Cultural Spoofing
13 November 2006
Call me crazy, but I have a crush on British comedian, Sacha Baron Cohen!
Lots of girls do, and don’t. That’s because Sacha BC’s most well-known comic personalities, gangster rapper, Ali G, and naïve Kazakhstani, Borat, parody cultural sacred cows.
In other words, BC’s form of PC-absent scathing satire, affords fans a chance to laugh at ourselves. This is good. We all need to be receptive to a joke at our own expense - keeps one from taking oneself, and life, too seriously.
Self-effacing irony is a cultural norm for Brits and Australians. This might explain why gorgeous Aussie birdie, actress Isla Fisher, agreed to marry BC - they understand each other to the degree that the comedian’s alter ego, Ali G, seduced Isla with tit-and-bum remarks causing her to laugh all the way to “yes!”
Not everyone finds BC’s humor funny. Many find it distasteful. Some mothers think it morally offensive.
My mum, Beaty, laughs at Ali G because she has no idea what he’s saying. When I translate his “voice of da yoof” she feels guilty for having laughed, and then keeps on laughing anyway!
The very purpose of BC’s humor is to send up those who have an apparently high command of morality.
In the not too distant future BC will introduce a new character: a closet gay, white, evangelical mega-church leader who is morally superior by virtue of being anti-gay, anti-liberal and married to a woman who is all boobage and booty and anti-thetical to her husband’s sermonizing.
Brits and Australians have an intolerance of puritanism that affords them a great appreciation for ribald and smutty humor, and making fun of foreigners.
BC’s character, Borat, does a very good job of lampooning Americans in the feature length film and box office hit, Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,
Judging by how well Americans have responded to being the brunt of Borat’s movie irony, a big dig at the audience’s expense works in the US too. Though not to the degree that litigious action has been avoided - several law suits against the producers are in the works.
A misunderstanding of cultural spoofing or simply the American way?
Meanwhile, the Australians and the Brits are enjoying Borat; he appeals to our love of a good laugh at the foibles of cultural idiosyncracies.
