Why Borat Works Better in 2020
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- Опубликовано: 4 дек 2020
- wawaweewa
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"Borat gets people to say the quiet part out loud" - that has to be the best explanation of Borat I've heard yet.
The most sinister thing is that the “quiet part” has been extremely loud for those affected. For decades. That it has now become widespread is another thing; but let’s not get it twisted. The quiet part has always been loud. It’s just that the United Statians (I refuse to call people who don’t give a fuck about what is actually America, Americans so) have really good earmuffs.
Oh why hello there Knowing Better!
Hi
Its especially gross how little effort it takes....but these same people would be FULL of indignation if called out, bet.
I love your videos. Especially those involving 19/20th century geopolitics... and genocides.
"Shave that moustache so that you look more Italian" is the most counter-intuitive thing I've ever heard.
For real. Has this guy never seen Italian Spiderman?
Yeah, isn't the stereotype that Italians wear a moustache ???
The most famous Italian in the world, Super Mario, has a mustache.
@@charlesramirez587 man you're all over these comments spreading stereotypes and wondering why racism is bad
@@charlesramirez587 actually last time I was in Rome I saw almost zero moustache even in older people.
The fact that Tutar speaks Bulgarian and Borat speaks Hebrew, and neither of them speak Kazakh is hilarious.
The fact that I didn't realize they were speaking different languages is even better
Borat the antisemite speaks Hebrew. This is a sentence I never thought I would say.
@@bitbybit6988 Sachs baron Cohen is Jewish
I'm a hebrew speaker and listening to Borat was really incongruous. Sometimes what he says in hebrew is pretty much the text in the subs, sometimes it's even funnier, and occasionally it's just complete gibberish. I wonder what the experience is for Bulgarian speakers.
@@user6337 I said Borat
“The things real Americans believe now are wilder than anything Borat has ever fictionally believed.”
If that isn’t a harsh doze of truth I don’t know what is.
but it's not new. pick up a history book?
Sorry to tell you but America never really "changed". Im not american but grew up with your culture and I haven't seen change
@Google profile Which is probably because the Internet exacerbated those beliefs through circle jerk forums and accessibility.
@Google profile Cause people often choose what to believe it.
@@vuton7670 Ah yes, if you read "US&A History and Whatnot," it goes into extensive detail on how the Anti-Federalists accused the Federalists of being pagan sodomites who secretly practiced witchcraft and sacrificed children. "Talking 'Bout History," meanwhile, covers a little more extensively the conspiracy theories peddled by Democratic-Republicans claiming that the First Cholera Pandemic was a hoax orchestrated by the Ottoman Empire.
"People will tolerate anything that doesn't affect them." That is a chilling, but accurate, statement.
Nothing better explains the reaction to covid better than this statement.
Saw some dudes going off about Elliot Page coming out as transgender the other day, who refused to stop calling him 'she'. Sometimes the reverse is true. His life affects them not at all.
out of timeline, out of mind
It's not true though. Many or maybe "most" people will tolerate anything that doesn't affect them would be better.
There are countles examples both positive and negative about people unable to tolerate things not effecting them everybody can think of (negative being people sticking their noses in other peoples business for minor reasons, unwilling to let it go).
@@justiceforjoggers2897 Your username reduces any sympathy for you.
I can’t believe the guy who literally thought he killed 3 people and was so casual about it, that actually shook me. Terrifying.
look up the Milgram experiment, this is nothing new.
especially when you consider that he's fine with it because they're nazi-haters. chilling.
@@charlesramirez587 Sure, but on the word of a stranger walking up to him in the street?
@@charlesramirez587 sure, but this way of thinking can't be justified just because they chose to believe far right propaganda.
@@slightlypeevedpossom8510
It doesn't justify it but it really shows how humans are. Our beliefs are are strong, possibly stronger than logic.
Cohen studied history at university and he often quotes Ian Kershaw: ‘the path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference’. I think that’s the backbone of his comedy. Take away the veneer of normality and see what the average person is willing to let pass them by.
Whoa, I always liked borat but I have a new found appreciation for it now.
very well said
And The editing skills he learned from Joseph Goebbels.
And what shall we do when stopping the path means more than just votes and self-pandering rallies?
Honestly, I found the new Borat largely boring and uninteresting with some funny moments. I lived through 2015-2020. I have a Twitter and RUclips account. I’ve seen too much extreme nonsense to be shocked by anything in Borat. And the plot with his daughter obviously isn’t interesting, because the plots are always deeply secondary.
"Americans in particular are so ignorant about foreign cultures that they just accept this weird stereotype of a foreigner is legit" -- this is what makes every layered joke in the movie(s) so much more funny
For what it's worth, he was pretty successful at the same schtick in the UK before he came here
You could do the same schtick in reverse (i.e. with an "American" tourist in Eastern Europe). Definitely not an America-exclusive thing.
Borat will always be very strange to me because my mental image of Kazakhstan is very different: A proud Turkic nation, with people whom the untrained eye could mistake for Chinese or East Asian... even though they still speak Russian due to the country being former Soviet territory.
@@tissuepaper9962 No it isnt but America gets and INSANE amount of tourists especially in the big city yet Americans still perceive tourists as some sort of alien. When I traveled to the USA as an Australian they thought I was some wild creature from another universe.
@@maxpowers4436 In school some classmates went abroad to the USA and were asked whether we had trees here in Europe
I love when people think something has become "too political" as soon as the politics covered aren't their favorite ones.
There's a phrase I try to keep in mind at all times, "You are not immune to propaganda."
There is one side of the spectrum that even uses that phrase, progressive ideas are the only thing ever coined as “too political” in the current era
That is what I loved about Brüno. Because that film was exposing the obvious but also the subtle homophobia in american society and that movie became not as well recieved. I think it is the best movie he has ever made, but it was clear that people just had problem seeing a parody of a gay man, while stereotypically racist like Borat appealed to all sides.
Charles Ramirez the main people who use the term “political” in this way is almost exclusively legit right wing or grifting online personalities who talk about “identity politics”, which is usually just lgbtq+, women or colored people in media, which they then somehow link to a Marxist attack on our culture and children
@@TrueGamer22887 hes a right wing conspiracy theorist. Commented in a few places.
The girl at the debutant ball who says "That's fucking gross" is the real star of that scene.
Massive respect to her.
It's so interesting how racists will laugh along with Borat until they realize they are the joke and then suddenly they're furious and how dare you be political
That girl going "you're fucking gross" to the $500 is amazing lol. She meant it 110%.
What was also gross was how close he leaned into her face while leering at how angry she was.
one of the best parts in the movie
Ah, so she thinks $550 is a fairer price?
@@Jordan-kq3qw you’re just as gross for making that disgusting joke considering real women are being sold as sex slaves right now
I wonder who he was to her or how they know each other. She was trying to keep him from talking to Borat too because she knew they were being disrespectful af
The woman who babysitted the girl seems like such a kind soul.
+
absolutely (also btw nice profile pic i used to love detective conan back in the day)
@@dnys_7827 They still have new episodes!
And the two old ladies.
She was such a gem and so were the women in the synagogue.
that little girl typing "speaking as a black man i love trump" is just perfect
@Dank Legosi As a white cis-genered male socialist 18 year old i am here to tell you that your support is misplaced, though I do not wish any harm onto you personally as I believe you are as much a victim of the system as anyone else. :)
Do notice how the people who killed the Trump supporters were treated: prompt execution by the police. Meanwhile if your a Trump supporter and you happen to shoot a few protesters you get the fairest trial in American history. You literally have the cops, the billionaires, and next to all of the powerful institutions of the USA on your side as a conservative; I really don't think you are as oppressed for your political beliefs as you make yourself out to be.
It's a parody of what the Russian propaganda organization "Internet Research Agency" has been doing on Twitter (probably other platforms) for years. Pretending to be a member of a particular group in order to gain "source credibility" with a target audience. The Agency hires people to post on social media pretending to be conservative, pretending to be liberal, pretending to be black, pretending to be gay, pretending to be whatever... all in service of diffusing propaganda that is ultimately in the Russian government's interests (by, e.g., destabilizing and fomenting civil unrest in US culture, exacerbating distrust between the citizenry and the US government, and so on)
@@Emilio1985 Wait a minute: "Internet Research Agency" is IRA. Hmm...
@@surprisedlobsta8543 unrelated, obviously
Sounds like a "pick-me" or "Hey, look I'm different" call to me. So often black conservatives,seem to want a reward for being conservative & therefore "not being like the others of my race/ethnicity." You want to express that black people can have different values/perspectives yet you want to be seen and treated like you are a unique specimen of your race both cannot operate at the same time. I cannot name a black conservative I have met or seen online that does not do this. And white conservatives/republicans eat this up then go on about how "it isn't about race."
That Voltaire quote, and much of this video, reminded me of that quote from Elie Wiesel.
"Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim."
@@thesurvivorssanctuary6561 you can't disagree with the statements intent, that's called agreeing. The statement says that no matter the intentions of the neutral party, they are always helping the oppressor by staying neutral. And if you support the oppressor, you're not neutral.
@@thesurvivorssanctuary6561 If do not stop what is unjust in this world, you are allowing it to exist. If you do not stop the playground bully from pushing around the other kids, you're allowing them to be a bully. If you do not stop the drunk guy harassing the woman that told him no multiple times, you're allowing him to harass her. If you choose to ignore the nazis vocalizing their hatred of minorities, you're allowing their hatred to exist. Neutrality does not mean not going to protests and partaking in events, it means being neutral on a subject, and in this case one that is about human lives and well being. Being Neutral means that if a racist customer starts yelling and cursing at a black cashier for not letting them use expired coupons, you just stand aside and let it happen. If you are not in favor of minorities being treated equally and with respect, both by the systems we create and the people we live with, then you are against them by default. You can't be in favor of MLK's efforts by allowing the opinion that "Minorities should not have civil rights" to exist. A political opinion is the discussion of whether capitalism and socialism is a more effective economic structure. What is not a political opinion is whether or not people deserve to be executed prior to receiving a trial in a court of law. That's some imperialist, mad king line of thinking, and is one of the many reasons the French loves Guillotines.
@@DrgoFx funny how for every examples you list my mind goes "wait.. its not that simple" but then again nothing in the world is ever as simple as black or white. not to mention in each of those examples you're putting yourself in danger for intervening. the last sentence is also pretty ironic given how your whole text/examples are pretty much "do not allow this to exist, do not try to change it nor contain it, stand against it and eliminate it". im not sure oppression is ever the right option or ever truly works in the end no matter how "just" your cause is, think some countries tried that already :F but hey what do i know, im just writing this so i have an excuse to delay bed time by another 5 min AH!
Literally that's true but I'm not sure I agree with the implication. Or at least, there's a big difference between temporary neutrality while trying to become more informed (good) and enforced neutrality out of either cowardice or indifference (bad).
@@Robert399 That's something I can agree with, you cant take a stance in a topic you're uninformed about. Yet that in of itself is also a problem, someone unwilling to inform themselves of a topic and remain ignorantly neutral on the topic. That's why, in my interpretation, I see this as mostly in relation to the protection of human decency, and the right to live. Like if there's an issue going on where people, en mass, are protesting for a cause, and you don't wish to inform yourself as to why they are protesting, to me that demonstrates a form of ignorance. Especially if they only wish to inform themselves of perspectives of one side of the issue, which is often the side they "want" to be right, which is confirmation bias and shows a clear decision of who's side you support.
One small thing that's worth mentioning is that for a lot of low income retail workers, going along with some level of werid bad shit is just the quickest way to get out of the situation. This doesn't excuse or explain every instance of this happening in the borat movies, but it is worth keeping in mind I think.
@@xa5150 Can you elaborate on how the Giuliani scene was faked? I've just looked at multiple sources, and even Giuliani himself doesn't claim that it was faked, just that he was "was tucking in my shirt" when he put him hand down his pants: twitter.com/RudyGiuliani/status/1319031305120657410
I had customers like Borat. I just walked away from them, or just kinda changed the subject. Nothing I ever did could be interpreted as agreement. And I'm sure the retail workers who did that were cut from the footage.
Enablement, amplification, these are different things from going along with it as a worker.
@@pobbityboppity1110 I don't know what kind of job you had, but most people can't walk away from customers. Changing the subject works, to a degree, but some people are persistent. If they persist, you'll come off as rude if you don't nod along.
You can argue that you should still do it, but I can understand people being terrified of jeopardizing their income.
This is true, but some of the situations the worker in question was a little TOO eager and forthcoming as far as going along with the ridiculous things Borat was saying, like the cage guy ._.
clapping for an embarasing retail hype before a shift is in no way singing and clapping along for the death of Jews. You give hate too much benefit of doubt.
when you only know him from Borat, hearing Sacha Cohen speak in his normal voice is WEIRD!
I've seen him in like a dozen other things by this point, including Trial of the Chicago 7, and I'm still surprised whenever this video cuts to him talking naturally.
exactly, WHY DOES HE SOUND SO POSH????
@@krishacz he speaks with a PR(ish) accent, that's why
i had no idea he sounded like that honestly, i was expecting something a bit less... refined? i dunno
@@Nadia1989 RP you mean
Oh I forgot Lindsay talks about other stuff besides fanfiction and court drama
Give it two weeks.
I would not be surprised if Addison Kane drags her into court.
oh stop
Lies
TBH I need more erotica wars in my life XDDDDD
I need a wolfcock karen update! and to think 2 months ago I didn't even know what ABO was
I love the girl in the dress who tells her dad that he's gross.
It scares me knowing men like that have daughters. Makes me wonder how they treat them or how they allow other men to treat them.
@@kenirainseeker539 The reason why misogynistic men are so stereotypically overly and aggressively protective of their daughters and wives is because they think all men are like they are (or like they think they used to be before settling down)
@@DidaxS
That's one theory..
I for one am very protective because out of 1000 apples, someone is bound to find 1 very bad apple.
That's why one fears for his or her family in general..
@@blueeyed5074 there's a difference between being protective and making death threats to anyone who flirts with your daughter
@@DidaxS
Death threats?
Well, that's a totally different.
"Shave off the moustache and you could look more Italian."
Welp, you heard em, Mario. Get to it, Luigi.
That's mama Luigi to you
moustache is italian too
When I first joined Facebook fifteen years ago my 'about' was just the full transcript of Borat's 5 minute horse speech and I can't tell if I should be ashamed or proud
wow a man from the webs golden era graces 2020 with this comment
Proud. Obviously.
You're the man! (if you're a man haha if not, then you're the woman!)
Ashamed; it means you are a fucking homophobe.
@@catpat4754 you're talking to a horse.
Okay but the women in the synagogue really got to me. As a German, I froze when I heard the first lady speak in a German accent and knowing what she must have gone through, and yet she was one of the kindest, most understanding people in the entire movie. Moved me to tears.
Edit: I did NOT expect that from a Borat movie, of all things
sie hätten "jana aus kassel" enthalten sollen
i also believe that while a lot of people discovered he was borat, he never broke character throughout the WHOLE filming, except to tell her the truth about him. i believe the film is dedicated to /has a note in remembrance at the end for her as well?
The funny fact: in Kazakhstan we have only three people with name Borat and it’s not even Kazakh name. I’m glad that this film helped to understand the problems of your country. But I’m upset that whole world has stereotypes about my country that even has nothing common with reality.
Americans: "every race is stupid and below us lol"
Also Americans when you speak on basic facts: "that's anti-semantic!"
Maria Bakalova deserves an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Tutar, no joke
Boy do I have good news for you
she literally got nommed for best supporting actress lmfao
the hear the QAnon guy tell Borat "it's a conspiracy theory" really hits on a different level
a huge portion of Americans are indoctrinated into thinking belief is a rational path of thought. Belief requires the absence of skepticism. If they do not consider the concept of anyone being skeptical, they will imagine they are also operating on belief. There is no compromise with belief. It is all or nothing. Awareness requires adding to and modifying understanding of concepts when introduced to new data. Belief only accept data that conforms to preconceived concepts.
@@notaninquisitor7274
I don't think you know what belief is.
@@notaninquisitor7274 Uh, as a religious person, I can say that that's not what belief is about. You're not in denial of facts when you believe in something. If anything, my belief in what I believe in is supported by evidence drawn from my own personal experience and the experience of others. And my belief prompts me to be open-minded, because I don't know enough to rely only on myself. My belief has helped me to see where I've made mistakes and given me the courage to make changes so those mistakes never happen again.
Faith and belief are meant to be active involvement between the one who believes and the world they are in, to test their belief and either solidify with evidence of put the belief away for something more truthful. Those who are passive in their faith or belief aren't really using it as it's intended. Instead, they are as Lindsay Ellis pointed out, which is comfortable with things that are 'safe' to their belief, but atrocious when considering others. That's not a proper use of faith or belief, to the point I would posit it's not faith or belief at all.
@@notaninquisitor7274 Does the fact that a bunch of people just believed this prove it right or wrong
@@notaninquisitor7274 Not really. My beliefs are created by how I interpret something unkown. God is a great example of this. Athiests don't know he's fake just like religious people don't know he's real (unless you believe them when they claim they've seen him). There is a reason people believe certain things. Religious people seek meaning and religion gives it to them so they believe it to be true. Belief is a rational path of thought. People have reasons to believe in things. If a car breaks down before hitting a child on the street, a Christian would thank God while an athiest would thank chance. They just interpret the situation differently. There IS skepticism in belief. There is no skepticism in knowledge. I know 1+1=2. Only magic can change my mind. I don't know things I believe. I believe them to be true because of how I interpret what I can see, hear, touch, and smell. Some beliefs can be very strong though. Example: I'm am 99% sure that Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself. Even if a new autopsy was released today, it would be too late and too suspicious I would believe it to be fake. But I'm 99%, not 100%. Meaning I still just believe it, not know for certain. My mind can be changed. Just much harder than changing my mind about an assumption. The strongest beliefs are philosophies of life such as like every religion. People don't convert easily, but it isn't uncommon. You're mistaking belief with baseless assumption.
One of the most terrifying realizations that an individual can come to is that the most evil acts can be and often are carried out by normal, everyday people.
The banality of evil has been a thing ever since humans are... humans.
Watched a documentary about human trafficking where they interviewed an ex pimp behind bars. And he genuinely seems like a decent, intelligent guy. You don’t want to think ill of him. But at the same time he’s rationalizing all these horrifying things: the cognitive dissonance is intense. . Horrible people walk among us & who would know? it’s terrifying when you realize it.
You said it, normal, everyday conservative people appear to be eager to start committing atrocities.
@@srenchin Everybody is almost ready to commit some sort of evils to get their way. All you need to just being able to get away with it for long enough you'll do anything to keep what you had good going.
@@srenchin Even as a lib, I'm not going to say it's just conservatives. But unlike guy above me, it isn't that you get away with doing a wrong thing and keep doing it. If we know something is wrong, we generally will feel cognitive dissonance and either reaffirm our beliefs to prove it's right or stop the action when we decide it IS wrong. We're all suspectible to the opinions of those around us.
We want to be accepted. How we weight and consider other's opinions as important or not important plays into that.
The past 4 years in USA have given some people in conservative culture more ground for their beliefs. If I believe group "x" is bad, and the government and its supporters say "x" is also bad, why would I change my mind?
Something tells me that the frat boy that said “we should have slaves” wears a different kind of red hat today...
I watched the first and second movies back to back and yeah... I was thinking of that, too.
Someone check that guy’s basement 😬
Or a red armband
I really appreciated your take on the QAnon guys. My parents are into QAnon, I still live at home with them, and at times it's a constant mental struggle of having to remind myself that they aren't bad people they're just trying to find meaning in a very meaningless world. However, having to accept the methods with which they use to cope is hard on me. Great video!
Same. I've been watching a lot of my older family members and naive friends fall for this QAnon crap. I know they genuinely care about the fucked up shit in the world but due to mistrust mixed with lack of research, they fall for this shit. I don't even know how to talk to them without it getting volatile and it upsets me.
Good on you! I know from experience that keeping your cool can be really difficult. My mom has been deep into conspiracy stuff for years. I don't live there anymore, but when I did, it was a daily struggle. Nowadays there is a mutual understanding of simply not bringing up certain subjects. Is wish that we could talk about it, but having tried for years, I now see that it is unfortunately a silly hope. Once somebody gets into the blood libel stuff, they're too far in to try and talk some sense into them.
I'm not trying to tell you what to think but, as a general point, being related to you (or "one") doesn't rule out being a bad person. For all of us, it's perfectly possible that our parents/siblings/spouse/children/whatever *are* bad people.
(To be extra clear, I'm not saying or implying "being into QAnon = bad person".)
@@Robert399 Why did you feel the need to tell me that my parents might be bad people and then also say that QAnon doesn't equate to being a bad person lmao. I'm not giving them any graces just because they're my parents.
@@MaryDevlin12 Sure, I was trying to make it as un-reply-like as possible. But I think a lot of people jump between the extremes of "I don't know anyone like that, they must be subhuman" and "I know someone like that, they're entirely sympathetic and nothing's their fault and we need to be fully understanding".
"Doom-scrolling. It means scrolling through doom." Why did I laugh so hard at this?
Because such an obvious explanation not only fails to actually explain anything, but also eventually creates even more questions.
@@invock Thanks, though it was a rhetorical question, and I think the main reason for it being funny was not just that it failed to explain anything, but that I really expected an explanation. When he said "Doom scrolling. It means..." my mind immediately filled in something like "scrolling through news that you know will upset you", but then I was suprised to hear a complete non-explanation. Now I over-explained my own comment, even after clarifying that my question wasn't meant to be answered... oh, well.
Street walking. It means walking on a street.
I prefer strafing through doom
@@ichbinben. It's also funny because the word doom is archaic, dramatic and abstract. It's not a location or specific area you usually describe as going through, especially not by the modern way of scrolling. So, the contradiction is fun when he puts it like that.
Is there a place you call to pick up dead horses that have been kicked enough to sell as glue?
why js no one talking about how they started the movie with a planned plot and then coronavirus showed up out of nowhere and they expertly wove it into the plot and especially the surprise climax at the end PERFECTLY and made the movie 10000x better
RIGHT? That was particularly impressive.
borat manufactured covid to improve the movie, confirmed
Omg this exactly, the last few minutes where they tied it in had me dying- it was so clever.
So, basically, it highlights the fascist personality. The average person isn't going to start any movement on their own, they're not going to say out loud what they think, but if someone else comes along and does it for them... why not join in?
If your comment is about the "average person" then it's hardly restricted to fascism, is it?
I wouldn't call it the fascist personality so much as how fascism is able to work. In a society like 1990s America, it's hard to create a fascist movement. For most of America, capitalism worked. The economy is doing well, the seeds of many of the social issues we have today had been sown, but the sprouts had not yet broken the surface. The Soviet Union had fallen, the government was near a budget surplus, people's lives were looking up. But when people have unmet desires, it is easy to give those unmet desires an enemy who has caused them, and convince the average person that your movement will help with those unmet desires. Fascism took off after World War I in countries that were not doing well. The Weimar Republic was the perfect conditions for a Fascist movement. Radical Islamism does best in poor Muslim communities that have suffered at the hands of Western influence and secular governments. Communism did best in nations with an underclass of impoverished workers with little social mobility like Russia and China. Ideology appeals to people's desires, and the average person can be lulled into thinking their desires can be met through the movement being promoted to them. The more extreme the desire, the more extreme the ideology. No one is born a fascist. They do not have fascist personalities. Fascists are molded by their conditions, their media, their community. A well timed pulling of strings can turn a group of passive, democratic, liberal sheep into raving brownshirts. All it takes is a vulnerable population who are missing something to be fed lies to create a mass movement of radicals. It's not a thing where "this person is a latent fascist, and when prevented the opportunity, they'll join an existing movement."
Those who are missing something turn to ideology. Those who are missing many things, turn to extreme ideology. Wars against ideology are not won in words, but in desires. If the only weapon one has is words, they should be used to cultivate within the ideologue means of achieving their real desires. Bitter is the conflict between irreconcilable desires.
@@TheSpecialJ11 Ideologies also have a kind of history where formative events and family relationships can impact what you believe. I think ideologies that are deeply believed in won't just disappear. That makes advocating for changes complicated. Spreading the word is helpful, but I wonder how useful it actually is without also being willing to accept differences while speaking with others on these kinds of topics, if you are someone who has these kinds of conversations. IDK. This is also a really general way of talking about the things people believe, I guess. Anyway, just some thoughts after reading this.
@@TheSpecialJ11 lol
this is why the hard right and hard left should never be pandered to. The world has let China's wage slaves replace the blue collar jobs throughout the west, just so you can order cheap tat from amazon. A dictatorship with concentration camps, organ harvesting and god knows what else. If we are not careful what happens next will make Hitler and Stalin look like choirboys.
Among all who quote smart people here, I think Hannah Arendt had it right. Most people aren't just inheritly evil; their mistake is that they don't think. Misinformation and refusing to acknowledge things, not analysing things and simply accepting what others tell you to be true without thinking, following orders without trying to make sure you're not harming people is what's truly evil.
I, an Eastern European, would like to inform you that Kazakhstan is in Central Asia.
With Oral situated geographically in Europe. Kazakhs take pride that their country is on the two continents and do not strictly associate it with just one
@@kosatochca Geographically speaking, yes. So is Russia. But in a cultural, geopolitical or socioeconomical sense: no.
Apparently, when the character was first invented, he came from Eastern Europe. It wasn't changed to Kazakhstan until later. I think that was what she was referring to there.
@James Black I am not a native speaker, don't know about these nuances, sorry. Although what I replied to was that geographically Kazakhstan, Russia etc are both on the Europe and Asia side of this continent.
@@kosatochca Almost all of Kazakhstan is in Asia. There is only a very little part west of the Ural river that is tecnhically in Europe.
I am Kazakh myself, and I have a rather difficult history with Borat. Having lived abroad since around 12, people asking if my sister is a prostitute or some other dumb Borat related question became very commonplace and kind of made me resent the first Borat even though i understood it mostly made fun of Americans.
The second Borat however, even despite all that, I really enjoyed.
I think it would have been better if it had been a fictional country, like that Australian comedian who wrote those hilarious tourist guides of imaginary and stereotypical countries such as Phaic Tan, etc.
had I gotten a penny for each potassium, prostitute or very nice "joke", I'd be rich by now
I find it funny that Lindsay says that the most problematic part of the first film is normalizing antisemitism. somehow us Kazakhs and our experiences are very often discredited during the "serious" discussions of the film
@@ayanamukhitova1478 Agree 100%
I have similar memories as someone who grew up in Kazakhstan and went to study abroad in the UK and the US for several years right after the first movie came out. While I do understand the increased poignancy of the movie's message right now, I still can't help but sympathise with the #cancelBorat crowd back in Kazakhstan. For all the great points it makes about American society, to them what it mostly amounts to is a rich comedian from a rich country dragging the name and image of their country through the mud just to make a biting satire of another rich country, while making it absolutely clear that his interest in their country mostly lies in the stereotypes he can conjure associations to rather than the real societal issues people there face.
In addition to the usual reactions of hurt patriotic pride, this time around I'm also seeing a lot of negative reaction from the more progressive-minded people who are exposed to international social justice discourse online and are now seeing the same people who decry cultural appropriation and harmful media portrayals of PoC suddenly brush off their objections to using their culture as a prop with words like "this isn't about you". To paraphrase a tweet someone else made about this, "where do we sign up to get on this list of PoC whose feelings and cultures woke people in the West actually give a damn about?"
@@ayanamukhitova1478 absolutely. his jokes about antisemitism are from a personal place whereas his jokes about Kazakhs are just bigotry.
The only thing I miss is him being able to interview people in almost complete anonymity.
25:40 The Rally organizers yelling out they support “equal rights for all and do not discriminate for any reason” had me audibly laugh just hearing them quickly trying to cover their tracks after they got exposed. God, it’s sad how easy it is to manipulate people with the most insane beliefs as the whole film showed
"We believe in free speech and don't discriminate for any reason, now we're just gonna kick this guy off the stage and then stand back while you attack him because we don't like how he made us look"
I think that there is a fair chance that he and even some other republicans actually believe that. No group is fully monolithic.
This brings up a rather good point...... if Republicans and the alt right were more fearful of being shown in the light by hidden camera mockumentaries like Borat, you would see far fewer of them out in the open
@@SpunjjiThat makes them antifa
He exposes the “Banality of Evil” in America.
Hannah Arendt got that one right
I was literally going to write that. hannah arent,
*in all cases. this is by no means unique to any nation
After the CIA made a coup in my country and was responsible for thousands of deaths and corpse concealment i realized this, it was like in 1964
It was only a secret for statunitians
usa **
The bit of the woman politely nodding after four minutes of Borat Horse Talk reminds me of literally every day at my bartending job. I once put up with an hour of an old man talking to me about a car park he'd once parked in.
This is so real. (In the preCOVID times) I was a server, not a bartender. I asked a lady how her day was going once and she started telling me the whole story of how she came to remodel her kitchen. She explained the arguments between her electrician and the carpenters, etc. By the end of her meal, she had me flipping through interior design catalogues and helping her pick out the right granite countertop.
Hahaha that is a hilarious example. What was the climax of the story?
My biggest appreciation and patience to you in your field. Poor soul.
I work with one guy and I've been witness to hour long explanations of how the world ended in 2011, the petrol dollar still exists, AOC will isntitute authoritarian communism, the upcoming second civil war, and every other conspiracy theory dreamed up by Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.
It's rather impressive that he could talk about that for so long....
Seeing the QAnon guys was so eye opening. Its terrifying to see the doublethink in action. They're so kind to Borat, but also firmly believe certain ppl don't deserve the same rights. It's so.....terrifying how they've been taken advantage of, and the danger they pose to society, despite not being evil in and of themselves.
You really don't think the average Trump hater doesn't believe that conservatives don't deserve the same rights? There's an equal amount of stupidity on both sides.
@@allanshpeley4284yeah, but as someone who was once conservative, I’m ashamed to even say it. Conservatives have become what they claimed liberals to be. The believe made up things more often than not, are over sensitive and prone to violence, but refuse to see it. Now I’m ashamed, because it seems the conservatives party hates America, but thinks they love it. They want to take away voting rights because the younger generation might turn things blue, they are the ones fighting for child marriage, are more likely to be violent and cover their ears when they hear something they don’t like. Saying ‘both sides bad’ is obtuse at this point. I hope one day I can be proud to be conservative again, but right now? Hell no.
Exactly. My mom is an anti masker anti vaxxer etc who fell for wellness stuff like essential oils and healing crystals. She tries so hard to preach equality and does truly believe she treats people equally while appropriating indigenous cultures and actively making life worse for disabled people and people of color. My dad is colombian and while she married him, had kids with him, and held no stereotypes to him, later while falling for this stuff she's slowly started to cling onto stereotypes without realizing what she's doing, as she falls down conspiracy theory rabbit holes and all these other things that lead her further and further right. Her husband has even tried to argue with me that the holocaust wasn't *that* bad, we weren't there, so we don't know it was really that bad.
It's really hard to deal with them becoming these people, especially when I experience this firsthand as their child. They love animals and raise chickens, my mom is an artist and she loves painting murals for her small town she lives in, we would get my grandma hummingbird feeders together every summer and split chocolate bars when we could get candy. I firmly believe people are kind by default, and few people I've met do anything without thinking they're doing the right thing for themselves or the people they care about.
If anything I have borat to thank for making this more apparent to people, viewing all conservatives and fascists as inherently evil makes it harder harder understand them and change their minds, and show them what is really happening and what they're really supporting.
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities" - Voltaire
Yeah, hearing that quote a few days after Trump incited a riot to storm the US Capitol building, that's a very accurate analysis that's still 100% true to day.
COVID IS REAL, TAKE POISON, REMOVE RIGHTS
voltaire was an idiot, people who believe in his phylosophy are donkeys, sheeps, they have no brain
@@gutsjoestar7450 in this quote he’s correct
@@Peter_Cordes
Telling people to patriotically and peacefully protest is inciting a riot?
The libtardation in the USA is very alarming.
“We do not discriminate,” said while waving confederate flag.
Well they'll probably eventually get everybody killed, so technically...
@Travis Besst the worst part is the delusion of the election. they buy without a single critical thought trump's lies about biden stealing the election. it's double bad because 1) they were so sure trump was gonna win, they'll take it personally when he does lose. 2) because they're convinced the left stole the election they'll feel it's fair game in the future to steal elections for themselves.
@Travis Besst i suspect his base will never go away. he legitimately has a cult surrounding him now and it'll only truly vanish when he dies. i just hope it's not the entire republican party and only a small(brained) subset. despite all his blatant amorality and incompetence the last four years he still got way too many fucking votes. scary.
@@oldfrend i need to point out something. trumps votes are largely due to a couple things
1. high turn out in general this year
2. he's a incumbent, he was going to get more vote this time around
3. I genuiley believe a good portion voted for him because they are
republican,don't know who biden is(vp doesn't get as much clout for the general public as you think) so they went with the evil they know,people who aren't affected by this recession, amd trump fanatics. I genuinely think his cult is the minority. Though i don't think republicans complicttness in trumps insanity should be underscored
@@oldfrend oooooh, well that explains why my Mom kept saying Biden "stole" the election
I wish I could be surprised that people didn't realize Borat was political...but there's people who think Captain America 'wasn't political' even though he was literally created to punch fascism right in it's ugly face.
edit to add: a parody of starbucks actually sounds like it could do well as a business...at least in today's market
That's because suddenly, for a reason I still fail to understand, the meaning of the word "political" shifted from "something related to politics" to "something I don't agree with" in the mind of many.
The Starbucks parody was actually one of the more successful ideas on the show, but as you can imagine it was a lawsuit waiting to happen and so they had to stop
Look up the tale of "Dumb Starbucks."
"political" recently has been a term used to fight against things like the lgbt community, minorities, or feminist rhetoric being represented in media, under the guise of "we just don't want our media to be overly political". Everything is political, even the stance of wanting to disinclude politics. It's ridiculous
Back in the 30s Marvel (Timely back then) actually got death threats from Nazi sympathizers in America. These kinds of people aren’t new, they’re just more open about their bigotry.
Me, a Bulgarian: ...did she just say "I swallowed the baby??"
Me, five minutes later: aha, she IS Bulgarian
Extremely random, but I read your name, but my brain told me "Mah-Riah". I kept scrolling, and then realized I could just think Maria XD. Reading Cyrillic is odd for me sometimes.
Ok, thankyou for listening to my TedTalk, you may go about your day again.
@@amsgamingandmusic I mean for what it's worth that's give or take how it's pronounced - that's obvious, you may say, how else, but I've seen some very interesting options
@@amsgamingandmusic same here. I can read a little bit of it thanks to Duolingo. I believe it’s Maria Dimitrova?
@@blackswan4486 I believe that is exactly correct :) I'm only sub-conversational because my teacher I was learning from online ended up becoming my good friend. Would be great for my russian- except for the fact that his English needs more work than my Russian 🤣
Spicy take: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is actually the most frightening horror picture in ages.
I saw an interview with Mel Brooks once where he talked about how much the “In my Country, There is Problem” song creeped him out because he couldn’t tell who he was supposed to be laughing at.
Well, it's no "Spring Time for Hitler". That's for sure.
@@mjangelvortex Brooks should have at least known the parts where he "spoke foreign" was in fact hebrew. I think the problem was the first movie wasn't saying anything about it, just putting a dull light on it.
@@freddogrosso9835 i haven't finished the video yet. So, pardon me if this is just a reference to the video, but...
I mean. No.
...Because Springtime for Hitler directly places the false spectacle of one of the most evil ruling bodies in human history at the forefront for mockery while "In My Country, There is Problem" uses the marginalized group as the fuel for humor in order to get people to "say the quiet part out loud". One is openly trying to offend the audience in the narrative by bringing up topics they're uncomfortable remembering (but have the luxury of forgetting), while the other one is trying to expose the kind of awful things people will be entertained by or go along with.
They're completely different forms of dark comedy/satire from each other. Polar opposites even.
@@DairunCates But which is which?
@@freddogrosso9835 Springtime is the first, In My Country is the latter.
The Producers frames Springtime for Hitler as a song that would offend people inherently. The important difference is that the audience wasn't singing along with Springtime for Hitler and no one walked out of the real live performance of In My Country in disgust.
"We can't do to them what we'd like to do because they unfortunately have the same rights we do" Oh my God, how can you feel in the right saying that??
As a lgbtq person I’m used to people in the most extreme cases thinking that death penalty or legalising murdering me in some way is up for debate, so that is a weird thing to live with for just existing.
And not in some inflammatory language, like ‘oh everyone in this group I disagree with should die’ or in an joking way.
But actively working to either keep or change the laws around the world.
But even I don’t think it’s a bad thing in any way that me and this group of people who would like to see me dead should have the same rights.
How could you ever think that? That is not justice. How could that ever be something good?
Those qAnon guys didn't seem that bright to begin with, but their take on political norms and equal rights didn't seem to be the source of their error to me. Their error was in being able to take all that conspiracy talk even halfway seriously. I mean once you get all hopped up on Alex Jones and believe that Democrats are vampire-pedophiles who drink baby blood in satanic rituals (among other things), then equal rights really do become a joke.
It's hard to maintain the belief that in their own way your political opponents just want what's best for society as a whole when you believe your political opponents are a predator species feeding off your people, either literally or metaphorically.
That said, I'm not even really sure they were anti-equal rights. Sure, they vocally sympathized with being anti-equal rights in theory but that was arguably to build consensus with Borat. They came down pretty decisively on the pro-equal rights side when it came to actual behavior, and they made that clear to Borat.
Tbh, if that's the worst thing they said in 5 days with Borat those guys are heros. Can you honestly say you wouldn't say something even dumber if you spent 5 days with Sacha Baron Cohen without realizing his real aim was to get you to say something outrageous?
They live in a country with millions of prisoners which are regularly beaten, raped, and murdered and no one in government or outside of it cares. They can say shit like this because this is normal. America is a violent country. America is a country completely unconcerned with its enemy's "rights".
@@justiceforjoggers2897 I think you have a lot to learn about our prison system. Guards do it too, and we keep so many prisoners always (even for nonviolent crimes, or crimes not always given prison time) because they are a source of slave labor most of our largest corporations rely on to stay open at the price they do. Our country is built on violence.
@@OffTheWagons We found the enlightened centrist guys.
You are also in a echo chamber by the way,the centrist echo chamber.The one who equates Qanon to blm.You are not immune to propoganda.Do your own research,come to conclusions on your own.Stop with the both sides are the same shit.Because it obviously ısn't helping.
Janice took a stand when she thought there was an extremely awful situation. She's an outstanding person
"Throw the Jew Down the Well", while being a horrifying song, is exceptionally catchy, and now it is stuck it my head, why would you do this to me?
I feel the same way, knowing that accidentally singing "throw the jew down the well" in public will probably not end well.
Same with "Wuhan Flu."
The lyrics are horrible and shit but it's also catchy.
It's the same as Serbia Strong. You know what Serbs did in the Balkan wars and still that song is a meme
I'm Jewish and I find myself singing it every now and then 😂 I almost started singing it on the voice chat today while playing with some friends, one of whom is Israeli. But I think that by now all Jews know the song and most of us would laugh
@@user-xr9kj6by3u caught in four que
My father was obsessed with the original movie and I literally grew up saying stuff like "wawaweewa" and "very nice" because I learned it from the movie my father would never stop watching. So who's gonna tell him it isn't pro-right wing?
I'm rooting for you
It isn’t pro right wing
Does it matter
@@ianwatterson6970 yeah
Wew. Boy is he going to be pissed.
"If a horse is old, it is like when a man is old" lmao makes me cry with laughter every time.
Yo, have the Witchfinder General read A.B.O fics.
Love your channel
@@sleepyandroid6904 Do it brah do it
I think Ellis was framing that as evidence of an "unfunny joke", fyi. IMO it's a simple and well-delivered anti-joke.
Helloski!
11:20 Honestly, the funniest thing about this whole scene was how despite being so cool and comfortable with Borat when they saw him, they were PISSED in the aftermath when they found out what they were being filmed for. It was to the point that they tried to get together a lawsuit, despite seeming like fair sports.
Qanon guy - "then they take that out of their adrenal glands" [points to his neck instead of where the adrenal glands actually are]
Pee is stored in the balls.
Ya gotta drink it through the neck regardless. Cause Democrats are, like, vampires or something?
I'm amused that that's the detail you fixated on. Like "adrenochrome...drinking blood...satanism...all checks out so far... WAIT this dude doesn't know what he's talking about!"
"If it sounds like it could be true, it must be true"
- Average American
@@mallninja9805I also fixated on it bc like he's been reading these conspiracy theories about medical stuff and can't be bothered to realize the adrenal glands and thyroid are different things.
I feel like Nathan For You is at the beginning stages of getting the recognition it deserves.
@@77793wow This video was the first time I've heard of it, going to check it out tonight!
Yeah! I wasn't expecting to see it in this video but I'm so glad she included it!!
It's a hilarious show but it also has such nuanced subtle satire of middle America, similar to Borat that I hadn't noticed before
Never heard of it before this essay, now I'm obsessed...
Nathan For You also goes even farther than a non aggressive prank show. It shows how you can manipulate mass media and the internet like Dumb Starbucks, Pig saving goat, etc.
It's one of the funniest show of all time, and Nathan is a genius on par with Sasha. Nathan Fielder was a consulting producer and director of some of the pranks in Who is America? as well.
I kind of feel like Lindsay writing a book set in 2007 has made her the de facto RUclips historian-critic of the early 2000s, which is a position that desperately needed filling.
Are you saying she is some kind of "Nostalgia Woman"?
@@gsvick Wait, I got it: the Leading Chick of Nostalgia.
The Nostalgia Queen
Here for it. We have endless discourse about media and culture in the 80's, 90's and even the 2010's, but the 2000's just gets glossed over. Seems like all analysis on that decade is just 9/11, Iraq War, Economy Crash of 2007 and that's it. Glad to see we're getting deeper insight into that time period
The 00s were an extremely well documented era. We haven't had the time to dissect it because the world keeps moving too fast, but there's a goldmine of history.
Side note, Cohen is pretty hot out of character
With that accent plus how articulate he is? Damn right.
I got into a heated debate with my high school friends because I found Cohen more attractive than Borat, but Bruno the most attractive by far.
that people do the hitler salute at these "pro trump-free america- not neo nazi" rallies, is just disgusting.
And yet "they don't discriminate for any reason and the man they were saluting is not welcome with them" xD
That's kinda how fascists roll. Fascists have to work incredibly undercover, so they openly denounce any fashie who makes their point heard _very_ well. So we have videos about how feminism is bad floating around on the web, but you'd never actually catch the fash owning it.
It's just another part of the arsenal they use to try and swing the liberals and general public.
I sound really doomy and paranoid here, so if any fascist is seeing this, please just stay silent like y'all do.
Yep, sounds like a fascist undercover to me. I don't care about the history of the salute pre-nazi, a lot of us known it came from the Romans first. But it's mighty offensive to say "your tiny brain" when it's actually just trauma and war history that's less than a hundred years ago.
Also, people did that salute like breathing to devote themselves to Hitler. So when a person does the salute, are they a fascist, or reenacting a salute from any era? That's why we just ban the salute altogether.
And in this post-post-modern world of Irony for Irony’s sake, it’s so easy nowadays to just say “oh it was a joke.”
@@yorukaadams940 😂 you sound like the typical cliche lib
“They take it out of their adrenal glands” *points at neck*
I know. But still lol
Keyhole surgery is very advanced nowadays.
Whats even funnier is that there are people that still believe the adrenachrome urban myth. Hunter S Thompson must be laughing his head off where ever he is.
You go in through the neck and then run one of those grabber have things down to the kidneys. Very advanced surgery. No easier way to do it.
@@danieljensen2626 The ribs are just such solid plates of bone (that extend over the whole torso) that we can't get in!
@@cupofcustard Hunter S Thompson? I can't really find anything about any connection between him and this adrenachrome myth. But I've even talked to people here in Austria and there are a few who actually believe this dogshit.
"Ironic anti-Semitism has lead to actual anti-Semitism". I see this exact thing happening everywhere with every type of hate/bigotry in memes. It saddens me greatly.
@Toxic Potato It's a relationship in my opinion. You need over reaction towards a topic to fuel the shift from irony to actuality.
@Toxic Potato It's somewhat a question of how we define overreaction. I would agree on the one hand that overreacting hurts the point one tried to make, but there's no shortage of bad faith actors who would try to depict all reactions as overreactions. Because these things do need to be called out.
@Toxic Potato sorry, but if people being offended at your deliberately offensive Internet joke turns you into a literal nazi, you had problems to begin with.
Funny how the same people saying "it's just a joke, snowflake!" also send death threats if you don't coddle their fee-fees at all times.
may I also add as a Kazakhstani, that the "ironic" misrepresentation of "some foreigner guy" led to creation of TONS of unironic stereotypes & unfunny jokes targeted towards us. it baffles me that pretty much everyone online is turning a blind eye on this one. even otherwise "woke" ppl 🤨
@@ayanamukhitova1478 I've been thinking this since the first movie. People who can't find Kazakhstan on a map are being fed the idea that women are livestock there, and they just accept it like "Oh, yeah, eastern Europe - child brides, holocaust denial, sounds right to me!" And - in the end - he's using this offensive stereotype about a country he knows almost nothing about to "expose" racism and sexism that can be easily seen for free on social media..............no one with a brain needed Borat to tell them that Trump supporters are racist, plastic surgeons do boob jobs on kids, and Rudy Giuliani is a human-shaped turd.
To be fair “Horse is like a man” for 5 full minutes is somehow timelessly hilarious, especially since he ends with “Do you understand??”
"She 15 she too old for you" was golden
"all gas no brakes" does the schtick of disarming people so they drop their guard really well
Oh yea and the 80s suit does wonders
@@Ridethecircuswheel if you think the amount of white dudes that wanna rap is exaggerated i can only assume youve been spared from that experience. theyre out there
@@Ridethecircuswheel I get what you're saying, but you seem to forget that the people in AGNB videos are real americans. It is blown out of proportion, it is gawdy, but keep in mind that there is genuinely a lot of people willing to do ridiculous shit to catch a bit of clout. I understand your criticisms of AGNB but I'll have to disagree, people really act out in front of a camera at those types of events.
@@Ridethecircuswheel strange. I feel sort of the opposite when making this comparison. Sacha usually needs a whole setup to make people say the things they record them saying. Just google the people in Borat 2 for example, like the beauty guru or the babysitter. He needs to make casting calls with oddly specific descriptions and some level of deception to make people say things. This doesn't take away from the truth he's revealing, but it's further away from journalism. AGNB on the other hand, is basically just a zero-ego guy going around asking people to speak their minds. They're both pretty good, but AGNB has a better flavor. It's not entrapment with AGNB. It's giving a voice to people that the mainstream media probably wouldn't really give any airtime to.
I dunno about the accusation that AGNB is nudging people towards a certain direction. Maybe Andrew's patreon can answer that.
@@Ridethecircuswheel I can see where you're coming from, though I'm not sure I can agree without some sort of evidence. There certainly wasn't any screaming at the Trump Jr. book-signing. The editing we can agree on. But currently in the AGNB instagram there's this dude yelling Jeezs Khroist while praying and it looks pretty genuine. I guess we'll see when he blows up some more, maybe some people can attest to what you're pointing out.
Those two Quanoners were weirdly endearing, genuinly trying to help find his daughter, going with him to the rally, being supportive.
While believing that satanist democrats are butchering children.
Yeah, that fucking got me. Kinda makes me hopeful....maybe.
Baron cohen said himself that he wanted the movie to show everyone in both sides is complicated, that despite their beliefs, they have genuine goodness in them.
But damned if it still didn't blow my mind.
Qanon has undergone kind of a shift, a looooot of Qanon people are using "save the children" type rhetoric to cover for the really batshit insane stuff. There are a ton of people now who cannot tell its a quasi-fascist conspiracy theory because all they've been exposed to from inside the movement is "We want to end child trafficking" messaging. Its really chilling, because not only is the insane stuff still bubbling under the surface waiting to suck people in, but that shift has also impeded legitimate efforts to combat human trafficking.
@@BlindErephon and too many people are only now caring about child trafficking because they think that elite Democrats are behind it and not because they actually care about children.
@Malum The thing is they are starting to attract people who DO care about children but arent really all that literate in these things or just showed up to a "Save the children" type rally with no idea it was Qanon connected. Concerned moms are a big part of Qanon now, its part of the radicalization pipeline for them. People need to be REAL concerned imo, because this is how cults (Qanon is essentially a cult now, imo) attract true believers.
Borat (2006) takes inspiration from Iranian New Wave films. Films disguised as documentaries, improvised scenes filmed on location with real people interacting with fictional characters.
My baby-boomer parents loved Borat 2, and I was shocked.
In 2006, they wouldn’t have been caught dead watching Borat 1, yet they decided to watch Borat 2 the week before the election (without my knowledge or participation).
And they thought it was brilliant!
It was at that moment, that I wondered if maybe there was something more to Borat in 2020 than met the eye in 2006...
Hearing the frat boys talk about women in the 1st movie was chilling. I was *in* college at that time and went to the movie in the theater but i must have blocked that from my memory 😣
Pretty sure one of them frat-bots is a lawyer now.
@@Kat-iv1pv God, that's worrying...
@@Lord_Of_Night absolutely, but not shocking considering This Is America. Talking about the guy with the red hat, you can find his linkedin *shudders* *shrugs*
@@Kat-iv1pv Maybe I´m just naive, but isn´t there a decent chance those guys just stopped being mysoginistic frat bros?
@@mittelz5976 frat bros? sure, why not, people grow out of that very american, er, tradition. misogynistic and also, racist? who knows. they are a certain strata of society that will always be given the chance and energy to “grow” at the end of their ignorance while the ‘other’ will always be the butt of the joke, AT LEAST.
It caught me off guard when in the 2000 we were all confident fascists were never coming back. We should never take anything for granted.
Yeah, this entirely.
Thinking fascism is gone for good is the first step that allows it to come back
We were only seeing the rise of fascism back then. As soon as the Iraq war started I knew this was our destiny. It hurts me to watch these movies.
what does "we" mean tho? why were you ever fascists?
Maybe it was because I was a kid at that point, my peers seemed to hook onto it tho, but that kind of schtick never took to my sense of humour. Saying something offensive is not automatically comedy. I’m glad the culture overtone window has shifted a bit
The real quiet part is why people feel more comfortable with harming people in a way that is abstract or "off-screen." People don't want to feel the pain or discomfort from seeing someone else in pain, but they still are ok with harm. It's selfishness.
As a fellow Jewish person, I appreciate what Sacha is trying to do, but I feel like there is a way to go about criticizing antisemitism without overtly basking in harmful stereotypes and racist imagery, even in the name of irony. It's kinda like how Lindsay says in her video about the ethics of Nazi satire, both SBC and Mel Brooks use comedy to comment on and criticize antisemitism, but one of them has had their work appropriated by real, actual racists, and one of them hasn't. And I feel like that says something about the nature of their respective methods.
So, do you think Sacha did it wrong? Asking cus I'm genuinely curious
What’s worse in my opinion is the stereotypes of Kazakh and those from Turkic Muslim countries in general, he exposes/ gets people to admit their antisemitism and bigotry very well, but while doing that he’s just reinforcing negative stereotypes of a culture he doesn’t even belong to.
Anchorman: "Doomscrolling. It means scrolling through doom."
Me: "Thanks for the clarification."
Yeah, it was so unclear before he explained it to us.
Dude, it's literally like mainstream media people just found out about Urban Dictionary and are showing off all the cool new slang they have learned. It's like an old person learning some new tech and obsessively using it for a few weeks until someone points out that they still have the real world to attend to.
Clarification. It means to clarify.
I live an hour outside of Kingman where an episode of Who is America was filmed. Trust me, they are that racist
I live in a more rural portion of Michigan and EVERY OTHER HOUSE has a Trump sign still up. It's infuriating!
@@JackedThor-so 😟 my home state, stay strong fellow mitten mate. I'm neck deep in it in rural Missouri too.
@@moonsnakesheddingskin same to you!
I'm so sorry guys, it frustrates me enough having to deal with the insanity of right wing family members, I don't even want to imagine what it's like in a small town where everyone is an absolute nutter.
Bullhead? Yeah lived there for two years, Only time in my life I have ever been called a "dirty Jew" when I am so very clearly top to bottom Wasp. Still confused by that one
I mean honestly I wish this video had a class analysis
Most of these people are not making cultural statements that reveals who they are as much as an obligation, as workers, to prioritize the distribution of their products for profits for a minimum wage.
Of course, this does not apply to absolutely everyone in the movie...but like, if you sell something and a customer comes in with crazy beliefs, for 8$ an hour do you start correcting them out of a bigger moral purpose, or do you make your money while getting through the day in the least confrontational way possible.
It reminds me of the point made by Michael Moore about how people talk about climate change but work in auto manufacturing industries. Yes, we have to sell our labor for money, and when we do that we alienate ourselves from the world we live in.
If some dude who was 6'6" wanted a cake that said "I hate [group]" on it, and I was a 5'0" girl, do you really think I'm going to tell him to pound sand? Or I was a doctor trying to make $20,000, I'd tell the customer he was gross and offensive?
I think you're right that half the stuff people did in these movies was because they themselves were uncomfortable or they were trying to make money.
At my job at Half Price Books it was company policy to tolerate customers, no matter how vile they were.
There are lots of examples where SBC's character is not engaging in an economic transaction with their interlocuter, or even playing the role of a customer. Yes, some may just be unintended victims of capitalism, but the dude working in a store that sells confederate memorabilia is also probably not just some innocent bystander.
To be fair, the two QAnons and the RV frat guys weren't at their jobs when they made cultural statements about who "should have fewer rights".
@@LowestofheDead I'm not saying it applies to absolutely every moments of the film, but enough that it should be mentioned.
The amorality of capitalism
funniest character in the movie was the fax machine guy. I laugh just thinking about what he's thinking when reading the faxes.
It's so weird to hear Cohen's actual voice. I'm so used to hearing his characters.
Not to be weird but I saw this comment and had a mini crisis thinking whether it was possible that I had written this 2h before clicking on the video for the first time 😭
Edit: to anyone else seeing this i am in fact a different person than the first commenter 👁👄👁
Remember when he voiced King Julien in the Madagascar movies?
@@Eva_R966 get a profile dude.
@@Eva_R966 _spiderman pointing at spiderman meme_
He does that voice as a bit.
“But let’s examine ‘Throw the Jew down the well’” is not a statement I ever expected to hear from Lindsay Ellis, but here we are
I'll admit that I think that kind of humor CAN be funny if it manages to ridicule the discriminator more than the target of the discrimination. My favorite line from the first BORAT movie was one such line: "We should have stayed in New York! There are probably no Jews there!"
@@lostalone9320 you need to light up or you'll age yourself. I laugh at jokes that you would find aren't funny but I've gone though said experience and if I can laugh at it thats a good thing. Everything can become a joke. Hell I'm sure you have a story in your life that was upsetting at the time but now look back and laugh at it. This is just advice dont become that pessimistic person always looking at the bad things because no one wants to hang with someone like that
@@cesarsain3731 Or maybe they simply have different experiences from yours which color that humor negatively for them...
@@lostalone9320 Sacha Baron Cohen is Jewish though? The name kind of gives it away.
@@lostalone9320 I think what makes the difference is when there is a point in doing so, in this case to show the indifference of people and how quickly were to join in
Lindsay also say how satirical antisemitism can pave the way for actual antisemitism, so is a slippery slop, you have to make clear what your point and stand is.
Later on you will have dumb people like "this is great, no matter your ideology you can interpret it in your favor or in the other way around" no dumbass, you want to interpret it ignoring the creator's intention which is fundamental to understand the whole thing.
I know "death of the author" is a valid thing, but holy shit, how can someone misinterpret something so bad just to align it with their ideology, they are clearly making fun of you.
As a Jewish woman I think what Sasha Baron Cohen is doing in this film is saying "you did it once, you will do it again". He seems to be creating awareness of this horrible thing of rising anti-Semitism in the world, but in the same breath he is actually saying "awareness is the problem," and it will not help prevent anything. It has not helped before ... so it continues in the long Jewish tradition of that Mel Brooks and to some extent John Stuart are also its successors - the Jewish approach of laughing all the way to the grave. Being painfully aware of the danger that there is in this world to a Jew and having no real power to change it, maybe it's something only we can understand, but there's something really, really, funny about it.
Finally, someone clearly stating that Southpark's parodistic Antisemitism helped the comeback and normalization of real Antisemitism. I always felt that way.
Imagine being such a weak-minded person that southpark convinces you to actually be antisemitic.
Certainly not as easy as that. But many kids basically grew up with South Park. Imagine a racist character in a show that is also funny as hell. Don't tell me that would have no influence at all if you saw that as a kid.
Likewise, first person shooters alone don't make mass murderers. But I doubt they don't help making them in some cases.
As things got dumber the more sense those movies make.
The Idiocracy prequel
@@SennaHawx
Idiocracy is a dumb movie.
We were always this stupid, those sentiments was softened by post 9/11 terrorist fears. We have less boogeyman overseas, so the mirrors on us again.
That movie is one sided media propaganda as is the representation from Lindsay - taken in by access media false flagging and doesn’t seem to understand the constitution of the country you live in
@@rhiannejones3815 Really struggling to see the point of your comment, pal/las.
"She's 15 she's too old for you!"
How did Mr. Bad dye job not get kicked from office for that shit? That was essentially a recorded sting op.
"Put down your krum"
Libertarian moment
@@DaxmathecoolNobodie It's embarrassing as hell but it's not illegal. Presumably "Tutar" didn't claim she was underage (and in reality the actress is an adult).
That was the best line in the movie
"When horse is old, man is old" reminds me of a bunch of stuff a friend and I used to do at parties when we were bored, which was basically invent the most tedious, boring persona you can think of to try and get people to leave the conversation. Not being being rude or offensive in any way, but just by being excruciatingly dull.
My go-to guy was "Matt" the landscape gardener who had a real thing for rocks. He was never enthusiastic, mind you, he just always talked about rocks. About how he was digging someone's garden and found a bunch of rocks when he dug deep enough and then he had to move the rocks. It was so weird how they were all different sizes but they were slightly different rocks so you didn't know how they'd gotten all mixed up together cos they weren't just smaller broken bigger rocks.
People would just smile and nod and not do anything to get themselves out of this horrible conversation we'd trapped them in. Half the time we'd end up breaking character as a mercy.
When I was starting university, a second-grader did a similar prank were he pretended to also start class, but playing a very strange character that made people confused.
@@jamesduncan6729 Uh, yeah we did.
I can't believe you got all of us to read that long comment about rocks. And now I bet people are reading this comment too.
Sasha Baron Cohen mostly proved that it's still possible for a Hollywood movie star, in an age of facial recognition software, can still go incognito with the right outfit and funny voice
I hadn't seen the part where that guy "killed" three people and didn't give a shit. That's pretty shocking. I mean, WTF?
It's not in the movie
@@pshkdjdbd3950 I know. It's in the TV show.
I mean, the US government hires drone operators who do that on a daily basis.
It’s human psychology, you’d be amazed at what regular people are willing to do at the direction or perceived authority. It’s especially easier the more disconnected they feel from the target. Actually experiments have been done on this.
@@kstar1489 That's because normal people live to be a herd, it's not an insult, it just means better survival chances as a group.
I am autistic so I feel disconnected from people all the time, it's the "connection" that's an exception in my life. And yet, I am often the only one to point out others' bullshit. I guess that's because I have a better overview of what's really going on without the subtext and "love parade" people make to each other in order to get on with their day.
It’s pretty damn creepy when people casually discuss killing their political enemies like it’s so sensible, like it’s utterly normal and everyone should agree.
I think it's important to remember that while it may not be condonable coming from anyone, there's a big, often ignored, difference between "I want them dead because they disagree with me/are different from me" and "I want them dead before they kill me too."
@@mjangelvortex Theres hypocrites and nuts on both sides. There are only 2 sides so it's bound to happen
@CommandoDude While the lefts worse will never be as bad as the rights worse both sides have bad people and hypocrital people on it. Its bound to happen because that's just how people are
To them it *is* the common sense position. An aspect of 'Far Cry 5' that I will never not be completely in awe of is just how well they managed to portray cultist propaganda. And it's amazed me so much because that *is* the Republican party. A cult.
It wasn't always that way. It took a lot of people working very hard to make it that. But Republicans today are cultists, and that is something you can never forget when interacting with them.
(If you're interested, I would *highly* recommend listening to the song 'keep your rifle by your side' and scrolling through the comments. Then, if you haven't already, play the game and really pay attention to the framing both of the protagonists, the antagonists, and the comments section of that song.)
@Ru paul "Whenever my side goes crazy, it's because you don't understand it/we're fighting for justice/it's a few bad apples/they don't respresent us. Whenever your side goes crazy, it's because your side is bad."
Wow, I'd never heard Sacha Baron Cohen speak while not playing a character. I don't know what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn't that.
Someone should really tell those guys at the rally that as soon as people there to support you start throwing out "heil Hitler" salutes, you can no longer claim to not be discriminatory.
Also *of course* that guy chose to "kill" three people - pretty much every social experiment done on the subject made that an inevitability. My personal question is whether he actually faced any real consequence (beyond being exposed in a mockumentary) for expressing a genuine desire to kill three random strangers to the point of not even caring about thinking he'd done it.
What happened was basically entrapment, so no charges can be made.
@@MrLegendofLP Oh, there's no way he could be prosecuted for what he did - even without going into "does this count as entrapment", the simple fact that nothing actually happened when the man chose the "kill" option means there's no legal case to be made. But I'd like to think that someone who did ultimately choose to (as far as he was concerned) kill three random people for the "crime" of not being politically aligned with him with very little egging on and then shrugged the whole thing off with "welp, never done murder before... Kinda cool..." will, at the very least, face greater social consequences than just being shamed in a mockumentary. Of course I'm not advocating harassment or doxxing or death threats or anything like that, but the guy did pretty decisively out himself as someone who would be genuinely willing and eager to kill if given the resources and opportunity and that kind of thing shouldn't be ignored.
@@MrLegendofLP Laws against entrapment only apply to law enforcement and state actors. Cohen and his crew are neither.
17:30 I feel overwhelming compassion for the young woman here... i have no clear picture of how the old man relates to her, but i fear he is her father (grandfather?).
To have your family member say such a degrading without even flinching thing would turn me on them for years and years to come. Only in this short scene the guy oozes misogynie and ignorance.
I think John Oliver summed it up pretty well, when he pointed out that yes, Biden won, but not by _that_ much, meaning that well over 70 million Americans either agree with Trump's overt racism and bigotry, or are willing to overlook it.
@@lostalone9320 that argument doesn’t apply to trump and his supporters. If you think he’s a good leader or good person you’re completely delusional. Fact
@@fen3311 do you see Biden promoting nationalist and racist ideals? No. So objectively he’s the lesser evil and unfortunately that’s America. So your comment is pointless and meaningless
@@lostalone9320 Seeing things differently.... as in.... OVERLOOKING THINGS. Are you dumb or did you just not realize what you just said?
@@lostalone9320 I know a few people who voted for trump because they hated biden. And even one of these people who said they'd have voted for Sanders had he run. For a fair amount of people it's all about voting for the person who's the least worst at being not terrible.
@@fen3311 everyone knows Biden is as much of a racist, or has at least displayed it in the past. Difference is, Biden isn't an overt fascist that will openly take peoples basic human rights away. He is *clearly* the better option. Most leftists I know either tolerate or just completely despise Biden. But guess what, he isnt going to take away rights from gays or minorities. So there you go, genius. These middle ground fallacies are getting ridiculous, you fence sitters need to try reading a history book.
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities" really hits differently after Jan 6th, doesn't it
when she says the attitude used to be 'isnt it surprising that some people are still like this, like this is a residual phenomenom' that is exactly how in brasil we thought about bolsonaro. like back in the 2010s there was this comedy political satire show where he started getting constantly interviewed, because he was a joke and thats how people got to know him. it was like watching a bizarre circus act, a caricature of a bigot, the feeling was 'wow people who say this shit seriously still even exist?' but overall, no one truly took it seriously. in 2015 i remember seeing edgy high school colleagues of mine saying shit like 'bolsomito for president' and i laughed. i thought it would NEVER happen, because its impossible there were enough people that cruel and stupid to elect him. i thought bolsonaro was an outlier, when, just like those gross frat guys, he was just saying the cruel stupid shit that millions and millions of people felt.
Reminds me of something Ian Danskin once said about the death of euphemisms.
"In a sense, the far right and the liberal journalist share a purpose. The journalist's goal is to expose the truth behind the euphemism in hopes that people will abandon bigotry once it's been made explicit. The far right does the same, hoping they won't."
Same thing probably applies to Bolsanaro in the early 2010's. The people interviewing him probably figured that showing the truth about people like Bolsanaro would encourage their viewers to reject the Bolsanaros of Brazil. Bolsanaro hoped they wouldn't. I guess he was right.
Isaac Asimov said, "Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.' "
Apprently this is truer now than ever before.
@@lostalone9320 chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm
another banger from Isaac A.
@@lostalone9320 its not about belief its about fact (or at the least the scientific data pointing to a strong likelyhood of fact). equating belief with science is very foolish and only enables dilusion.
It’s a shame about the ironic antisemitism being a gateway to actual antisemitism because he’s Jewish so he gets it in a way most dont. To me as a Jewish person I think it’s funny as hell but I get why some may not think so.
Same thing with South Park, since Matt Stone is Jewish.
The sad truth is no matter how obvious it is that it's a joke, someone is gonna take it literally.
I used to think it was funny too until I realized there were real ppl with guns trying to throw me down a well. the horns thing is infinitely confusing.
@@hannahep5148 The way I heard it as a kid in Hebrew School, it might have started with Michelangelo sculpting Moses with horns due to a mistranslation of a passage detailing Moses with a wreath of light around his head. Though since I was a small child at the time I'm sure there's more to the story I was not told.
I can’t tell you how many times I hear the “iT’s juST sATire” or “WoRDs cAn’T huRt aNyBoDy” excuse when dealing with bad faith debaters/trolls.
@@JazzyTyfighter I remember Chris Rock talking about why he retired his "Black People vs. N*****s" routine. He started hearing white people talking about "the good black people versus the bad" and that made him really uncomfortable.
There's surprisingly no mention of All Gas No Brakes in here. The guy has stepped up Borat's game by a lot when it comes to "letting people say the quiet part out loud". He's a goddamn magician in that regard.
AGNB rose very quickly after being under the radar most of their existence, but yes, i agree with your sentiment. AGNB is masterclass!
All Gas No Brakes is the last true Gonzo journalist
@@credenzamostro Amen, mate!
Rip
"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their *neutrality* ." -Dante Alighiere, The Divine Comedy.
So not only were they condemned to work minimum wage jobs in life, they're now damned for all eternity in the afterlife.
And the innermost, coldest is for traitors
“Don’t let a woman ever- EVER- ... make you who you are”
So deep ❤️
My brain thought he was gonna say ‘don’t let a woman ever say no’ but realised he was still being filmed
Y'know, like a mother
@@WrenJeger queue Jesse Lee Peterson remix
I feel like that's already what happened to a couple of tjose frat guys
>Libertarian flag
>"Yes, they do deserve less rights than us"
No real contradiction, as long as "they" hold less property than "us".
right wing libertarianism is a joke anyway
@@BBWahoo On their eyes, that would be freeloading!
@@notadoll17 tell that to the Chicago boys who helped Pinochet ruin Chile
"Don't tread on me!" (No government overreach)
"Back the Blue!" (Worship armed government agents patrolling your neighborhood)
I agree that it wasn't a bad choice to humanize the q anon ppl. I wish he extended the same courtesy to ppl from Kazakhstan.
I think basically all viewers know his “nationality” is a mix of every Eastern European stereotype. I say this as someone from the Balkans, they used a song (ederlezi) from one of my country’s most famous movies as the funny “emotional” exotic sounding music.
@user-vw2jq3to5e OK but Kazakh is not eastern European, it's central asian.
I'm a 42 year old male, and somehow Nathan for You went under my radar. This video caused me to find that the show is on Hulu, and I've been binge watching it since I noticed it was mentioned here. Just wanted to stop back and say "thanks". Also I subscribed.
That bit with the microchips is literally the Milgrim experiment. Holy shit.
It's worse. In the Milgrim experiment, the subjects were being pressured by an authority figure. Many of them clearly felt distress at what they were doing. Many of them expressed regret afterward, and resolved to be less yielding to such pressures in the future. They left the experiment more self-aware, and possibly as better people.
The microchip guy was not being pressured. He was offered an opportunity to kill people he hated and he took it. He expressed no regret. He is irredeemable shit.
Also, in the Milgrim experiment the person who was electrocuted would be heard saying "please stop!" And would shout until they stop responding.
But with the one of the microchips they didn't even saw the other person being "exploded" on-screen, so there was no remorse, along with the fact that they thought they were eliminating their political enemies.
The guy was so casual about it like he was picking out his UberEats order that was terrifying
I really liked the movie and the analysis you presented helped me understand and appreciate it even more, however as a Kazakhstan citizen living in Europe it makes me sad every time people casually mention it. In best cases they just laugh, at worst they genuinely think that that’s how we live 😕
As an Estern European I feel you. Of course it's bit different but I get what you're saying
Croatian here, people confused if we got bombs or dragons.
@@a.k.6544 You should respond by saying dragon bombs, like a carbomb but cooler
Isn't that kind of the point? To point out how ignorant we are of cultures?
@@caseyobrien8205 No, because it doesn't actually do that. Most people who watch Borat don't actually come away with any sort of nuanced understanding.
In 15 years Borat will travel around America trying to find normal people.
I'll admit that I often have mixed feelings when it comes to Borat. While he can be uproarious and biting when he's getting people to "say the quiet part out loud", it seems like many of the bits are set up so that the people involved become the object of humor whether they go that route or they go out of their way to accommodate Borat when Cohen is being as deliberately outrageous as possible. I'm just not sure how I feel about people getting dragged no matter how they respond.
To be fair, viewers really liked the babysitter lady even though they laughed at her scenes - so much so that they raised $100k for her.
A blank stare or walking away from Borat never makes it into the movie.
@@pobbityboppity1110 I'd actually like to see some of those.
@@pobbityboppity1110 and that's the smartest thing to do in this situation. The only winning move is not to play.