Saw “Borat” over the holiday weekend and left the theater physically exhausted from laughter. I’d rebut this annoying anti-Borat column by Joe Queenan (and endorsed by Norm Geras) but I don’t have the time. I’ll just say this: like any comedy that people will actually care about 10 years from now, Sacha Baron Cohen’s work pushes the envelope. Yes, “Borat” was one of the most disturbing and offensive movies I’ve ever seen. And also one of the funniest. I’ll be the first to admit there are some — many — who simply shouldn’t see it, for the same reason they shouldn’t attend a punk rock show and gather near the mosh pit. It’s not for everybody. Reaction seems split between those who either take “Borat” for a scathing and effective attack on American society or a horribly unfair portrayal of ordinary Americans (and Romanians and Kazakhs and so forth). Both camps seem to read the film as some sort of focused political statement, which I can’t believe Cohen intended. He played the character, got some predictably (and unpredictably) outrageous footage and stitched it together with a masterly comic touch. Among other things, he mocked and exposed the bigotry of some Americans, and I see no reason why that shouldn’t happen. His sendup of antisemitism has the antisemitic pseudo-philosopher and bigot Gilad Atzmon up in arms — a mark in Borat’s favor.
Meanwhile, the plunge to hell in a handbasket continues in Iraq, with over 200 Shias massacred by Sunni terrorists over the weekend, and now Shia thugs going around and literally lighting Sunni civilians on fire with kerosene in random revenge attacks. [Update: This account is apparently under dispute.] The term “civil war” has finally become part of mainstream media usage (I insisted on the term’s accuracy back in July, citing the scholar Nicholas Sambanis). The Bush administration remains in denial. We’ll see what the Baker-Hamilton report says; meanwhile, the New Republic symposium on “What Next?” makes for alternately compelling and appalling reading. New entries are going up every day; I look forward to reading David Rieff’s. I certainly won’t pretend to have The Answer.
In New York a grossly incompetent police squad has fatally shot an innocent man and wounded two of his friends. To his credit, Mayor Bloomberg has resisted the Giuliani protocol of immediately defending the cops. Protests are mounting, and rightly so, although one should be wary of demagogues like City Councilman Charles Barron, who declared:
We’re going to march. We’re going to do all of that stuff and then we’re going to sit down. And then if they don’t respond to none of that, then don’t ask us to ask our people to be peaceful while they are being murdered. We are not the only ones that can bleed.
Barron is a shameless supporter of Zimbabwe’s dictator, Robert Mugabe.
In other news, political assassinations in Lebanon and London, in all likelihood carried out by the Syrian and Russian regimes, respectively.
An awful lot to take in, and I’ll do my best, but other work is piling on. I’m writing liner notes for four forthcoming albums: Rob Garcia’s Heart’s Fire, Wayne Escoffery’s Live at Smoke, an as yet untitled trio album by monster guitarist Adam Rogers, and a debut release from trombonist Ryan Keberle, who has worked with Maria Schneider, Darcy James Argue and others. Argue’s “Secret Society” orchestra, by the way, has a gig this Thursday (Nov. 30) that I’ll miss, but if you’re in town, you should go.
My review of Jesse Larner’s book Forgive Us Our Spins: Michael Moore and the Future of the Left will be published in Democratiya on December 1. I’ll post the link when it’s up.
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