Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Sacha Baron Cohen is a Putz

There is a line in his movie featuring "Borat" that I thought was good comedy. Throughout the film, "Borat" tries to figure out the comedic use of the addendum "Not!" at the end of a sentence. Then, when Pamela Anderson refuses his offer of marriage, "Borat" tells her he doesn't love her anymore and then tearfully adds "Not!"

I thought that was cute.

What soured me about Sacha Baron Cohen was the way he mocked other cultures for their anti-Semitism and then it turned out he's devoted to Israel. The hypocrisy of trashing other people for prejudice and bigotry and then embracing a country that is to the Middle East as South Africa was to Africa is simply staggering. 

So now, he's "The Dictator," a Middle Eastern despot who is hiding out in the USA or something or other and I really don't care. Because at this morning, on the streetcar, I read his in-character press conference in the free daily newspaper:
"On behalf of my dear friend and doubles tennis partner President Assad of Syria, I want to thank the United Nations for their brave inaction over Syria. Thirteen months and still no security counsel resolution. You guys are amazing. You have done next to nothing for the Syrian people – but remember, you can always do less."
Yeah. Bad, bad Syria. Let's send in NATO again, to install some pro-Western scum-bags to replace the Stalinist-nationalist scum-bags who are there at present. It worked out so well in Iraq and Libya. And let's ignore Saudi Arabia and Yemen and Bahrain and, um, what other country is oppressing and murdering Arabs? Oh yeah! Israel! Let's not forget Israel's mass-murder! Whatever you fucking moron.

And then there's this:
"It has been a tough year. We have lost a lot of good people and I have lost a lot of good friends – Gaddafi, I miss you [looks in the air]. Sorry, Gaddafi, I miss you [looks at the ground]. Also, KJ, Kimmy G, K-Jo, K-Man – you know, Kim Jong. And of course you know, Chavez died last month – oh oops. You did not hear that from me."
Um, excuse me you racist shit-head, you liberal putz, you pro-imperialist stooge, ... Chavez was elected. Chavez isn't a dictator. Chavez doesn't have "death-squads" who torture, rape, murder and mutilate. Do you know who does though? The government of Colombia, right next door! The pro-USA narco-state. The one awash with American military largesse! The one that stephen (shit-licker) harper signed a "free-trade" deal with!

Sacha Baron Cohen, you are nothing but a tiresome, empty-headed, liberal-Zionist putz. You are a self-aggrandizing hypocrite of world-historical proportions. You aren't "edgy." You're just a shlockmeister.

11 comments:

double nickel said...

Or.....he's just being sarcastic.

thwap said...

double nickel,

I don't understand how that's possible.

Do you think he's celebrating Middle Eastern dictators and celebrating UN inaction? Or do you think he's trying to make a point?

Do you think he's just a boor who thinks despots are funny? That anti-Semitism is comdedy gold?

Or do you think he uses satire to condemn certain attitudes and behaviours and that this all adds up to your standard liberal-Zionist clap-trap?

double nickel said...

I think he's just a comedian trying to be funny by pushing buttons, with somewhat sporadic success. No one takes him seriously.

Beijing York said...

He's been bashing Arabs since he first created his Ali G persona. "Borat" was conceived to make Central Asian people look backwards and stone aged, much like the US and Canada have characterized Afghanistan for their own propaganda purposes.

A real talented approach to tackling racism through humour can be found here, from Dave Chappelle:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i9iTYe6tEk

thwap said...

double nickel,

I think Jon Stewart and David Cross are pretty sincere in their stated politics, and so is Larry the Cable Guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDimQTJMjB0

I personally think that Baron Cohen isn't just a clown who doesn't believe in a thing. I think think he's a comedian who happens to also be a Zionist.

We can agree to disagree.

thwap said...

Beijing York,

I always liked that Chappelle skit. Now, sexism and homophobia? Those are Chappelle's hang-ups!

But yeah, I think Baron Cohen has his own racism to deal with.

double nickel said...

You could be right thwap. Personally I don't give a shit about SBC. :)

Marky Mark said...

This post will fit right in:

http://www.cija.ca/antisemitism/anti-zionism-and-antisemitism-the-blurry-red-line/

thwap said...

This isn't about whether or not I'm an anti-Semite. It's about what sort of racist hypocrite Sascha Baron Cohen is.

Marky Mark said...

I don't think you're an anti-Semite and I don't think Zionists (especially liberal Zionists) are racists. I give you credit for not calling yourself a "critic of Israel" when clearly in your view Zionism itself the issue and not policies X, Y or Z of the State of Israel. For me Zionism is no different than any otother national liberation movement and it also clearly can be seen as a reaction to centuries of enduring and increasingly deadly anti-Semitism and not something confined only to Europe. I will be interested in what the panelists have to say as I think it is a mistake to characterize anti-Zionists of the Left as anti-Semites-as I said when I appeared before a number of MP's who similarly were interested in the topic.

thwap said...

Fine MM, but the topic is Sacha Baron Cohen's unoriginal hypocrisy.

I'm a white guy. Should I only be concerned about instances of white people or men, or the very specific group of white men being oppressed?

Should I expect people to praise me for my self-centered focus on my own kind?

Should I expect to have my self-interested critique of anti-white male-ism praised while ignoring the oppressions and abuses perpetrated by white males?

Or should my selfishness and hypocrisy be pointed out and criticized for what it is?

Finally, I refer to Sacha Baron Cohen as a liberal because he appears to sympathize much more with the liberal view of the world and the view of liberal US foreign policy.

That, I suspect, is why he lumped Hugo Chavez in with murderous dictators like Syria's Assad.

But, I for one, am tired of such bullshit and such hypocrisy.

Hugo Chavez does not have gunmen going around the country raping, torturing, murdering and mutilating his political opponents and their families. His neighbours, the US-armed and funded Colombians do.

One side rapes, tortures, murders, the other side doesn't. But for some reason, people like Sacha Baron Cohen fixate on the crimes, real and imagined, of the side that doesn't rape and kill, and, what's more, thinks that they should be taken seriously.

Assad murders his own people and tortures people (sometimes on our behalf as his fellow dictator Qaddafi did), but so do the US-allies Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Yemen. The USA arms all three regimes, even at the moment when they're murdering their own people. Just as it did in Egypt.

It's all so predictable. It's all so tiresomely predictable. It's all evidence of stupid garbage thinking.