Who's More Stupid?

Rating: 1/10 (18 March 2007)

Myself for renting the DVD of this thing, or the reviewers who thought it amounted to something? Either way, that's the point: Borat thinks it's exposing stupidity and even venality, but it's just worthless. You get an accurate read on the nature of a society by interviewing its members, letting them speak for themselves--NOT by provoking them into behavior that puts them in a bad light. In fact, most of the responses to Borat's antics are pretty restrained, which is a credit to the Americans involved.
A rational response to this unbelievably crude and boorish character would probably involve jail, a baseball bat, or a gun, depending on your taste and tolerance for insult after insult.
The real significance of Borat is summarized in the title of a recent book about the consumer economy: Everything for Sale. Including this dreck. I'll give Baron Cohen credit for one thing: He illustrates the maxim that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the public. Cohen is laughing all the way to the bank. I already wasted $4.00 renting the movie: Everyone who hasn't seen it, keep your money. Enough is enough.