Mahir To Borat, I Sue You! 275
An anonymous reader writes "The mockumentary Borat bears more than a passing resemblance to late '90s net celeb Mahir Cagri of ikissyou.org, and he's not amused. Steven Leckart of Wired magazine gives him the third degree."
Wrong, wrong, wrong! (Score:5, Informative)
So. Thanks Wired for reminding us of Mahir, gotta love him, and for stirring up more press about Borat. But please don't blemish Sacha Baron Cohen like this. On the DVD commentary for the first season Sacha Baron Cohen said his character was based off of a doctor he met in Russia- it's based on someone else, not Mahir. If anything that Russian has a chance to sue Cohen I suppose
In any case, any publicity is good publicity, rite?
Also, first post bitches!
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Is it necessary to write out someone's full name twice in a post? It looks a bit too much like a kiss-up or having an air of pretentiousness.
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Your comment tears that down -- it looks a bit too much like envy or having an air of jealousy.
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"So there I was sitting at the hotel bar. It was three o'clock in the afternoon on a Thursday is a big urban area. I was one of maybe a half dozen people skipping out on the conference's keynote speech to drown our sorrows in over-priced draft beer. We didn't talk, or even make eye contact, with each other and we'd spread out through the bar out of solemn respect for each other's alcoholism. The only noise was from the TV above the wall of liquor
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The first post thing was both my attempt to tell the rest of the story at the "top of the fold" AND also... well.. to get first post. I admit it, I am an FP whore
MIRROR- (Score:2)
I fail for not using that in my post
Google trends (Score:2)
We have a winner!
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I didn't realize there was such a thing as "dangerous humour". Offensive sure, as that's a subjective judgment. Labeling something "dangerous" is an objective judgment though, so I'm curious for an example of such dangerous humour.
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Monty Python have alreay done that one. (Score:3, Informative)
Crying "Wolf" (Score:2)
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Usually the best kind.
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A Jewish guy getting a room full of people to sing "Throw the Jew down the well" along with him. Surely that is the most telling?
I think that bravery alone gives him carte blanche to provoke in any way possible.
Ali-G and early Borat pricked British pomposity, now it's the Yanks' turn. He tried Ali-G in the U.S.A. but Ali's very Britishness worked against him. Borat is a fine vehicle, and Bruno too.
Perhaps he'll do an American character now he's met more than
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dzien dobry (Score:2)
it's all so over the top that, to me, it comes across more as commentary. i realize that some of the movie is staged, but some of the most amazing thing that Ali G/Borat/Bruno pulls off is the reaction people have to him. Borat is interesting because a lot of people gloss over things he says and write it off as poor English, or some cultural
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He can be funn
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He's been doing Borat in the UK for years now. But the movie has to be in America. It's where the money is to get movies made, and it's where there are still people who won't take one look at him, say 'Hang on, aren't you the guy who did Ali G?' and tell him to piss off. Cohen's too famous here now.
Not a peer! (Score:2)
Baron is a family name not a title (there are plenty of people called Earl or surnamed King in the US, this should hardly be surprising.) AFAIK he is the son of rather distinguished psychologists. Which may be where he gets some of his ideas from, if you think about it. I'd take his heredity over the descendant of some successful thief who was able to buy a minor peerage, any day.
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A bit precious aren't we? (Score:2)
Man, there's plenty of Borat material with British people in it (one I remember is at Cambridge University [youtube.com] where Sacha Baron Cohen happens to have gone). That a movie with Americans in it was made for the American market should hardly be surprising especially as he is too well known in Britain to do anything there.
No he isn't.
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Personally I don't think he could make his point (if he has one) any clearer.
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Indeed "Wrong!" -- It is not the Kazakhs... (Score:3, Insightful)
All the Kazakh customs and Borat's behaviors are made up, people in Kazakhstan do know how to use toilets and they do not act like Borat. Heck, Borat doesn't ev
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So? A significant portion of that is "hospitality." Let Cohen go about dressed as an American and try the same stuff, and you'll get a better measure of the level of American racism.
For example when Borat goes into the gun dealer's shop and asks for a good gun to kill Jews with, the owner proudly gives him a nice handgun that looked like its bullets could pierce th
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For example when Borat goes into the gun dealer's shop and asks for a good gun to kill Jews with, the owner proudly gives him a nice handgun that looked like its bullets could pierce thick armor!
You referring to that gaudy .45? It's not all that good at piercing armor; it's good for knocking people down. Besides, you never really saw the bullets :)
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I agree that he may have lifted some of Mahir's quotes/concepts though, but inviting him to the party would have ruined the Borat character - Cohen takes great pains to never break character and that's pa
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A WTF image for sure.
Frivolous (Score:3, Insightful)
Beebeard v. Packetmon (Score:3, Funny)
Borat is just another person like you or me (Score:2)
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Audre Lorde ("Poetry Is Not a Luxury" Chrysalis)
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wtf? (Score:2)
I do not understand Americans (Score:5, Interesting)
We got tons of Mahir and Borat.
Does any one say What is so interesting about these guys ? Those guys are Turkish equvalent of American redneck.
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I guess every country likes to laugh at parodies of foreigners.
will this help you understand? (Score:2)
Does it help explain it that American rednecks [warnerbros.com] themselves are also giants of American comedy?
Re:I do not understand Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
He isn't making fun of Turkey, Kazakhstan or anywhere else. He's using this stereotype - which many westerners are too self-centred to realise is a stylised stereotype - to highlight just how ridiculously self-centred and unaware we are. Although the film is set in the US, Borat originally gave this treatment to the UK in the Ali G show. I clearly recall a scene he did interviewing english fox-hunters and protesters, in which he lambasted their opinions - and the hunters' total inability to admit why they were doing what they were doing - and it simply wouldn't have worked as a serious news piece. He mentioned to a protester that in his home-country, people hunted [some animal - bears, was it?] all the time. When she asked, slightly incredulously, why on Earth they committed such barbaric acts, he just looked slightly confused and replied: "Er, for fun. Yes."
A stroke of genius. It was the first time I can recall anyone actually stating it so plainly, and it completely threw everyone! Nobody else could have held up such a stark mirror to the practice of fox-hunting and cut through all the bullshit posturing about country-ways, animal rights and so on. It wasn't funny because he was being backwards. It was funny because he was throwing a fresh, embarrassingly clear light on an issue that nobody from the UK had the balls to admit to.
The fact that there are people shallow and dense enough out there to laugh at his zany throw-back pube-bartering ways instead of everyone's reactions to him tells you more about us than about Kazakhstan. Sadly.
What if it were reversed? (Score:2)
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It's a sort of local commentary on kitsch or ignorance...
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Having grown up around many true rednecks, I can tell you with absolute certainty that Bush isn't one.
The term refers to the burn on the back of one's neck after a day of work in the sun. And after enough sunburns, the skin starts to take on the appearance of rippled leather. It makes it easy to spot the older guys that have spent their working lives outdoors.
Bush 43 would be a nobody, if he hadn't been the fortunate [amandashome.com]
Foreign stupid guy... (Score:2)
You've got Bronson Pinchot's character Valky.
Even earlier, you've got Andy Kaufmann's character from Taxi.
I'm sure if you look you can find countless other examples.
So both these guys have moustaches. Big deal.
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In Soviet Russia, comedian sue you! (Score:2)
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They are EXACTLY the same.
Yakov's last stand (Score:2)
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"Do you have any actual proof that he stole it [Soviet-area fish-out-of-water-in-the-US idea] from Yokav? Of course not, so don't say it with such certainty."
One would have to assume that Cohen knew of Smiroff's act.
"You found Yavok funny? And funnier than Borat? I mean, wow. Just... wow."
Absolutely, and I find nothing funny about Borat at all.
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Smirnoff did plenty of ridicule of the West. That is what made him so funny. If his line was nothing but "Life in USSR sucks and is nothing but a pathetic joke", he'd have gone no-where.
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Borat is simply this decade's version of the comedic foreigner who speaks well enough English to be understood, but bad enough so he misuses words and mixes up phrases. History repeats itself. It's been done to death before-Yakov, Charlie Farqueson (any canadians out there), Schmenge Brothers (Happy Wanderers-SCTV), ad infinitum.
I'm not saying he's racist, or offensive,
Those wacky Turks (Score:2)
Where can I get one of these Turkish accordian-flute-mandolin-violin-drum-and-saz things? And how the hell are you supposed to play it?
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RMN
~~~
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News for Nerds? (Score:2)
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Web 2.0 vs
#1 - Borat's success due to Web 2.0/YouTube culture buzz
#2 - Mahir's old-school website of internet lore and fame
To study how the two became "famous" is a study in the way the web has changed in 10 years.. fair enough that Borat had traditional media on his side, but he stood on the shoulders of the new web to become the phenom he is now. Much in the same way that Mahir became famous, excep
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* Yes, I know this is a retroactive definition. But it's the most apt definition.
Way overrated (Score:2)
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Stay on topic please, we are talking about comedy.
My internet there is a problem (Score:2, Funny)
And that problem is Borat.
He take Mahir's jokes,
He never give it back.
Throw Borat down the well,
So Mahir can be free.
You must grab him by his mustache,
Then we have big party.
If you see Borat coming,
You must be careful of his teeth.
You must grab him where it is funny,
And I tell you what to do...
Throw Borat down the well
So Mahir can be free
You must grab him by his mustache
Then we have big party
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High Five!
21st Century blackface (Score:2)
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Yes, and people laughed at that too.
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Satire, in its direct confrontation with everything from ignorance to stupidity is extremely important.
If someone or something is hit with satire, it either is strengthened with its ability to handle it, or forced to reconsider its position/view/attitude/etc. Either way, it is good to shake the etch-o-sketch of life. (of the audience... rarely will the target of satire be affected.. just offended)What Would He Sue Under? (Score:2)
Copying substantive plot elements? Someone's life isn't a series of plot elements they had to think up. There's no notion of carefully structuring it to have maximum value as entertainment. Whilst, "Guy with an ego is in the TopGun problem, guy's buddy dies, guy questions ego, guy comes out stronger." is a plot someone went to trouble to think up and is protected, simply having lived a certain way, even if you're a media whore and many actions were deliberate, isn't protected in the sa
Bigot (Score:2)
Re:Bigot (Score:5, Insightful)
In other news today, Swift advocated cannibalism as a solution to poverty in Ireland. What a monster.
Seriously, you're missing the point here entirely. The way Ali G and Borat work is by simultaneously making fun of the ignorant bigotry of the characters themselves, and also taking advantage of liberal tolerance of them. Thus Ali G is in the first place a straightforward parody of middle-class white English kids who ape American gangsta culture, but is also a vehicle by which Cohen can entrap public figures into making fools of themselves: they try to seem tolerant and accepting of what they take for a representative of Contemporary Youth Culture, and end up walking straight into it.
Unfortunately, Ali G ended up being adopted as an icon by middle-class white English kids who ape American gangsta culture and who didn't quite realise that half the joke was on them. Thus, after selling out spectacularly and milking the character for all he was worth, it was time to bring Borat to the fore.
Borat is a more sophisticated caricature than Ali G. He's a mish-mash of Slavic and Eastern European stereotypes, and bear in mind that what with the Iron Curtain and all, stereotypes about Eastern Europe are decades out of date, going back to before the Holocaust made anti-Semitism unspeakable. Stereotypes rooted in a nasty past of peasants and pogroms. Borat is a fossil out of this past. In the name of tolerance to a different culture, the people Borat meets will bend over backwards not to give offence, and then the fun lies in finding out just how far the faux-Kazakh guy can go and get away with it, and how hypocritical we're prepared to be in tolerating Borat's intolerance. And, for that matter, in finding out just how different to our ignorant peasant forebears we Western urban sophisticates really are, beneath the surface.
The only concern I really have is about how it all reflects on Kazakhstan itself. From what I've heard, though, they've caught on that the joke's not on them at all, that it's rather a good joke, and that there's no such thing as bad publicity. At least now we've heard of Kazakhstan...
I haven't seen Borat's film - I'll be seeing it on Friday, and I'm very much looking forward to it. I was never inclined to see the Ali G film, but Borat I think has a lot more potential.
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Actually, that was pretty monstrous. Swift wasn't bound by modern political correctness, and thus his bigotry is all the more heinous. Racism against the Irish was widespread in his day. What would you say to someone today who advocated cannibalism as a solution to poverty in Bangladesh? No matter how good his writing, he'd be pilloried as a racist (Orson Scott Card comes to mind).
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It's got the minds of the kids... (Score:2)
ive been looking for that for ages (Score:2)
neither is new (Score:2, Informative)
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Interesting that you consider Borat mocking the US. When I first saw him I couldn't figure out if he was trying to mock the US or not. After awhile I decided the humor was targetted pretty generally.
Mahir? Who the... (Score:2)
From Picture4:"I never sex anygirl. Woman I must like first and she must be trust clean too..."
What the...
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And also British, not American.
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