diamond
ONE love, blood, life
BonoVoxSupastar said:
Your "perception" of people makes me laugh.
^Case in point.
dbs
BonoVoxSupastar said:
Your "perception" of people makes me laugh.
Butterscotch said:When you really look at it, anyone in a movie deserves to be fairly compensated for their screen time. He took advantage of all those people and lied to them. If they had known he was a fraud and all of his gags were setups they would not likely have consented. Would any other movie maker do that?
Bug said:Those villagers should have been payed much more, told what was going to happen and given a chance to decline.
Damn if you were one of them you'd be pissed to.
What he did is just wrong, and I usually find this kinda of movie funny but not when people are brutally taken advantage of.
The fratboys are just dumbasses though, simple as that.
They're pissed because now people know what they're like.
maycocksean said:To be frank, the legality of what Cohen did is irrelevant to me.
...
I just really feel it's wrong to use and manipulate them in the way that he did.
maycocksean said:To be frank, the legality of what Cohen did is irrelevant to me.
He might be legally clear, but it just seems wrong to take advantage of the poor the way that he did.
Like diamond, I don't have much sympathy for the frat boys. The issue with them is different. They were, perhaps, tricked into revealing their "true views" and are embarassed about that, but that is not at all the same as what happened to these villagers.
I'm not saying the villagers are saints or anything, I just really feel it's wrong to use and manipulate them in the way that he did.
inmyplace13 said:Get over it. It's fiction. I don't care if you are poor uni-armed; grasp fiction. No one actually thinks those people are like that, and the people of the village need to stop throwing a pity party. What dignity are they forfeiting anyway? If it's that important to you, don't sign a contract you know absolutely nothing out.
diamond said:
While some of our liberal friends
anitram said:
I understand what you're saying, but as far as the civil suits are concerned, of course it matters whether or not the waivers were valid, etc.
It may be morally wrong to manipulate people that way. But our courts should not be the arbiters of morality, and so insofar as their case is concerned, what difference does it make whether what he did is mean/wrong/inherently immoral/etc?
diamond said:
Kaching for maycocksean.
While some of our liberal friends continue to stick the legalities and legalese of the case etc etc etc ad hominem slaying me with the most insipid predictable posts.
maycocksean said:
I understand that the villagers may not have a legal case and I respect that. There are lots of unethical and immoral things which are legal and I'm not suggesting that it should be any other way.
But, I won't watch this movie (though I had been planning to) because I think what Cohen did was despicable.
It's the same reason I won't be reading OJ Simpson's latest book. (Another example of something that might be technically legal to do, i.e. publishing his "if I did it" book, but that I believe is morally and ethically reprehensible).
Salome said:and it wasn't them who were made fun of but the people of Kazakhstan who they were supposed to portray
and in reality not even the people of Kazakhstan were made fun of, but everyone who could actually be silly enough to take the portrayal of them even remotely serious
Salome said:the villagers were background material
and it wasn't them who were made fun of but the people of Kazakhstan who they were supposed to portray
and in reality not even the people of Kazakhstan were made fun of, but everyone who could actually be silly enough to take the portrayal of them even remotely serious
ergo: wtf?
maycocksean said:
Is he that funny?
Well in a few people's cases, it's pretty clear that they simply haven't read the thread closely enough to realize that the criticism pertains solely to the Romanian villagers and no one else. But other than that, it seems like the overt, highly scripted absurdity of the "Kazakh village" scenes (as opposed to the Hey,-they-really-did-say-it "realism" of the American ones) disqualifies them from being taken seriously as exploitative or discriminatory for many viewers; they don't see it as being essentially different from if, say, Monty Python had done such a scene (easily imaginable, comically depraved villagers being one of their favorite themes as well). Sure, Python would've used actors, not real people who might be unclear as to the end result, but either way the resulting portrayal is so hit-you-over-the-head nonsensical (in the eyes of Western viewers accustomed to pointedly double-edged Us-vs.-Them satires) that no one in the audience would take it as realistic. I do understand this view, though the assumed universality of satirical conventions underlying it strikes me as naive. And like I said earlier, I found the dismissive racism of the Romanian local official ("These gypsies will even kill their own father for money") an especially painful irony, given the stated overall mission of the film and its director's claim that "We certainly tried to avoid taking advantage of people who would be perceived as the meek or the weak of society." If one doesn't understand why gypsy peddlers in rural Romania belong in this category then one doesn't know Eastern European history (or present, for that matter) very well. Of course it isn't Baron Cohen's fault that such attitudes exist--and he does lampoon racist stereotypes of gypsies too--but the fact that he wound up unwittingly enabling them in this case, for me, underlines why the particular tactics he used to create the village scenes (which were quite different from his usual tactics) are ethically problematic.maycocksean said:I guess I'm trying to read the subtext...but I'm just not getting it...
tpsreports2424 said:What I've said before, you have to have a lot of sense of humor to watch this film...
This movie was all in fun and not to make everyone look like total ass wholes and idiots..
The best movie I've seen in awhile because he took it to another level...People are going to have to deal with the fact that he's done it already and theres nothing you can do about it..
maycocksean said:
Well, actually, I'm pretty liberal. I'm a bit amazed though at the lack of concern, if not legally, then ethically for these villagers. And while I agree it's possible that they may not have any case, I don't see why it's not possible that they could have one. . .that perhaps they were mislead or taken advantage of.
I mean why is everyone so eager to defend Cohen? Is he that funny?
I guess I'm trying to read the subtext (you obviously believe there's a subtext here too, what with your "liberal friends" comment) but I'm just not getting it. . .