I’ve been away for a bit, but let me jump right back in and say maybe, just maybe, we should be ashamed of ourselves.

Let us be clear here: If you’re not a dick, Borat is really, really funny. And no, despite having cut-and-paste technology at my disposal, I’m not going to use the full title ever again after that headline. If you saw it, and you’re inclined to disagree with me, I’m going to come at you with a few arguments including the suggestion that you have a flawed sense of humor resulting from either a narrow-minded sense of patriotism or a lack of appreciation for humor involving fat people’s genitals. If the former proves to be true, we have little to discuss, and you are probably reading this particular entry, nay, this entire site, by mistake. If the latter is true, well, remind me not to tell you my traumatic Japscat story, because you probably won’t appreciate that either. If you are covered under neither of the two aforementioned umbrella statements, by all means explain why what I think is funny is actually not, and I will happily listen to your tale, albeit initially with rolling eyes. I have a feeling that the rest of this post is going to come off slightly indignant for two reasons: First, I’m feeling slightly indignant, and B) I’m feeling very indignant.

In some ways, I’m mad at myself for not posting on this sooner, because I don’t tend to want to process too much before I start in with my rambling posts. This is because I don’t want to have too much well-organized prepared material. These posts are, ideally, the opening salvo of a conversation, rather than a lecture. As such, I may have had too much time to stew about some of this stuff as I saw the movie almost two weeks ago. But it’s too late to lament all of that, because I scrapped the time machine I built a few months ago after it failed to take me any further into the past than April 30th, 2006. And so, as always, on with the post, self-hatred and all…
 
I’ve been told by an old, close friend that her mother who I don’t really like very much called this movie “un-American” and thus, bad. Now, unless you’ve got a very odd take on the focus of these posts thus far, you know I’m not feeling very American lately. In the context of this particular comment about this particular movie, I tend to feel that being un-American means that I’m not being particularly ignorant or patronizing. And that I’m not bombing the shit out of anybody at the moment. And while I’m certainly feeling destructive lately, I’m kind of glad I’m not doing those things. The movie is funny, but also terrifying, and it’s because it is very much American. Sacha Baron Cohen is able to break my previously long-standing resistance to British comedy, after Ricky Gervais and Simon Pegg loosened the proverbial lid on that jar of jam (which I think I’m now obligated to have with tea and bread). True, it makes me feel weak and ashamed, but as an American, it’s a feeling I think I should embrace for a change.

Here’s the part of the post that gets uncomfortably revelatory and too personal, as they have all done lately: I used to be able to avoid taking this sort of responsibility in my attitudes. I used to be the carefree, flippant, comically ignorant sidekick to a more socially conscious, culturally responsible foil. I was free to embrace the excess and tout the benefits of reckless and unwarranted brazenness and domination over the rest of the global community. I miss being that guy, because it was like being a Decepticon, free of the shackles of conscience, and you haven’t lived until you’ve felt like a full-sized robot panther who can transform into a tiny micro-cassette tape, breaking laws of both physics and common sense. These days, I find myself apologizing for the thoughtlessness of the lifestyle encouraged by my homeland to foreign-born friends, unable to transform into anything but a shell to contain a highly combustible liquid form of concentrated guilt. It is, quite frankly, a tangible loss, to be unable to ignore such horrors and leave those moral dilemmas for others to puzzle out. While I’m grateful to have had such an influence in my life that forced me to confront and constantly question those things I’d previously taken for granted, leaving those debates behind unfinished has made appreciating that perspective more difficult. It’s like playing chess with myself, and rather than taking comfort in the idea that I’ll always win, I’m just angrily overturning the board in a fit of frustration, sending pieces flying across the room every time. Chess? Who am I kidding? Like a good American, I’m really playing Halo 2 against myself.

Back to the subject at hand, I also enjoy Cohen’s character in Talladega Nights, so I may now have to buy the Ali G DVDs as well. And while I like Pamela Anderson as much as the next person likes gaping open sores, nothing’s better than a bear scaring children away from an ice cream truck.

This entry was posted by eugene on Thursday, January 11th, 2007 at 6:00 am and is filed under american, british, movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.