Having seen Borat this weekend I have to say I was impressed. I found some of it unnecessarily cruel, most of it painful to watch, but in all very funny.
Admittedly, taking Americans for a ride is like shooting fish in a barrel, but somebody has to do it. Think of it as getting even in a benign way, as it's surely better to address the inbalance of American power in the world by laughing at them, rather than resorting to mindless terrorism. (In Baron Cohen's case, it's certainly proven to be more lucrative).
This is not appreciated by American "film critic" Joe Queenan in the Guardian, who went all Uncle Sam on behalf of his compatriots, but quite incorrectly, as I will attempt to explain.
Firstly, British humour can be vindictive and cruel. It's part of our sang froid.
Queenan makes the mistake by suggesting Baron Cohen's humour is somehow inspired by a distaste for America, ignoring the fact that it was sharpened on British targets for the previous fifteen years. We've seen all these jokes before.
Yes, it's called taking the piss, and it's what we do, and it's something that's developed into something dark in recent years as Cohen and his contemporaries— Chris Morris, Dom Jolly, Paul Whitehouse, Charlie Higson, and ultimately Cohen's replacement on the Eleven O'Clock Show, Ricky Gervais—have explored as they question the boundaries of humour, blur the lines into tragedy.
I'm sorry Joe, we're not all Michael Palin, who you probably despise as well.
Most troubling is Queenan's patriotic kneejerk reference to the war:
"Baron Cohen is just another English public school boy who hates Americans. It is fine to hate Americans; it is one of Europe's oldest traditions. But the men who flew the bombing raids over Berlin and the men who died at Omaha Beach and the women who built the Flying Fortresses and Sherman tanks that helped defeat Hitler are the very same people that Baron Cohen pisses all over in Borat. A lot of folks named Cohen would not even be here making anti-American movies if it were not for the hayseeds he despises."
American won the war? Tell that to the Red Army. (And by the way, those Americans saw their GDP double as a result of the war: everybody else had rationing: don't ask us to thank you Joe).
Furthermore:
a) Is it really anti-American to make fun of Americans? Isn't the Dubya's line?
b) "Hayseeds" ? No Joe: VOTERS
c) Anti-Americanism a public school thing? Try the working classes: they fucking hate you.
d) Omaha Beach? The British tend to remember Anzio, where the Americans changed their minds and stayed out at sea, stranding the British vanguard on the shore where they were slaughtered unnecessarily. America's status as an untrustworthy ally is as much a staple of Britain's war myth as the cliche of Italian tanks reverse gears. (So much so in fact, that this distrust remains amongst British troops in Iraq (see the end of this report)
Does Queenan really defend those misogynistic fraternity wankers that Cohen meets, those rich kids who will one day run America? Is it not true that your President STILL behaves like that?
I'm sorry, but "Queen Anne" is so far off the mark on this one, that his patriotic little tantrum pisses away any credibility that he had, with his paper-thin sensitivity undermining his pretence of the being the hard-boiled world-weary New Yorker he would so love to be. And I bet he thinks he's Irish!
Cohen IS lazy, and America is an easy target, but don't try to use this film as an opportunity to knock the British, as your prejudices are clearly founded upon your own misunderstanding of what British humour is about.
It's non-aspirational character-based vindictiveness. It's about vulnerability and unfulfilment, whether that's David Brent in the Office or some sad real person who thinks they can get ahead by hiring a "humor coach". Cruel? Yes. Funny? Of course. British comedy is about watching the pompous spiking their own balloon. But I don't have to explain Pomposity to Queenan!
Fly your flag up your ass Joe. We'd probably laugh.
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