staines Massive. This gang is a bunch of sorry-ass middle class white boys lacking any sense and direction in life. To fill this void, Ali G and his boys exhibit a huge amount of admiration,fear and respect for the Caribbean-descended Big Men around town who prowl the streets all day in their ostentatious and souped-up automobiles.
I agree with Mr. Salier that Ali G is the best character of them all. He is the epitome of young generation of idiots who currently populate “Cool Britannia”. A healthy disdain for chastity, pure living, elocution and education, Ali G represents what happens to the Western World when our value systems disintegrate and are quickly and thoroughly replaced with a pervasive ideology which embraces a consummate appetite for the crasser things in life, such as heavy marijuana use, hoodie clothing, pornography, complete objectification of women, masturbation, etc. Ali G is the patron saint for this new ethos. He justifies this worldview for himself and for his followers with trite catchphrases such as “Peace”, “Respect” and “Keepin’ It Real”.
Some Ali G bits are a real scream. It’s funny how in most of his videos his interviewees usually warm up to him quite easily. I don’t think Sacha Baron Cohen necessarily champions the lifestyle followed by this troglodyte-inspired creature. Instead, he has created a character who serves to warn the public about what will happen to you if you embrace Cool Britannia’s infantile zeitgeist to its fullest extreme. After all, I have read that Mr. Cohen is a devout Jew who takes the tenets of his faith seriously. He’s also a Cambridge-educated history scholar.
Ive seen other comments by ILB that lead me to believe that he is not being disingenuous this time - maybe I'm wrong.
""Steve, do you have any evidence for the claim that Jews are the engine behind Polish jokes?"
Who else would have come up with them? Germans have historically interacted with closely with Poles, but have no sense of humor. Russians and Ukrainians hate Poles but see Poles as devious, clever and untrustworthy - hardly the stereotype perpetrated by Polish jokes. Only urban Jews in Warsaw, Vilnius, Lviv and Cracow would have had the proximity to Poles to care, the intelligence to look down on them, and the wit to create the jokes. Jews it is.
GOD I wish you weren't racist because sometimes I think you're stuff is great.
- A non-WASP
Like another commentor, my first reaction to Steve's question was "all those cultures have been the enemies of the Anglo-American alliance", not the one that he was going for. The reason Borat is Austrian is probably the reasoning that there's something perverted about being a German in general, so if you need to have a character who is a foreigner and a flamboyant homosexual, well, of course he needs to be a German-speaker. (I've sometimes wondered whether there's a connection with the two cultures most associated with perversion - Germans and the Japanese - being also remembered as the losers of WW2.)
"If the aforementioned bloggers annoy you so much, perhaps you shouldn't read them. Why bother with anything that might challenge your received opinions on Jews anyway?"
Wow; way to miss the point entirely.
He reads them NOT because they challenge his opinions on Jews (which like most "anti-semites" aren't "received" opinions, but are opinions that are learned the hard way, swimming against the tide of Mass Media brainwashing and cultural conditioning).
He reads them because they CONFIRM his opinions on Jews. They really couldn't be more transparently obvious.
"Officially speaking, Ali G is not a Muslim British minority but is rather a white boy wigger..."
His original incarnation on British TV was certainly south-Asian. I remember it being commented on in the press back in the '90s. SBC obviously retconned that in time for the movie, possibly for reasons of personal safety, possibly just for Political Correctness.
"His paternal great grandfather was born in Kaunas, Lithuania."
Ah, that explains the dark looks! Litvak Jews tend to be dark. Polish Jews tend to be fair.
As for Kazakhs, they are not Turkish, they speak a Turkic (sp?) language. Ethnically and racially, they are Asian. Very Asian. On the less attractive, Mongolian side of the spectrum - with very flat faces and very narrow eyes.
"Borat and Bruno are ethnic caricatures. Ali G is more of a cultural caricature."
Agreed!
"All three originate in areas of the world that produce what most Americans regard as 'funny' English accents. Cohen can't pull off the other two -- India and China -- because of his appearance.
It might be as simple as that.
PR"
Sascha Baron Cohen with his dark hair can pass for an Indian. A little more makeup (tanning)as he usually does he will be totally Indian. But your are right he needs a facial surgery to pass for a Chinese.
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