lunedì, novembre 06, 2006

No, actually, I don't like you

Went to some ROM exhibit about Italian design. Full of Italians, and I'm betting the half the attendees hadn't been to a museum since they'd been on a root-tracing trip to Italy. The exhibition was something nice, I guess. Left me with an overwhelming feeling that most of what was ugly and splashy about domestic decor was the bastard child of ooooo-look-what-I-can-do Italian design and discoveries in plastics and mass production.

One guy was dressed up as Borat and being followed by a bevy of people . . . the Borat movie was released here on Friday night so I wasn't sure if it was just some moron fanboy or a guerilla marketing technique. Either way I wasn't impressed. The Borat character isn't my favourite and I'm not excited about this movie.

With all of Baron-Cohen's characters, there's a real reliance on the person he's talking to either getting hilariously pissed off or else giving him the benefit of the doubt out of sheer politeness. Witness is borne to this by the unfunny, unmitigated crap that was Ali G Indahouse.

And with none of his characters is this more true than with Borat, who says the most shocking things to the plainest people. "Bruno" and "Ali G" I like alot better; it's directed at celebrities and fashion types who should know better because they court that kind of attention. But the humour around Borat's akin to running up to someone on the street, farting in their face, and filming their reaction.

It's lazy - makes us laugh because we're glad it's not us getting nad-palmed, glad that no confused, earnest foreigner is anxiously asking us to join a sing-a-long called 'Throw the Jew Down the Well," glad because it makes us look smarter than the people on camera. Whatever. I'm past the point of paying eight bucks to go to a movie on cheap night so that I can feel superior to my fellow man. I'll wait to see it on an aeroplane or a long-haul coach trip or something.

6 commenti:

Melbine ha detto...

You're not the only one! Krazy showed me the first four minutes of the movie online, which instantly made me refuse to go and see it with him this week. Too bad he showed me, because I probably would have gone otherwise. I pronounced that I would likely be offended every five minutes, at which point everyone in the room agreed and that was that.

Mistress La Spliffe ha detto...

Yeah, I'm willing to be offended, but not for football-in-the-crotch "It's funny because it's not me" kind of laughs. And honestly, laughing at Americans is so passé. It's time to be dealing with them.

Melbine ha detto...

Yeah, although I would laugh if I saw someone getting farted on, even if it was me...I'm laughing just thinking about it!

The funny thing is that the movie's doing really well in the States, isn't it?

Mistress La Spliffe ha detto...

Coincedentally, someone just farted in my office. It stinks. And it's funny. But I wouldn't pay money to experience it.

I've never met anyone more willing to laugh at Americans than each other. Such an oppositional society. The Civil War never ended, it just got complicated.

Anonimo ha detto...

Liberal Americans are so frustrated all they CAN do is laugh since there is approximately 52% who are SO conservative and religious that the word liberal is now a bad word. "Liberal" is the new "communist".

Yeah, I told the dude to watch it in North Bay. Good luck though, there are only two boys in his class.

Mistress La Spliffe ha detto...

You know, the funny thing about that is that in French - and, you know, literal English - Liberal means the opposite of what they think it means.

Blah. Laughing at them hasn't made them any better. Time for the Asians to buy them all up.