Alright, let’s hope all of you out there helped to continue America’s reputation as the fattest country in the free world, which, ironically, isn’t but that’s neither here nor there. What IS here, though, is a shortened column this week as I am well aware that the numbers of you who are presently reading this equate to nearly zero, the only people genuinely looking at these letters I’m writing right now is the result of what happens when you have a boss who thinks the day after Thanksgiving is a great time to catch up on all that work you neglected from Monday to Wednesday of this week. Believe me when I say I’ve been there. It’s crap for those who have to work today, it’s enough for you to think that yes you need to look for a new job where you get these one-offs every now and then, and instead of just hanging my keyboard up for the week I want to continue what I’ve been doing for you shackled people of the world for the past two years: giving you new content.
I don’t feel like writing about trailers this week. I am all sorts of ready to unload what I think of the new SPIDER-MAN 3 trailer (I mean, really. Holy shit. I would go toe to toe with any nerd who wants to take umbrage with anything there in the trailer. I also thought enough in advance to download the OTHER SP3 trailer that wasn’t so much debuted but leaked onto the Intertubes. I am thinking that either this was a well placed “tease” or some person(s) are looking for new employment.) I’ll make sure this is all talked about next week. Promise.
As for what I’m doing this week I am beyond words to describe it. I thought since I am feeling like taking the week off but still wanting to give the two of you who stopped by today something interesting I would take my family out to see a film and get their reactions to it.
I am taking my mother, father and wife to see BORAT.
Many of you know, or should know, that good art, beyond the kindergarten notion of just being pleasing to the eye, should evoke. Be it repulsion or manical attraction a work of art should be something that produces that psychological shape, its gestalt, which people can interpret as they wish. BORAT, to me, is a rare comedy that evokes something in its audience by making them project their own thoughts about what people are really like when you, “just come down right to it.”
To wit, Dave Chapelle described it best, and woefully interpreted the situation much to his own detriment, when he described a scene he was shooting for Season 3, the doomed season, wherein:
“Chappelle…admitted to Oprah that he felt some of his sketches were socially irresponsible. He singled out the “pixie sketch” (in which it implied everyone has a pixie that appears to them and encourages them to act in a way stereotypical for their race) and said during the filming of the blackface pixie sketch a white crew member was laughing. Chappelle said “it was the first time I felt that someone was not laughing with me but laughing at me.” He also said that during the sketch he was called nigger by one of the other non-important cast members.”
Right, Dave. That’s the point, you dolt; sometimes comedy is about people finding something within their own set of prejudices that illuminate a greater evil. Did Sacha ever state that he wanted to stop with the idea of going forward with filming BORAT because he found a dirty underbelly of American society as he did when he sang “Throw The Jew Down The Well” at a bar no more than a couple hours south of me here in Arizona? No, this, hopefully, was the reason he knew he SHOULD have made this movie.
Besides this situation reflecting why Dave Chapelle is not the great emancipator of comedy like he truly could have been, and why he’s a whiny little girl, this shows why getting together three different people of varied backgrounds was such a neat idea. The questions bounded everywhere in my mind: “What would they find funny?” “Would they feel comfortable laughing at material that is beyond anything their sensibilities have ever been socked with before” “Would they really be offended by the movie’s main thrust?” or “Would they simply write everything off in this film as just sophomoric, and dismiss any grand notions about what this film says about America as simple overreaching on my part?”
Perhaps.
Mary-Anne is a 59 year-old who enjoys all sorts of cinema. She’s the matriarchal vanguard of the family with regard to film. While she doesn’t go out of her way to catch out every and any independent film, she does find joy in taking advantage of any opportunity to indulge in the occassional LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE while letting her son do the footwork in bringing her to important flicks in the last few years like CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, MEMENTO, and, my personal favorite that makes me proud that moms went along with this one just based on a “trust me”: REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. It was a profound experience for me to have been able to see this movie in the theater and taking her to the film, for my second go-around, is a very special mother/son memory that I think a lot of film geeks would no doubt appreciate. I’m looking forward to her and I taking in THE FOUNTAIN in the coming days for what should be another solid moment.
Jack. Jack, oh Jack. Dad would’ve peeled his face for the duration, I would posit, if I would’ve also taken him to the above films. He probably would’ve liked the wire-fu of CROUCHING TIGER but, he no doubt, would’ve bitched like a school girl that he had to read the screen. Yes, dad, they’re subtitles; there are some places in the world that don’t speak “American.” He is a guy, however, that any college dude with a predilection for explosions and the desire for there to be nary a trace of any noticable amount of character development could relate with. He loves STRIPES, ANIMAL HOUSE, THE BLUES BROTHERS. He was a fan in recent years of OLD SCHOOL, WEDDING CRASHERS and even the recent release of OVER THE HEDGE had the man in stiches; the man travels every week by plane so many of his cinematic adventures of late have been sanitized for his protection by the airlines. He has zero desire to see anything daring, in my opinion, and would’ve done well in Roman times when it was all about the bread and circuses and not much else. You all know a man like this, especially one like my father who enjoys absorbing himself in DIE HARD and showing-off his pimp surround system to his other WASP-y friends with the first five minutes to TOP GUN. Someday I hope he understands there has been great strides since TOP GUN was remastered and that the lobby scene from THE MATRIX, the club scene from BLADE or even the opening sequence of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN would allow the paternoster of the family to show how good his built-in system (I mean, the guy had the speakers installed INTO the walls and ceiling) really is.
Sherry Stipp. My blushing bride. The light of my life, the mother of my children and a woman who would willingly push me out of the door to see X-MEN a dozen times on my own before sitting through a single viewing. A woman who has a clear sense of taste I am amazed by what she wants, and does not, want to see at the theaters. Sure, she’ll make me sit through LEGALLY BLONDE but should I want to pop in BATMAN BEGINS or any other movie made based on a comic book character then I might as well be offering to watch a snuff film of a puppy being put down with a spork. I love the woman with all my heart but with regard to movie watching I see this as a lifelong battle of wills of what DMZ we can meet at whenever it comes to our cinematic adventures. She did like LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE a lot and, believe it or not, it’s moments like this that make me feel like she’s allowing to come deeper into my territory as long as I pick movies that give her something she can grab onto.
This is what I was dealing with as the lights went down and I hoped at least someone would see what I did; just one would’ve made this experiment worth while.
Flash forward 84 minutes. There was some gasping from mom, she really got into some of the more ribald moments so high-five to her, my wife damn near covered her eyes for a majority of the screening as she has this thing about feeling sorry for Sacha’s victims and about the copious amount of male man-ass on display and dad, well, I didn’t hear much out of him.
Walking out the theater I was curious, what was the final verdict from these not-so-representative samples?
Dad: “Well, I had real high expectations. I had heard so much about this film being really funny but… I kind of felt let down. They could’ve eased up on the offensiveness of it all… And I cannot understand how [Sacha Baron Cohen] didn’t get arrested for some of those things.”
[Excellent observation, pops. How he evaded imprisionment could be a whole movie unto itself.]
The Wife: “I can’t get that friggin’… Just too much wrestling with men! I don’t think I would be able to see that again because I felt so bad for the people he was duping. Plus, I can’t believe you have our 3 year-old daughter walking around the house saying ‘High-fiiiive’ and ‘Thaat’s nice'”
[Don’t forget I am also working on getting her to say “Greeeat success…”]
Mom: “It was so offensive, so offensive to everyone; nobody was left out.”
Dad: “Well, he didn’t do anything to the Native Americans… or even the Spaniards.”
[Right. Sacha did drop the ball with that large Spaniard population in America.]
Wife: “I did think that the prostitute was really cute. She seemed really genuine.”
[Hmm…]
Dad: “Whether Pamela Anderson was in on it, I’m not sure, [She was] but I would seriously consider getting new security personnel if she didn’t tell her bodyguards.
Now, this is just my opinion, but I think [Sacha’s] next movie needs to be serious. I can’t see how he would be able to continue to do this without affecting his longevity in movies.”
[Gee, dad, for a guy who finds the dialogue from OVER THE HEDGE to be gut-burstingly funny, this is a good assertion.]
Favorite parts?
Wife: “The high society dinner. Best part of the whole film.”
Mom: “The pastor’s face when [Sacha] pointed to the other men’s wives in adulation and then put down his wife right in front of him. Great, very funny.”
Dad: “The rodeo. I thought he was going to get killed or beaten up when he started singing his national anthem.”
Mom: “You know, the driving instructor. I think he really did, was perhaps one of the only ones, who genuinely liked Borat the way he was. ‘Will you be be my boyfriend?’ [Laughs] Very funny. Now I can see why everyone wants to sue him.”
Dad: “Here’s my take: it’s all about saving face. It really only costs a few bucks to file a lawsuit but these people have been humilated, publicly, and now they need to do something to show that they’re not the idiots they really are. It’s not so much about the money, there’s a little bit to that, but the only option left to them is to sue in order for these people to try and convince the rest of us they were wronged.
They’re just screwed. That’s all.”
[Well, dad, thanks for putting such a button on the proceedings. Very astute observation. Color me impressed.]
I thought that while none of my filmic companions had as much love for the greater themes of the film as I did, the larger statement on our own issues as a nation and how Borat was really just a magnet for drawing out what’s beneath that thinly veiled superficiality we all put on in order to exist in this society, none of them remarked that they were disgusted by the film or that they were offended by what they saw. I think they all “got it” but obviously once you have two dudes wrestling naked with one of the getting a facefull of ass crack and balls you run the risk of alienating the audience.
Not me, though, as I laughed just as hard the second time, wiping tears from my eyes from the sheer delight of it all.
The next morning my mother sent me an email as an addendum to the previous night’s conversation:
From:
XXXXXX@aol.com
Date:
Wed, 22 Nov 2006 08:06:03 EST
Subject:
Borat
To:
christopher_stipp@yahoo.com
Well, here’s one more — I mean two more. Just thought of another thing to mention, both from your dad:
On the way home I asked him if he knew where the guy who played Borat was from and your dad said he obviously was Americanized and he could tell he’s lived in this country a while. It was too funny when I told him he was from London.
[I wish I could say I’m suprised that dad didn’t know Sacha not only was from England and was Jewish himself but his epiphany on this matter evoked enough laughter out of me that it made me realize how flawless Cohen’s performance actually was.]
Then, I talked about the part that we didn’t mention at dinner and that was when Borat was having a meeting in Washington, D.C. with some guy. And it was funny that before the meeting it was his tradition that all meetings begin with sharing cheese. Then your dad said, “That cheese didn’t really come from where he said it did, you know that don’t you?” I laughed my fanny off half way home.
[Kids, you know you’ve arrived at a certain plateau in your life when you’re able to share in the frivolity of a good breast milk joke with your mother.]
Your dad is soooo black and white. Not too much middle. He spends too much time on airplanes!
We had a great time. It was a movie I shall never forget and am still processing it this morning. Can I sue for having seen it???????
Yes, mom, it’s one of the benefits of living in this glorious country of ours, of living in America.
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