'Borat'
funny, but no laughing matter
By Dr. Mel Glazer
November 29, 2006
It was Thanksgiving Day evening when I saw the
new film, "Borat." After all the commotion
surrounding this movie, I really wanted to see
it, but for the same reason, I really didn't want
to see it. But I decided to go, and I'm glad that
I did. Since then, lots of you have asked me: So
nu, Rabbi, what do you think? So nu, hevre, here's
what I think.
Borat Sagdiyev is a fictional
Kazakhstani journalist
invented and portrayed
by the British comedian
provocateur Sacha Baron
Cohen for Da Ali G Show,
an unstaged and unscripted
show in which Borat interviews
people who believe that
he is a real Kazakhstani
television journalist.
As an aside, Borat speaks
Hebrew for most of the
movie when he converses
with his sidekick. That's
because Sacha Baron Cohen
grew up Orthodox and
speaks fluent Hebrew!
I have to say, Borat
is absolutely "over-the-top." That
does not mean that he
is always funny, because
sometimes he is, and
sometimes he is not.
When he is not funny, he
is hateful. He travels
around America and in his
so-called interviews, he
inserts bathroom language
and racist descriptions,
inviting his subjects to
prove that they themselves
are as bigoted as he portrays
himself to be.
For example just one of
many, he regales his newfound
American friends with the
story of the Running of
the Jew — an annual
traditional festival in
which the 300 bravest men
of Kazakhstan chase large
papier-mache caricatures
of Jews on the streets,
and drive them into wells,
while spectators break
the eggs they lay, and
throw stones and potatoes
at the Jewish caricatures. "It
is for the childrens," says
Borat. As he tells the
story, people are drawn
in by his folksy way of
speaking, and so there
are no objections or complaints
from anyone. No one stops
him; no one calls him on
the anti-Semitism this
story illustrates. They
just accept him, and are
complicit with him in his
rants.
"
Borat" asks a gun-dealer,
what is the best gun to
shoot Jews with, and the
gun-dealer shows him the
preferred model.
No rebuttal, no shock,
no anger, no nothing. He
just hands him the best
gun in his shop to kill
Jews! Is that funny? No,
it's outrageous!
In fact, it's all a joke,
Borat is making it all
up. But it's pretty scary,
too, how so-called educated
and enlightened Americans
could go along with Borat's
extremism and bigotry.
And that leads me to "the" question:
How should we respond to
racial and sexual defamation
when we hear it? What should
we say, how should we react,
when we hear comments from
others that we know in
the deepest part of our
hearts, are repulsive?
Did Borat's subjects know
he was kidding them? I
think not. Some of them
were genuinely welcoming
to him, showing real kindness
and hospitality to a stranger
to these shores, even to
the point of putting up
with his ribald insensibilities.
Others, however, were clearly
bigots--anti-Semitic, anti-black,
anti-woman, anti-anybody
who was different.
Did they realize Borat
was playing with them?
No, and that's the scary
part. Yes, there are bigots
in America, and we need
to be on the lookout for
them.
But even we who are not
bigots, we too just love
to hear a joke that pokes
fun at someone else — another
person or ethnic group
or someone who is somehow "different" from
us.
We call that gossip, and
it is wrong. But often
it's funny, and so we laugh,
even as we may cringe at
the same time.
Gossip is a favorite topic
in the Talmud 500 CE, because
the Rabbis understood human
nature. They said: "The
person who listens to gossip
is even worse than the
person who tells it; because
no harm could be done by
gossip if no one listened
to it. It has been said
that lashon ha-ra disparaging
speech kills three: the
person who speaks it, the
person who hears it, and
the person about whom it
is told."
Borat the movie is indeed "no
laughing matter." There
are critical issues of
diversity and language
and acceptance of others
which he invites us to
face in our own lives.
We all should know from
our history that bigotry
often begins with humor
that goes astray and becomes
racism in thought and deed.
There is nothing funny
about that, even though
Borat wants us to think
so.
Life is serious, and God
expects us to treat all
His children as we ourselves
would expect to be treated.
We are, each and every
one of us, no matter our
sex, religion, sexual preference
or political affiliation,
created in the Divine Image,
and when we all realize
it, and act as if we get
it, the world will be healed.
I pray that day comes soon.
Rabbi Mel Glazer earned
a bachelor's degree in
philosophy from Columbia
University; at the same
time, he was completing
the five-year rabbinical
program at the Jewish Theological
Seminary in New York City.
He received his doctorate
of ministry from Princeton
Theological Seminary and
is the author of a new
book, "And God Created
Hope," which will
come out in January. He
serves as rabbi for Temple
Israel of the Poconos in
Stroudsburg.
Dr.
Mel Glazer • Your Grief Matters
1.877.532-4246 (1.877.LECHAIM)
mel@yourgriefmatters.com • www.yourgriefmatters.com
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