> Sorry, you lost me at "fine." I'd rather spend a month in an Abu Ghraib
> cell than five minutes watching "Borat." I say that more in defeat than
> censure, since contemporary (i.e., cringe) humor is something that, like
> string theory, I've long since given any hope of understanding. Starting
> with Andy Kaufman, extending through Tom Green, refined via Ricky Gervais
> and now reaching its apotheosis via Sacha Baron Cohen, the whole premise
> of showcasing loutishness as a supposed satiric commentary on loutishness
> strikes me as funny-peculiar, not funny-ha-ha.
Well, comedy's subjective, as we all know. And I'm sure there would be some pleasure to be found in being tortured for a month in Iraq. Again, a subjective thing. But as an older, accomplished humorist once told me, write comedy for the world you live in, not the one you fantasize about. As much as I love old American comedy, an abundance of which I own and treasure, we are not living in Laurel and Hardy times. Slipping on a banana peel today makes sense only if the clown falls into a mass grave instead of on his/her own ass. Borat uses broad comedy to coax out the madness in Americans. That it doesn't take much coaxing is the punchline, a cultural indicator of where we are in present time.
Dennis