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Yeah, while the movie made me laugh, the old "people from abroad are stupid because they don't speak English well" stereotype is really tired. The one redeemin
by StavrosK 6y ago
Yeah, while the movie made me laugh, the old "people from abroad are stupid because they don't speak English well" stereotype is really tired.
The one redeeming quality the movie had was that it usually got its laughs from people's reactions to Borat, not from Borat actually being a dumb foreigner.
- willis936 6y agoThe stereotype is tired because xenophobia is tiring. By taking on that stereotype to a ridiculous extreme it shows the difference between people who are willing and able to discern a prank when it fits their xenophobic worldviews and those who are not (or do not have xenophobic worldviews). It’s a direct attack against prejudiced people by making an example of them in a Hollywood movie.
- StavrosK 6y agoMost of it was, but some of it was just "aren't foreigners weird", like the scene where they ran naked through the hotel.
- Mediterraneo10 6y agoNo, Borat wasn’t always unmasking xenophobia, but often just playing for pure laughs. Think of the old Borat sketches where Borat asks if he can squeeze an Americans man’s testicles to see how large they are compared to his own. Are we to assume that anyone who would go along with that, who wouldn’t identify the prank, is xenophobic? Not at all. I think that many people who were actually appreciative of the diversity of the cultures of the world (and who maybe grew up reading National Geographic with its discussions of things like Papuan New Guinea penis sheaths) might think, well, maybe that is considered normal in Kazakhstan.