Beforehand my wife told her friend that I would laugh harder than anyone in the theater all thru "Bruno" then when we got out I'd say, "That wasn't so good." She was right, as usual.
Two good things were: 1, the normalization of gay activities. I thought this was cool, to see gay stuff put firmly in the spectrum of human strangeness. (Michel Foucault said that there is no such thing as normal (Norm Finkelstein quoted that to me in Gaza when a health professional was talking about normality)).
2, A few months back Leila Abu-Saba wrote this great piece about Ain al Hilweh refugee camp in Lebanon. In one of the inspired, feeble comic turns of the flick, suddenly Sacha Baron Cohen was there, meeting a leader of the al Aksa brigades in an effort to get kidnaped. We saw the crowded dusty streets of the camp, the ghetto life of it, and the cramped apartment of the resistance figure. In stark contrast to the open clean spaces of all the Israeli scenes in the film. I thought of how those people got crammed into that space, how the Israelis gave themselves elbow room, and pitied the Palestinians.
I watched Brueno, hoped you would post it. I watched it with my Jewish wife, me being the Shikso. My reaction was, this is the most anti-gentile piece of exploitative trash I have ever seen. My wife thought it was hysterical. Never the twain shall meet. This move enacts and embodies all of the anti-Semitic 'canards' of which Jews are so frequently accused. Here is a man who, for money, travels the world humiliating Christians and Muslims for financial gain. Nothing is off-limits to him.
Let me add: it doesn't count that Baron Cohen openly incited religious Jews to anger. It is one thing to profane another man's religion by inciting him, as witness Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount, which provoked the second Intifada. It is another to secretly humiliate a person, or to pay him or her to demean him or herself. This seems to be Baron Cohen's specialty. There's now a news story circulating that the 'arab terrorist' (naturally, one had to be there) is in fact a shopkeeper, a family man.
What would happen if a comedian decided to play a Borat or a Bruno and use jews as the scapegoat for the pranks? Wouldn't Abe Foxman go on a rampage??? This is the biggest problem I have, the hypocrisy of jews crying out anti semetism all the time at the slightest little thing but when the tables are turned, they say nothing.
my feelings exactly
Julio – a non-Jewish friend had the same gut reaction you did, and I found myself for some reason "explaining" the sascha cohen phenomenon, making it all a cultural trend and downplaying the goy-bashing as some kind of a "boys will be boys" thing. He was, however, genuinely offended by it all, funny or not. later I thought that I might have missed some underlying fheme, which is why I could so easily dismiss cohen's 'work' as just another "in your face' piece of infotainment. The theme, I think, has something to do with a subtle shift of power – this time with gentiles on the receiving end, permanently cowed into silence by a long history of anti-semitism. later, I had the idea that what cohen is doing is engaging in a bit of collective punishment – my friend's reaction must have been because he felt under assault somehow (through no fault of his own), psychologically speaking.
Cohen is from an Orthodox family. They are Zionists. What do you expect? He – like other elite Jewish entertainers (I can't believe I'm saying this, but ; Adam Sandler) are intellectually dishonest and shallow. Tribal loyalty, typical European imperialist attitude, general ignorance, etc. I mean, average Americans are ignorant and stupid. Can you REALLY expect Jews to be any different? They have much more going against them too when you factor in the Holocaust worship and eternal victimhood identity which Zionists use to justify becoming the brutish soldier. Great dichotomy there.
A comedian, Jewish or gentile making fun of the tefillin lunatics of Israel would be unthinkable. As a supposedly taboo-breaking Jew, that ought to be Baron Cohen's starting point. Some of the Ali G skits were unbelievably funny. There's even one where he interviews Chomsky. But Cohen's films are asinine crap. I lost all respect for him on learning most of the stuff in Borat was set up. It's a film version of a Jerry Springer episode, and that's about it. Want to be edgy? Break new ground? Go after the most bizarre, perverted, lunatic society on earth—Israeli society. Israel makes Khazakstan look like Hapsburg Vienna. You'd never run out of material. The Jews aren't going to do it. I hope a Palestinian film maker will. I'd love to see their answer to Adam Sandler's abysmal tripe….a comedy about bloodthirsty religious zombies in Israel. If AIPAC didn't shut it down, it would be a worldwide sensation.
For me, abusing someone's hospitality and trust in order to humiliate him is one of the most vicerally contemptible practices I can think of. Cohen restricts himself to politically correct targets who have no political or media power with which to respond. He's not only a bully, but a coward as well.
I agree with all the opinions above. Does one have to be a non-PC white goy to see it? Sure seems so. Lovelyisraelis goes to the practical heart of the matter. Imagine a Jerry Springer show where the invited players are always Jews instead of Gentile trailer trash! For example, Israeli settlement trailer trash. (The difference is the USA white trash have no power, while in Israel they have the deciding power). It would make a tidy profit. Imagine an All In The Family where Archie is Michael or Moishe, say in Crown Heights, or Pottsville, Iowa, or in upper NY state near the PA border? It's disgusting. First Cohen attacks an Eastern European people, and the American heartland, and then he dons an Aryan wing to attack all Western European–derived people, ostensibly from the inside. His stuff is ignorant, stupid, and racist and insensitive to the extreme–but not in the way he imagines at all. No Gentile could ever get financed to pull the same tricks on the comparative Jews. Especially since his presentation blankets all Gentiles. No Gentile mindful of his career would ever do what Cohen has done. There are plenty of Gentile comedians who have the "wit" to do so, but they know it's hands off, "don't fuck with the Jews." They could also easily demolish the likes of Sarah Silverman, but again, they're not authorized since they are not Jews.
oops Aryan wig
I won't be seeing Borat's film – why bother. But I'm deeply humbled that my little squibs keep the memory of Ain el Helweh's history alive here at Mondoweiss. The place is not just a comedy set. Read Robert Fisk on Ain el Helweh 1982, in Pity the Nation. The bodies were entombed in the rubble, sprinkled with lime, and asphalted over.
The white gentile kids are growing up with all this propaganda directed against them in the name of humanity. I pity them. Nobody is protecting them. They are internalizing hatred of their own kind in the name of humanism, while the other ethnic groups are internalizing self-love uber alles, also in the name of humanism.
Sacha Baron Cohen is incredibly racist himself. Making a movie that mocks and slanders an entire nation (Kazakhstan) is pretty damn racist. Imagine a movie which depicts Israelis as horse urine drinking, dirty, racist, perverse people who love incest. Would this movie be accepted anywhere in the US, or in Europe for that matter? Now, imagine a movie like Bruno where Bruno wears no Aryan blonde wig, but rather say he has an obviously Jewish appearance, and he exhibits no nuances other than obvious Jewish nuances, doing exactly what the Bruno character says and does in that movie. Gays may still have mixed emotions about the movie, its satire, but there's be no psyche overlay as usual blaming the same type of people: white Gentiles. directed at
Cripes. Even Newsweek got that Bruno's targets are Aryans (Bruno character hails from Austria, got the wig to prove it) generally, and a small heartland town in the USA, as representative of intolerance (a major theme of Cohen's last movie too); Cohen first takes a very mild swipe at the much more PC acceptable intolerance of orthodox Jews. link to newsweek.com I agree with lovelyisraelis too. Cohen's work is much more PC than not to anyone with half a brain. In no way is it real biting satire; rather it's just cheap laughs. The satirical thrusts at racism and other forms of bigotry basically save the deep thrust for white Gentiles. Everything else is just a fig leaf of more general humanistic outrage the better to nail the white Gentiles, the very same laughing in the theatre. Cohen is a totally Orthodox Jew and his films show it, which is understandable given his family background. Just don't take him or his work for anything more. Gotta remember, Sarah Silverman has physical beauty as her emission prop and built-in foil, while Cohen is just a , well look a him without his Bruno wig. I'm just happy that guys like lovelyisraelis also see right through Cohen and are brave enough to speak out.
Glad Borat and his douche-bag alter-egos are through.Baron Cohen has no other actor to pull of of the closet. He can sit back and practice his orthodoxy while shaving his legs.
Wow, and you guys say the Jews think everyone is out to get to them. What a bunch of whiny,PC BS. I don't know which part is more laughable, the thinly veiled anti-semitism or the insinuation that Sasha Baron Cohen is at the center of a Jewish conspiracy to embarrass and humiliate goys. You guys in the comments section here are in a perpetual circle jerk, I'm just glad no one else cares. Wasn't the whole thing with Borat how it would perpetuate Jewish stereotypes and antisemitism, and Bruno about how it would do the same for the gays? Yet you find a way to make both part of the elite Jewish conspiracy. Bruno! A movie that is being hotly debated by the gay community, you make it about the Jews. You guys are obsessed, seriously. I hope Phillip is happy with what he has wrought here. What a bunch of loonies, no wonder no one takes this place seriously. Even Max, who once had a shot at legitimacy due to his good piece on the situations in Mexico, is quickly losing his respectability. The comments section, even ignoring the Israeli and Jew stuff, is starting to read like a white power message board or something Jim Goad would write.