----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com> To: "lbo-talk" <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Saturday, November 11, 2006 4:02 PM Subject: [lbo-talk] Borat: the Romanian angle
> Financial Times - November 11, 2006
>
> Borat not so funny for folk mocked in spoof movie
> By Christopher Condon
>
> The residents of Glod, a remote village in south-east Romania that
> supplies the opening sequence of Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat: Cultural
> Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,
> still don't know what hit them. They are just beginning to understand
> that cinema audiences around the world are laughing at them.
=========================
Also, less sympathetically:
SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) — Two unsuspecting fraternity boys want to make lawsuit against Borat over their drunken appearance in the hit movie.
The legal action filed Thursday on their behalf claims they were duped into appearing in the spoof documentary Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, in which they made racist and sexist comments on camera.
The young men "engaged in behavior that they otherwise would not have engaged in," the lawsuit says.
Borat follows the adventures of comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's Kazakh journalist character in a blend of fiction and improvised comic encounters as he travels across the United States and mocks Americans.
The plaintiffs were not named in the lawsuit "to protect themselves from any additional and unnecessary embarrassment." They were identified in the movie as fraternity members from a South Carolina university, and appeared drunk as they made insulting comments about women and minorities to Cohen's character.
The lawsuit claims that in October 2005, a production crew took the students to a bar to drink and "loosen up" before participating in what they were told would be a documentary to be shown outside of the United States.
"They were induced to agree to participate and were told the name of the fraternity and the name of their school wouldn't be used," said the plaintiffs' attorney, Olivier Taillieu. "They were put into an RV and were made to believe they were picking up Borat the hitchhiker."
After a bout of heavy drinking, the plaintiffs signed a release form they were told "had something to do with reliability issues with being in the RV," Taillieu said.
The film "made plaintiffs the object of ridicule, humiliation, mental anguish and emotional and physical distress, loss of reputation, goodwill and standing in the community," the lawsuit said.
It names 20th Century Fox, a unit of News Corp., and three production companies as defendants.
Studio spokesman Gregg Brilliant said the lawsuit "has no merit."
The plaintiffs were seeking an injunction to stop the studio from displaying their image and likeness, along with unspecified monetary damages.
Borat debuted as the top movie last weekend with $26.5 million.