Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen, currently appearing as Jean Girard in "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby") has a movie coming out in November with a title as good as "Ricky Bobby." It's called "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," and people who have seen it are raving about how subersively smart and revealingly funny it is.
Cohen and his characters (particularly hip-hop dimwit Ali G) are huge in Great Britain, and Naomi Alderman has an analysis of what makes Borat run in the UK Guardian:
Sacha Baron Cohen's latest film is due for release in November, but the storm of protest has started early. Already the film, in which Borat, a fictional Kazakh reporter, spits out food given to him by Jews on the ground it may be poisoned, and refuses to fly "in case the Jews repeat their attacks of 9/11", has been called "disgraceful" and "disgusting".After watching the clip, I'm not so sure that at least some of the people in the crowd weren't in on the joke -- particularly the lady who makes the horns, because she seems aware she's on camera and has evidently decided to play along. Complete "Throw the Jew Down the Well" lyrics after jump...I first encountered the character of Borat in a clip from his HBO TV show which has circulated widely on the internet. Baron Cohen, as Borat, stands in front of an audience at a redneck bar in Arizona and announces that he will sing "a song from my country". He then sings, "In my country there is problem, and that problem is the Jew. They take everybody money and they never give it back." The chorus is particularly catchy: "Throw the Jew down the well (so my country can be free)." [Clip and lyrics here.]
I am a Jew. I've written about my community in a way that is critical but none the less, I hope, affectionate. I love the Jewish community with all its flaws and insecurities. And I think that Borat's song may be the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life. It is funny because it is ridiculous, because it parodies the most stupid kinds of anti-semitism, because the viewer is in on the joke. And, like the best humour, it is funny because it is viscerally, nauseatingly terrifying. It contains images every bit as unsettling as Leni Riefenstahl's "The Triumph of the Will." It is funny because it is true....
The reason it is unsettling to hear Borat sing "Throw the Jew down the well" is because of the reaction of those listening. Some sit in mute astonishment and horror. But some join in. Some sing along, smile and stamp their feet. One woman even - unprompted, mind you - puts her fingers to her forehead to make horns when he sings, "You must take [the Jew] by his horns." Borat is unsettling not because his opinions are outlandish but because he reveals how many ordinary people share them....
Borat is shocking because we cannot help but imagine ourselves in the place of his hapless victims and because we understand - though not, perhaps, consciously - that we might have acted precisely as they did. We too might have remained silent when Borat suggested "hanging" homosexuals, or nodded politedly at the suggestion that a Humvee is suitable for "running over Gypsies." Not because we fear for our lives if we disagree but, perhaps, to avoid embarrassment. Borat is funny because he is shocking, and he is shocking because he reveals the truth.
"Throw the Jew Down the Well"
by Borat
In my country there is problem,
And that problem is transport.
It take very very long,
Because Kazakhstan is big.
Throw transport down the well
So my country can be free
We must make travel easy
Then we’ll have a big party
In my country there is problem
And that problem is the Jew
They take everybody money
And they never give it back
Throw the Jew down the well
So my country can be free
You must grab him by his horns
Then we have a big party
If you see the Jew coming
You must be carefull of his teeth
You must grab him by his money
And I tell you what to do
"Da Ali G show" was one of the greatest shows on during 2004 and 2005, in my opinion. Although Ali G was far and away the most well known of the characters, Borat and Bruno were far more interesting to me.
Alderman brings up some great points about the audience reaction. In another Borat skit, a gun-toting conservative says he cannot think of a good reason why the death penalty shouldn't be executed by the general public. In yet another skit, James Goldwater, then running for Congress, claimed all Jewish people will be going to Hell (he blamed the outrage on the liberal media).
As for Bruno, he showed how superficial and narcissistic we have become. Bruno saw the irony in "trailer-trash fashion", where selling "poor people" clothes at designer prices was considered ok. He also had fashion designers saying they would like to "round up the people with no fashion sense, put them in trains, send them to camps and say bye-bye,", an obvious reference to the Holocaust.
There are few satirists who cut as close as Cohen, and I wish his show had received some of the attention that the lesser "Entourage" has received.
Youtube has a higher quality version of the clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CN_tHhHSLP4
I'm sorry, but... I don't think it's funny. The problem isn't the subject matter, it's the smug self-satisfaction lying beneath it. Cleverness is extremely hard to pull off, and Cohen is just one of many people who has several ingredients for genius but wastes it all on jokes that seem to say "Look how clever I am! I'm so funny! " and the only possible reaction for those who find them funny is "People who are lesser than I won't get the jokes! But I do! So I'm smart! HA! I'm as clever as he is!", the same diseased thinking that plaugued the rotting corpse of a sitcom that was "Arrested Development", which is no funnier than the awful, mind-numbing, low-brow sitcoms that FOX scoops out daily (i.e. The War at Home). The only real difference is that AD is pitched at a smarter audience. Same with "Da Ali G Show", itself a pretentious "comic genius" title. Come to think of it, I can't think of a single consistent masterpiece currently on television (I still treasure "The Simpsons" and "South Park" but they have lost much of their genius over the years and I hope both wrap up soon). The American version of "The Office" is only simply good (I have yet to see the British one, but I will someday), "My Name is Earl" is the same sort of "cleverness", I don't watch "Veronica Mars" nor "Entourage", and I'll never watch "Lost" (a vow I once held about "Twin Peaks", but am considering letting go of). "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" are great of course, but they don't count as actual shows that much, and I haven't watched Adult Swim in a long time. But at least some people think Mr. Cohen is funny.
I think Cohen's pretty hilarious in all three of his incarnations on the Ali G show, but I've never known what to make of the way he baits people who aren't in on the joke into making anti-gay and anti-Jewish statements, statements which are sometimes so coerced they could easily not correspond to anything his targets may actually think or feel. It's a trick he returns to frequently, the song is only the funniest example. It's also the most ambiguous. It's a catchy song, after all: who know's what any of those people are really thinking? And is the American south really the only place he could be pulling all of this?
I've developed an objective, quantitative measure of hilarity and therefore know that Arrested Development is 1,462 standard deviations funnier than The War at Home. In fact, it's funnier than every other show on television. The Daily Show is only 1.7 standard deviations less funny and The Office is 2.1 standard deviations less. As for Ali G, it loses to AD by a factor of 3.8. My results will be published in the March 2007 edition of the "Really Smart Stuff" journal where you will be able to see a full listing of TV show hilarity.
There Bazzy goes with that darn smart humour again.
I've never gotten the smug comedy attack. I think the belief that people will say they think something is funny so that they aren't accused of not "getting it" is a little riduculous.
Certainley there are people like that, but honestly how many people continue to torture themselves with a show when they don't like it or think it's funny? Arrested Development, Da Ali G Show, etc. I think, are all viscerally funny and entertaining. Yes they're also "smarter" than bottom of the barrel crap like "The War at Home," and that's not a fault. I don't think should be taken as smugness.
The great thing about Cohen for me is that he makes me laugh. How often do you laugh out loud at something on television? How often do you find a comedy show that isn't derivative, that perhaps has something to say, some comment on people's beliefs and the way we live and react? Finding something like that is special, and people value it.
Kazahkstan is big.
Personally, I enjoy Cohen's comedy because it is aimed at people of higher intelligence. Smart, above-the-common-denominator humor is rare these days, and it's precisely why shows like Arrested Development struggled consistently throughout its run. I laughed for the entire length of the Borat trailer, and I can't wait to see the film, but I suspect that a lot of people will attack it simply because they don't understand the humor lying beneath the surface. Too many people believe that comedy is silly, that you should be able to turn your brain off to enjoy it, and it shouldn't require you to overexert yourself to understand it. Thank goodness for comedians like Cohen, then. But I'm just an intellectual elitist-type person. What do I know from funny?
I never said that people enjoy these shows so they can say they're smart. What I mean is that the comedy itself is deeply smug; the kind of comedy that feels like it's laughing at its own jokes. I love smart humor as much as anyone else, but for me, smart humor has to stay firmly between bottom-of-the-barrel sitcom idiocy and too-clever-for-its-own-good "genius" comedy. I certainly get every single joke in the trailer for "Borat: Cultural Learnings for America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" but they just... fail to be funny. There is no deeper level than "It's funny 'cause it's true". And as for saying it should be enjoyed because of the audience it's aimed at, that's just as dangerous as saying that comedy shouldn't provoke thought. But this comedy offers nothing new to its audience other than what they're already sure, and its sole purpose seems to be a certificate to show the audience how smart they are that they get the jokes. A viewpoint alone does not make a joke funny, any more than "Arrested Development" was funny. Does a single human being in the world think that the "Volvo" joke was funny? Or could fail to notice the forced wording of "Maybe I could put it in her brownie..." or the dreadful "I have pop-pop in the attic" joke that feels straight from the average episode of "Malcolm in the Middle" or an Adam Sandler film. The Jew song is just an example of the massive failure of the sort of things far more brilliant comedians like Sarah Silverman or David Cross (wasted on AD) could accomplish by making subversive and funny at the same time. And nothing, nothing, can be funny simply for being shocking, nor can something be shocking because it reveals the truth.
Jack -
You had me right up until you mentioned David Cross and Sarah Silverman. It's funny, because I consider those two comedians to be the top examples of self-important, smug, outrageous-for-the-sake-of-it comedy you're decrying.
Jesus is Magic bored me to absolute tears, mostly because the joke seemed to be that Silverman would say outrageous things and act oblivious to their outrageousness. You see, the joke is, there are people who are REALLY this way, and ALSO don't realize how stupid they're being! How funny!
Snore.
Jack, the "I have pop-pop in the attic" line isn't funny in and of it's self. It's what comes after that "The mere fact that you call it that tells me you're not ready." Lines are true to both of those characters, and the repition of that line in further episodes is funnier because of the variations. Part of comedy for me, is recognition. Arrested Development is big on regonition jokes, building on old lines and using them in varying situations. The same goes with the brownie line. The whole show treads through a lot of innuendo, and I think with a different cast it would sound forced, but that's one of the shows incredible strength, that it can have this what would otherwise seem forced innuendo, come out sounding naturally, because of the characters that the writers and actors built.
I still don't understand the smug attack.
Nick:
It's the wording of the "pop-pop" line that bothers me. It seems precisely worded just so Michael can make his unfunny response. And I think that most of AD's recognition jokes are pure laziness. There's nothing funny (to me at least) about any character doing something that you would precisely expect that person to do, and a laugh at recognition simply serves as an act of smugness upon the viewer. I think that the problem for me is that I, unlike most people who I've seen say hate the show, actually get the jokes, but find them criminally unfunny. Once someone attacks the show, a natural response for most fans is to assume that the viewer either doesn't get the jokes or that the viewer can't handle that "subversive" style. I've tried to watch the show many times and am always amazed by how poorly the show is constructed in its attempts to appear very well-constructed. I know this has nothing to do with the show's quality, but I'm constantly irked by the many very smart people who consider it the pinnacle of brilliance and give it such remarkably stupid observations as "the funniest show ever on television - if you've been waiting for a show that's SMART, and doesn't have a laugh track, ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT WILL GIVE YOU HOPE FOR TELEVISION," and such other Daniel Clowes character-type blathering. One of the tricks of being clever is to not appear as though you think you're clever. Mitchell Hurwitz (who appears in interviews at least to be one of the most smug, unfunny, pompous pseudo-intellectuals I've ever seen) doesn't realize this, and all of his shows bask in his own glory. And as a last remark, Jessica Walter and especially Will Arnett are some of the worst actors currently working on television, the latter as awful and comic timing-deaf as Horatio Sanz and Michael Rappaport.
What takes the "Brownie" line from being kinda funny and sort of gross to just be brilliant is the "Parking in Rear" sign that is just barely visible behind the characters as they walk down the street.
This is a show that had a main character lose a hand to a seal. A seal! They had Henry Winkler literally jump over a shark and had more fun with the censors than any show on network television. Not to mention pretty much every one of Michael Cera's confused/scared/nervous facial expressions and the episode that was entirely a send-up of Peanuts. I could probably pick over 100 more moments just like those that I think prove that AD really is brilliant television, rising above the ranks of, well, just about every other sitcom on tv. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. The show that no one watched is consistently a top seller on Amazon (Season 3 is currently at #4).
Unfortunately for those of us who liked the show, there were just too many people like Jack Wranovics and probably even more that never even watched it to keep it going. But such is life. Citizen Kane only won one Academy Award and look at it now.
Bazzy:
My problem with the "brownie" line isn't the low-brown grossness of it, it's the forced delivery of the line. Notice the lack of comedic symmetry between what Michael says about the "Afternoon Delight" and Oscar(?)'s "get it in her". Had Michael said "We need to put some Afternoon Delight in her" then the lines would synch up, but they don't and it's downright sad. As for Henry Winkler jumping over the shark, HOW IS THAT FUNNY? It wasn't funny when Stewie Griffin reenacted the hair gel scene from "There's Something About Mary", why is this any different? Having a character lose a hand to a seal is simply a joke that belongs in a horrible David Dobkin movie, not allegedly intelligent television, not helped by the "Loose seal!" pun. And pointing out sales ranks is the last refuge of a desperate person who feels the need to have his or her opinion validated by popularity. The Citizen Kane reference is just baseless. AD has won a continuous spread of awards from TV critics and OOH! EMMYS!, all from people who think it's enough to just make a clever reference and leave it be, without offering any additional insight. And the people who killed your beloved sitcom were the people who were just plain too dumb to get it and would rather watch Stacked. But whenever I watch AD, I just get the feeling that the show is made by (and for) in general, very stupid people who think they are very, very, very smart and funnier than anyone else and who love to laugh at their own jokes. Mr. Emerson recently posted that he thought that Pulp Fiction would lose its status as time went on as one of the greatest films of the '90s, and I think the same is true for AD in this decade. I really do feel that eventually AD will be used to show how far this generation had collapsed that it was so desperate for something funny and smart that it went with the first thing that came along, and wept after it was beautifully cancelled. But that's just me.
I thought the jumping of the shark was funny b/c I generally find it funny when actors' past performances are referenced. Notice also the timing of the shark jumping. He does it right after he says he's going to head off to Burger King. Having to incorporate product placement into a show could be a complete rolleyes, jump-the-shark moment for a show. To have the original shark jumper literally jump over a shark after blatantly appealing to the shows' sponsors is, to me, very funny.
As for the seal fiasco, the actual losing of the hand is almost the opposite of the meta-humor of the shark jumping. It's a silly physical gag and I like that the show is not "above" such humor. I also liked that it was foreshadowed early in the season with the report of a lost seal. Then it was tied back to not only GOB's magic show, but also to his wife from the first season. Some see those callbacks as laziness, but considering most shows have very little continuity b/t episodes, save a few recurring characters or guest stars, I find the attention to detail refreshing.
The reference to sales data was tongue-in-cheek. No one watched, but plenty of people buy. Go figure. And as for Citizen Kane, I was being facetious. That doesn't always come across in text.
We simply have a different interpretation of the same thing. No big deal. It seems like you are relishing in the demise of the show, which I don't really understand, but I could be wrong. I also don't understand why you seemingly watched so many episodes of a show you didn't like. AD is gone and that's that. I hope something even better comes along, as I'm sure you do as well.