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This topic comprises 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5
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Topic: Borat
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Gerard S. Cohen
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 975
From: Forest Hills, NY, USA
Registered: Sep 2001
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posted 11-13-2006 10:23 AM
quote: Chris Hipp
As for the Jews, well I don't know any 'ethnic' Jews, but I have to ask one question. If a certain group of people have been hated by pretty much all other races for 6,000 years, could it be because there is a reason? Again, I am just asking the question and am not trying to project my personal views.
Chris:
In the novel and film "Ship of Fools", a Jewish dwarf has the misfortune to be cabined with an a arrogant pro-Nazi traveler, who proclaims,
"The only thing wrong with with Germany is the Jews!"
To which the Jewish character responds,
"And the bicyle riders."
"Why the bicycle riders?"
"Why the Jews?"
As a teenager, I read a short book by the Anti-Defamation League entitled "The Roots of Prejudice" which explained the economic, social, historical and psychological origins of prejudice. Most of these roots help explain all forms of racial, religious, ethnic,political, cultural, gender, etc. forms of prejudice leading to hatred, discrimination, exploitation and genocide.
But some of the roots of prejudice relate more specifically to the Jewish people. Since Jewish scriptures posit an agreement (covenant) with the deity to accept limitations on mankind's animal impulses and behavior, codified in the Commandments and its many regulations, this heavy burden set a higher standard
of behavior on Jews. In sum, the principle "Don't do to others
what you don't want others to do to you." Or in its modern Goldern Rule phrasing, "Do unto Others.."
The "People of the Covenant" or "Chosen People" concept meant that Israel must live so as to become a "Light Unto the Nations" through setting an example of moral and ethical behavior.
These hard-to-live-upto restrictions were incorporated into the religions that grew from the paternal religion, such as Christianity and Islam. The concept of a people chosen to exemplify a higher morality by their living example was misconstrued as a "holier than thou" boasting of superiority.
Resentment against these commandments, led unconsciously to the need for a scapegoat, to vent that resistance with impunity. Thus antagonism towards the restrictive father religion rather than the current religion became embedded in some nations.
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Jim Bedford
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 597
From: Telluride, CO, USA (733 mi. WNW of Rockwall, TX but it seems much, much longer)
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 11-13-2006 02:58 PM
quote: Chris Hipp
If a certain group of people have been hated by pretty much all other races for 6,000 years, could it be because there is a reason?
You mean like black people, Sunni or Shi'a, gaijin in Japan, gays and lesbians, all immigrants everywhere, students in a college town, poor people, children in general or the new guys in town? All these people are/have been hated at one time or another and some for a long time. It's not the people who are hated I would question, it's the haters. Or are victims to be blamed?
Seems to me Borat uses prejudice to "out" prejudice, just like critical reviews can. I think we who are prejudiced have much more to answer for than Borat does. Sacha Baron Cohen comes from a long tradition of artists pointing out that the Emperor indeed has no clothes on. (Now if only he would have left his on! Uuck!)
So if it were to be nominated for an AA, would it be in the Documentary category?
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Michael Schaffer
"Where is the
Boardwalk Hotel?"
Posts: 4143
From: Boston, MA
Registered: Apr 2002
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posted 11-13-2006 06:01 PM
I don't see Borat "outing" any prejudices. The people he meets in the movie are generally nice to him, just a little puzzled by his strange behavior and sometimes upset when he does really weird things. But they all generally approach him with patience and at least the intention of understanding him.
How documentary is the film really? Are any of the scenes "real"? Or are they all staged?
When I think about it a little, I find it strange that so many people find it funny and somehow smart "how he uses prejudice to out prejudice". But in fact, the whole movie doesn't really "out" anything or make any statements. All it does is making crude fun of people from a certain region in the world that we don't know much or really anything about.
In fact, I think the movie is not at all what it's posing to be, but what it pretends to be "outing".
Gerard - that's a very nice theory, but it's pretty much nonsense, I am afraid I have to say. The reasons for such prejudices are fairly complex, but at the same time, they are also simple: whatever the precise reasons for prejudices against certain groups of people may be in given historical situations, whatever "reasons" are given for the persecution of that group, what is behind it is basically just tribal thinking.
That has nothing to do with specific resentment against Jews because these have "set a higher moral standard". I know you don't mean it that way, but if you think about it, that self-congratulatory statement in itself is pretty racist and superiorist. The Torah or Old Testament is full of bloodshed and celebration of violence against other ethnic and religious groups up to and including complete genocide. There is nothing morally superior in there.
The reasons why Jews have been persecuted for a long time are complex and difficult to understand, but it's not that, that's for sure. Many, many, ethnic and/or religious groups have been persecuted by other groups, including Jews, when they had the opportunity. It's a very general problem between groups of people. It seems though as if anti-semitic persecution always gets the most press. People go on and on about the holocaust in which the incredible number of somewhere between 4-6 million people got killed. But it is hardly ever mentioned that, for instance, there were about as many non-Jewish civilian casualties in Poland or that the Soviet Union lost more than *20 million people* in the war, both civilian and military.
There is now a huge holocaust memorial in Berlin, and I was among those who were against it being specifically for that - it should have been for *all* victims of WWII of which there were far more than the holocaust victims. The total number of people killed in the war in Europe was somewhere between 40-50 million people.
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