Soooooo… Sacha Baron Cohen, who has historically been wildly hilarious, has a new movie coming out this summer called The Dictator, supposedly based on the Saddam Hussein-penned romance novel, Zabibah and the King—though to me it just looks like flat out racism. (“And yet Borat wasn’t racist?” I hear my brain scream at me. STOP SCREAMING AT ME, BRAIN!! Let’s let the more-ethical-than-thou residents of Blogtown solve this quandary. Sheesh!) Watch this.
Bang bang, choo-choo train, let me see you shake that thang. Wm. Steven Humphrey is the editor-in-chief of the Portland Mercury and has held the job since 2000. (So don’t get any funny ideas.) More by Wm. Steven Humphrey
That sloppy joe sounded too tasty to not vote for it. That’s the problem with putting up polls right before lunch time.
Where’s the option for “Borat was one of the worst movies I’ve ever had the misfortune to watch”?
Yeah, no.
where was the Sloopy Joes scene? I never miss out on a Joe.
I FOUND IT RACIST BECAUSE I HATE WHITE PEOPLE, JUST LIKE DAMOSA.
when did Sacha Baron Cohen turn into Adam Sandler?
I lasted a good 15 seconds on the preview. Better than most.
Calling this racist is actually kinda racist.
SPK saying calling this racist is actually kinda racist is actually pretty racist.
damn vegans.
I’ll see your racist and raise you two politically incorrects.
I’ll raise your two politically incorrects and raise you 1000 squid.
Goddammit… I don’t have enough squid! I fold. 🙁
I can lend you some squid, Steve, but you’ll have to give me your cardboard Bieber cutout as collateral. And not the office one, either. I want the one from your basement with the can of vegetable shortening duct-taped to the back.
On a real note, with a Sacha Baron Cohen movie you know there will be no significant content, no substance, not even ridiculous satire which potentially has some deeper, intelligent message. His movies are not gonna win any Oscars. They’re sort of just…there and I normally don’t look twice. But this particular movie, hmm. It’s essentially a white guy dressing up like an Arab/Muslim and showcasing the hell out of the worst possible stereotypes of these people for his tired, cheap, try-hard “comedy” and that’s where, for once, I’ll actually take a moment of my life to comment on a movie of his.
Let’s look at it from another angle. Let’s say he were to…oh, idk, dress up like a black person, yup blackface and all, and do a movie indulging all the offensive black stereotypes, once again, for his “comedy.” Or dress up like a Native American? Mexican? Or any other people of color? Would you laugh? If he were a Asian, Black, Hispanic, etc. and making stereotypical cheap jokes about Arabs (or any POC of which he is not), I may also comment on how that’s kinda messed up. But because he is a very privileged, white male/person who in NO way is apart of/or represents the Arab/Muslim community (bc if he was we could maybe see it as a person mocking the stereotypes he and his own community face), THAT is what makes it kinda really messed up, in my opinion. We need to see these real and troubling aspects of the media and not write it off as a joke or else we’ll become immune to them.